Page 59 of The Rules of Dating a Younger Man

Caitlin.

Kate.

This can’t be happening.

There was no time to figure out the best way to handle this situation. I had to move quickly. My gut instinct was to protect Alex. And the only way I knew how to do that was to pretend she had nothing to do with me.

“Nice to meet you.” I smiled as I stared into Alex’s eyes, silently pleading with her to forgive me. Please forgive me.

She swallowed, her voice barely audible as she began to play along. “Hi.”

“What are you doing here in Seneca Falls?” Kate asked.

In a daze, I turned back toward her. “Just, uh, here on business.”

She nodded. “What are you up to these days?”

I glanced over at Alex, whose face had turned practically white. Feeling outside of my own body, I said something trite to Kate about my job—I mentioned living in New York and the building. I might’ve asked her what was going on in her life, but I sure as hell didn’t absorb the answer. My brain was on autopilot while my heart was going a mile a minute trying to make sense of this. How had this never occurred to me? Surely there were clues I’d missed.

I needed to get the hell out of here, because standing in front of them and lying through my teeth while Alex was clearly hurt wasn’t something I could continue for much longer. “It was so great seeing you again after all this time, Kate. Truly. But I’m late meeting someone, and I forgot something upstairs, so I’d better go.”

“Good seeing you, too,” she said. “Take care.”

“Enjoy your evening.” I gave Alex one final apologetic look before walking away.

My heart raced as I dashed back into the elevator.

It felt like I was floating down the hall as I headed to my room in a surreal fog. How had this night, that was supposed to be epic, turned into my worst nightmare?

Once inside my room, I paced. All that mattered was getting to Alex and figuring this out. I needed to find a way to talk to her tonight, needed to make sure she was okay. But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. It killed me that Alex was hurting and I couldn’t comfort her. It killed me even more that I was the cause of her pain. Never in my life had I wished so badly that I could turn back time. But this whole thing would’ve come out eventually.

I needed to talk to someone. The first person I thought to call was Holden. He was the only one of the guys who knew how things had been developing with Alex. Although he wouldn’t have a solution for me, I needed to let this out before I went insane.

After dialing him, I pulled on my hair as it rang.

He picked up, and I could hear his baby daughter, Hope, babbling. “Hey, man, what’s—”

“I’m going out of my mind, Holden.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re never gonna believe what just happened.”

“Try me.”

“Do you remember me mentioning a girl I dated back in college named Kate?”

“Vaguely, maybe?”

“We weren’t together that long. Like a few months.”

“Don’t freaking tell me you have a child you didn’t know about. Am I gonna have to start calling you Colby?”

I laughed bitterly. “That scenario might be easier than the one I’m currently dealing with.”

“Well, fuck. What can be worse than that? Tell me what’s going on.”

“Alex and I were having a nice weekend. It’s her birthday. Tonight was supposed to be…” I hesitated, deciding not to share what was supposed to happen tonight. “It was supposed to be special. But her stepdaughter just showed up here, maybe to surprise Alex for her birthday. Well, turns out Alex and I were both surprised.”