“Shut up,” he cuts in, his voice breaking. “Just…shut up.” He takes a breath, and lets it out, his shoulders sagging as the fight goes out of him.
After a moment, Jake loosens his grip on the older man, pulling his arms away from his chest and bringing a hand to rest on his back. “Is there anything I can do for you?” he asks. “Get you a water? A quiet place to rest for a while?”
Art shakes his head sadly from side to side, his gaze fixed on the grass at his feet. “No. I’m just going to go home and…get on with it.”
“All right. Drive safely,” Jake says, before adding in a harder voice, “I can’t officially discipline him for something like this, but you can be sure life won’t be pleasant around here for him.”
Misery wraps around my neck and for a moment I feel like I’m going to choke on the blood running down my throat from my busted nose. Maddie and I were trying so hard not to make waves so close to the wedding, and now I’ve gone and ruined everything, driving a wedge between me and Jake only days before I was supposed to be his best man.
Doubt he’ll still want me standing beside him now…
I watch with a sinking feeling in my gut as Jake helps Art to his car, certain this day can’t get any worse. And then I glance across the street to find Maddie staring at me from the sidewalk outside the bakery.
Faith is next to her, my surrogate little sister’s expression a miserable mix of sadness, anger, and disbelief. Faith is clearly conflicted about what to feel about all this. But not Maddie. The moment our eyes met, I know she’s heard what I did, and that the knowledge is killing her, cutting right into that tender heart I swore to myself I’d protect at all costs.
She shakes her head before turning and walking back into the bakery.
It’s a simple gesture, but it’s enough to make it clear it’s over. There will be no proposal, no trying for a baby, no future for me with the woman I love.
I’ve lost her. I fucked it up, and now there’s no going back.
I might as well return the ring right now.
No, a voice deep inside of me cries out.
I can’t give up. Not until I tell her the whole story and at least try to explain, to convince her that’s all in the past. That was the old Jamison and I’m never going to be that man or make stupid mistakes like that again.
I scoop the jewelry bag off the ground, wincing as my bruised ribs send a flash of pain through my side.
I’m starting across the street when Jake appears in my path.
“You slept with his wife? Really?” His voice is so deep and angry I can feel it vibrating the bones in my chest. “He wasn’t just your boss. He was your brother. He trusted you with his life, and you betrayed him to get your rocks off.”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t like that. I loved her, Jake. Or I thought I loved her. She said she was going to divorce him, and we would—”
“But they weren’t divorced, so you should have kept your hands to yourself until they were,” he says, in true Jake fashion.
My brother sees the world in clear black and white. There are no shades of gray in his code and no tolerance in his heart for people who cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed. I was lucky enough to earn his forgiveness for keeping the night Naomi and I passed out in the same bed a secret for fifteen years, but nothing had happened that night. Naomi and I were innocent.
Now…
Well, I’m not innocent and I have a feeling there might not be a path back to normal with my brother after this.
The hunch is confirmed when Jake adds, “I can’t believe I trusted you to be my baby’s godfather.” His jaw muscles clench. “I should have known better. I mean, I knew your moral compass was a little different than mine, but I believed you had one. I believed you were a good man, who would be a good influence on Noelle as she grew up. Clearly, I was mistaken.”
I suck in a breath that emerges with a miserable-sounding wheeze. “Listen, Jake. I know I screwed up, but—”
“I can’t change the baptism papers,” he pushes on, ignoring my attempts to apologize. “That’s set in stone, whether I like it or not, but I don’t have to have a liar and an adulterer standing next to me at my wedding. Don’t bother coming to the rehearsal tomorrow. I’ll do without a best man.”
Fuck.
I fight to swallow past the lump in my throat. Yeah, a part of me was expecting this, but it still hurts like hell. I don’t want to be cut out of Jake’s life; I don’t want to miss seeing my brother and the woman he loves get married.