Page 8 of Resolving Rumors

I threw my phone after I hit send on that last message. It would do no good to keep going around and around about things. The truth of the matter was that even though I had come to the conclusion that we needed to come clean to our families, I was still racking my brain trying to figure out how to do that while my boyfriend avoided me for a few days. Then, when I finally got the nerve to go have the conversation with him a few weeks later, I found out he married Justice because she was pregnant.

My timing was specularly bad, but at least I hadn’t embarrassed myself by having that conversation with a man who hadn’t come clean to me about sleeping with someone else. Maybe, in the back of my mind, I knew. His whole demeanor had changed toward me in the month or so between that awful date my mother set me up to go on and when I worked up the courage to tell Devin it was time to come out into the open with our relationship.

My phone beeped with incoming messages, but I ignored the sound and left my phone where it was on the floor and burrowed deep under my covers. I didn’t have the energy to deal with my messy life anymore. Truthfully, I didn’t have energy for much of anything. It might have had something to do with the fact that I also couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, but my money was on everything being sapped away by my broken heart.

Chapter

Six

DEVIN

I couldn’t believe Victoria.How dare she pretend she was about to tell me she wanted to come clean!

Devin: That’s pretty fucking convenient, considering you waited two years and it just so happens that you decided to come out in the open with our relationship when you had a date.

She didn’t answer. I glanced again at the text I had sent after five minutes and it was still only showing as delivered, not read.

Devin: I don’t believe you, Vic. I think you’re saying that as an afterthought to make me feel bad for what happened. I already feel like complete shit. There’s no need to dump salt on the wound.

I sent that message and waited too, even though I regretted it. My anger should have been directed at myself, and I knew that logically. The problem was that it kept finding its way to Victoria instead. I hadn’t lied about the building resentmentof being in a secret relationship with her. It was fucked up whenever I had to go out on a fake date with Justice and some of my friends would be there loved up with their women. Even Dallas being able to freely pull any single chick into his embrace for the night rankled. I never had that experience with Victoria unless we damn near left the state to have a date night.

Justice would sometimes try to play up public displays of affection when people were watching us, but I always pushed her off or found a way to redirect our focus to someone else. There were times when I had to simply get up and go to the bathroom to catch my breath because she was coming on so hard.

My phone dinged and I snatched it back up expecting to see a message from Victoria fighting with me some more. I was disappointed to see that it was from Jordan. I went to school with her alongside Austin and Dallas, but we were never really good friends. I thought she was a bit too clingy with Austin, but he seemed to enjoy her attention whenever he wasn’t dating someone else.

Jordan: You completely broke Victoria. I spent hours with her today as she sobbed on my shoulder. She told me about how she went to tell you that she was ready to not be a secret anymore and found out you married that skank who has been jonesing to trap you or Dallas into something since high school. I told her all about that by the way. You should have clued her in to Justice’s obsession with you before you let Vic agree to her being your fake girlfriend. I feel like you knew this would happen.

Devin: I have no clue what you’re talking about.

Jordan: Oh, please! Everyone knew that Justice only gave up on Dallas because he looked like he was going nowhere and then she set her sights on you. She would have dug her claws in sooner had her family not sent her out of state for college for a couple years. Funny how she managed to show up all the time right when you needed a fake girlfriend to take the heat off your relationship with Victoria, huh? Ever wonder how she managed to wiggle herself into that position?

Devin: Are you fucking serious? She has someone who has to remain a secret too. It wasn’t like that at all.

Jordan: You’re an idiot if you think her daddy’s best friend is who she wanted to get her hooks into. Sure, he has money, but his wife will take half of everything in a divorce and she knows that. Plus, she doesn’t want to be a stepmom to his kids who are older than she is. Nope, idiot. You were her mark all along. Congrats on falling dick first into her plan and destroying Victoria in the process.

I stared at that text for the next thirty minutes before I realized Victoria still hadn’t messaged me back. I wasn’t doing this shit again. There was no way we were going to keep going on the attack with one another followed by the silent treatment for weeks on end. Something had to give and if it had to be me, then so be it.

Fuck that.

It should be me. Vic was right. I was the one that completely fucked the situation and all because I was jealous as fuck that she would be going out on one fucking date with another man while I’d been parading Justice around on dates all over town for more than a year.

That was something else Victoria had been right about. I didn’t realize what an emotional toll it probably took on her to see me take Justice out on dates. We went to dinner, usually in groups, and movies sometimes. There was the odd farmer’s market run and that art show that Vic really wanted to go to but she ended up there alone while Justice paraded me around the exhibits.

It was only in looking back that I realized Jordan might have had a point. Justice had never been interested in art before. She claimed Brody was supposed to be at the exhibition with his wife and she wanted to make him jealous. We never saw Brody that night, but I did have to watch as Vic left early. She claimed to have a headache when I checked on her via text, but now that I had more perspective and Austin’s bratty best friend whispering her secrets in my ear, things didn’t look so cut and dry.

“Never should have agreed to any of this,” I mumbled as I stuffed my foot into my boot.

“What did you agree to?”

I looked up to see Justice in the doorway. She had her head cocked just so, and once again, she wore barely anything on her body. “What are you doing here?”

“I stopped over to talk to you because my parents are being difficult.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, they know we’re married and they don’t want me coming back home now. They said I’m your problem now thatyou married me.” It was only then that I noticed the bags at her feet.

“Why are your bags outside my bedroom door?” Justice had been staying in my guest room most nights for the past couple weeks, but I had never agreed to her officially moving in. Even if I had, she should know better than to bring her stuff to my side of the house. The house I owned was a two bedroom, 2 bath but it was split down the middle. The living room and kitchen were at the center and then there was a master suite on either side. There was absolutely no reason for her to bring her bags to this side.