Brent’s eyes grew wide the moment he saw Cole walking towards his table. He wanted to stand and tell the boy to go away, but making such a scene in a nice restaurant like this one was going to be terrible. He sat rigid, waiting for the other to arrive. Cole grabbed a chair and took a seat, smiling at the faces around the table. A few of Brent’s teammates looked at him awkwardly, unsure how to respond to his presence there. Cole simply grinned at them before shifting his attention to the two important guests.
“What are you doing here?” Kelsey whispered venomously. He looked her up and down then turned to Brent, ignoring her question completely.
“Hey, Brent. This place is really fancy. Good thing I got dressed up, right?” He chuckled and looked up in surprise when the waiter arrived. The others ordered their food, and before he ran off, Cole snatched Kelsey’s menu and added, “I’d love the sirloin steak and vegetables.”
“I’ll get that for ya,” he said with a friendly smile. He hurried to the back of the restaurant.
“He was cute. Don’t you think, Brent? Why are you so quiet? Aren’t you supposed to be celebrating with the guys?”
“Cole, I think you should leave,” Kelsey growled.
“Bless your little heart,” he replied, patting the top of her hand. “I think you should know your place. Now, drink your water quietly or I’ll make this whole thing ten times worse for you.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Brent muttered. Cole made a face and looked over his shoulder to see if Brent was talking to somebody else. He must have been.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, shut the fuck up. Nobody is afraid of you. You can turn up at as many events as you want to, but nobody’s going to bend to your pathetic threats. Nobody’s paying you the attention you want so badly that you’re willing to break into houses to get. Are you having trouble at home?” Cole’s blood began boiling and he decided that if that was how Brent wanted to play, they could. He took Kelsey’s cup, unwrapped the napkin and removed the knife next to her cup, stood, and tapped against the glass three times.
“Attention everyone, I’d like to make an announcement.”
“Cole, sit down,” Brent hissed.
“Mm, sorry. I’d love to, but I want the attention much more. Now, I know none of you recognize me from any social gatherings. It’s because Brent probably never told you about me. So, I’d like to formally introduce myself; I’m Cole Forbes, and one time, Brent and I hooked up in a movie theater. You’re probably like, ‘Ew, that’s tacky as hell, someone could have seen,’ but don’t worry. It was that Will Smith movie he did with his son, so nobody watched it anyways.” He paused and smiled at Kelsey’s expression of horror. Brent sat stoically, his fist clenched around his glass. The looks on the men around the table was beautiful to Cole. He’d never seen so many guys intrigued, horrified, and offended all at once.
“Judging from the looks on all of your faces, Brent never told you about that. Don’t be surprised, though. He never told his girlfriend Kelsey either. It’s not that big of a deal. It only took her twenty minutes to convince herself that he doesn’t love dick just as much as I do. Bitch is pretty delusional, am I right?” he laughed, patting her head. She smacked his hand away and started to stand up. Brent gripped her wrist and pulled her back down into her chair.
“While it was shitty to lie to me and tell me Kelsey was just his roommate, lie to Kelsey and pretend he wasn’t with me, throw Annie under the bus and claim the only reason she’d said we were at the pool party together was because she wanted him back, and blow me off after he fixed things with Kelsey, the shittiest thing for him to do was to let me get some dirt on him. And boy, do I have some theories I bet all of you are interested in hearing.”
“Cole, stop –,”
“No, Brent, I’m not gonna stop. I’m gonna tell everyone here how you used me and then treated me like I was trash. Like I was the one ruining your relationship with Kelsey by not knowing she existed! You’re the one who kept her a secret from me! If I had known she was around, I never would have fallen – I… I never would have trusted you. So now, you’re going to sit your lying ass down and let me tell everyone the truth – something you don’t know how to do.” Cole took a deep breath and calmed himself. He didn’t want to look overly emotional. He wanted to look as if he was calm, cool, and collected. Ready to lay down the truth and walk away feeling like he’d kicked ass.
“I found a check in Brent’s book a while back. I didn’t know what it was for, but I figured it was something important to him. Why he kept it in his textbook was beyond me, but I didn’t really care. I trusted him, so it didn’t matter. It was only when he accused me of faking it that I realized he had reason to keep it hidden away. Turns out, it was from none other than Joss McCarthy, Kelsey’s step-dad. Crazy, right?
“Well, he pretended he didn’t know about that and then Kelsey fell for it. That’s why I took her phone got her dad’s number. I called Joss to see what was going on before I handed it over to Kelsey. He definitely didn’t want that for some reason. He was adamant that I kept it from her. This next part is really fun. Pay attention, Kelsey, this was what I was talking about when I said I’d make it ten times worse for you.
“I stayed up late at night thinking about reasons why Joss would send Brent two thousand dollars. My first thought was that even he knew his daughter was so insufferable that he had to pay someone to be with her. I mean, it’s not that big of a stretch, ya know? That one seemed plausible, but I wondered if it was something more interesting. What if Brent was blackmailing Joss, and he knew that if she found out that he was giving Brent money, she wouldn’t stop until she knew the truth. I wanted to expand on that theory a little bit because it was a bit lackluster. So I expanded.
“I wondered, what if Brent had been sleeping with Kelsey’s mother and he was being paid to never mention it and to leave the two of them alone. Maybe he’d moved in with Kelsey to let her dad know that at any time, he could ruin Kelsey’s life by telling her that her mom was a cheating slut. And then, the best theory came to me: it wasn’t Kelsey’s mother Brent was sleeping with. He was sleeping with Joss.” Cole smiled with pleasure when one of Brent’s teammates made a noise of surprise. This was exactly what he’d wanted. Even some of the neighboring tables were enthralled with the announcement going on. He winked at an older woman watching with her husband.
“Juicy, right? Since he was Kelsey’s step-dad, he probably spent years trying to win her over and have her accept him as her new dad. He’d never want her finding out that they’d been together before. Imagine her father sneaking over to her place and paying off her boyfriend! But instead of being angry, the sexual tension between them is too much and they end up banging in the room Brent told me was where Kelsey slept. They’d make great use of that guest room. And once he and Joss where cleaned up, he handed over the check. He couldn’t send it with his other mail, no. Kelsey might see it that way. I got so excited thinking about that. I knew that Brent would only be bluffing about telling everyone.
“He’d probably hint that he was out of the closet and he wouldn’t care if people found out, but in truth, he would never tell. He took me out to a pool party in a different town but didn’t tell me that we’d only gone to that one because nobody from this school would recognize him. That’s where Annie snitched to Kelsey about us being together. That’s when Kelsey called me a fag like the stupid little bitch that she is. That’s all Brent’s been about. He’s a fake. He would fake out Joss just like he did to me. He’d make the man believe in his version of the truth just like he did to me. So, is that what it is, Brent?”
Cole glared at the man, his cheeks red with anger. “Did you fuck Joss in the guest bed? Or was it the same bed you fucked me in, then proceeded to fuck Kelsey in? Start talking, because I’m so fucking done with all of your bullshit, and all of your lies, and how much you fucking destroyed me –,”
Brent stood up from his chair, knocking his glass of water over. “Joss is my dad, Cole!”