“I’m so sorry, babe. Some of the guys caught me up, but I want to hear it from you.”
“Seems like you should tell me. I’m apparently the last to know that you fucked your teammate’s wife.”
I sucked in a breath through my nose. “It was a long time ago, Jess. Before they were together. I was really young. She wanted more with me, and when I said no, she moved on to him.”
“She said... some awful stuff. In front of everybody. About me. About you,” Jess sobbed.
“Aw, honey. I’m so sorry. She doesn’t mean anything to me. Nothing. You’re so important to me.”
“Why didn’t you at least warn me? I got completely blindsided. How many other women are lurking, just waiting to remind me how much I don’t belong with you?”
There was the knife in the gut. The reminder that Jessie was a relationship girl, and my fuckaround ways were only ever going to hurt her.
“I don’t know, hon.”
The line was quiet, punctuated by her sniffles.
“Jessie, if I could undo it all and have met you first, I would. But that’s not how life works.”
“I know that. And I don’t blame you for being who you are, but... you do want me, right? Just me? I’m not stale?”
“Of course, I do, honey. Just you. And I said that stale thing before I had you. Before I knew how good this could be.”
She gave a little cry. “Things aren’t so good right now, though.”
I scrubbed my hand over my face. Even I felt like crying. A gnawing feeling chased me that I wasn’t good enough for her. But the only reason I was feeling that way in the moment was because of Sydney fucking Leroy. But I couldn’t let Leroy’s mean-ass wife ruin my relationship. “I’m not going anywhere, Jess. I’m in this. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“But I can’t guarantee no one else is going to pop up and try to make you feel like shit because they’re jealous.”
“Yeah. I get it.” She didn’t say anything for a minute. “She said she was the best you ever had.”
I chuckled. “That’s rude. And untrue. Because I hadn’t had you.”
“She acted like I can’t have my job and be your girlfriend.”
“Don’t listen to her, honey. You belong there. You’re mine, remember? But if you don’t want to go to that stuff, you don’t have to do it for me.”
“You said it made you happy that I was going,” she objected.
“Well, I don’t want you to go if you’re just going to get bullied, Jess. That doesn’t make me happy at all,” I said. “You’re enough for me, okay? You do know that, right? I’m so proud of you all the time, Jessie.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
“I’m really sorry that my past keeps fucking with you, Jess. I hate it.”
“She said,” Jessie said, sucking some snot, “that you got bored easily and you were probably cheating on me. And that you were only dating me because it made you look good.”
“Jessie, you know that’s not true.” I wanted to tell her that I loved her right then, but I really didn’t want to tell her becauseof something bad happening. I wanted it to be joyful. “I’m dating you because I really, really like you. I’m crazy about you. And I could never cheat on you, honey. Never.”
“Okay,” she said, seemingly steeling herself. “No other team wives, right?”
I hated that she even had to ask that. Sydney had made it seem like Jessie wasn’t good enough for me, but in reality, I wasn’t good enough for her. She deserved better than me. “No other team wives. Feel better, Sweet Cheeks?”
She coughed. “That’s not all. I ran into Cole. He threatened to have you thrown in jail if I didn’t tell him where the shrimp was.”
I really thought I’d hit my peak of feeling bad, but I suddenly felt worse. Not only had my former promiscuous ways come back to bite us, but my little crime added to her hard day. The gnawing feelings I’d been fighting broke through. How could I keep putting Jessie through misery?
