“So, the night you knocked on his door looking for me, you weren’t?”
“No. I was surprised to see you. I assumed you were with Grey somewhere.” She shrugged. “Then I thought Carter was just playing with you. Until you told me about the fun night you had. Then I got jealous that he was doing things with you that he never did with me. You would’ve stopped seeing him if I told you we had been hooking up. I wanted to know if Carter could be different. He swore to me that he didn’t want a relationship with any woman, and it wasn’t personal. Yet he was doing things with you that bordered relationship, like introducing you to his mother.”
Carter spoke quietly, “I didn’t know the two of you knew each other until the night before your birthday.”
Old hurt feelings about that night triggered my ire, and I spewed, “What about my birthday, Chelsea? Huh? You knew we were spending it together and that I waited for him, and you had sex with him? That was straight-up trashy slutty low-down bitch behavior even for you.”
She blinked rapidly and straightened her shoulders. “I deserve whatever you have to say to me, or even if you want to hit me, too.”
“Ironically, I don’t. He’s my husband. You don’t owe me any loyalty anymore. I really don’t give a fuck about you enough to be angry at you.” I jabbed Carter hard in his arm multiple times. “But this here is supposed to be mine. He’s supposed to be loyal to me, and yet he has this whole life with you I know nothing about.”
Chelsea sniffed before continuing, “I didn’t plan that night. Carter came home to look for his phone, and I knocked on his door because I heard him. He seemed frantic as he tried to get to you, which struck a nerve. So, I used what I knew of his body to get him to fuck me. Then I told him that you were my roommate and best friend because I wanted to hurt him. We got into anugly fight. He threatened to hurt me if I ever told you and left that night.”
“I didn’t threaten you. Just told you to keep your mouth shut. I don’t beat on women,” Carter protested.
Chelsea rolled her eyes. “Whatever. The threat was implied.”
I asked Carter, “Then, where were you all night?”
He rubbed his thighs as he looked at me. “In the car. I couldn’t get the hotel to give me your room number, so I slept there. Everything else I told you was true. Except that I slipped up with her. I didn’t want and wasn’t ready for a girlfriend, but that night, you wrapped your arms around me on the balcony. Asking for another chance. I never wanted a woman as bad as I wanted you. I wanted to be your man, and I wanted to be a better man. And once we were official, I didn’t cheat on you.”
I stared at my husband, seeing the younger man I had fallen in love with—the one who made me feel special in college. Until I found out the truth about him and Chelsea, I looked back at Chelsea. “Anything else in the letter?”
“That letter also told you I was pregnant,” Chelsea added.
Rocks settled in the bottom of my stomach. “Carter’s?”
Carter answered, “Yeah.”
I slanted my gaze at Chelsea. "How do you even know the baby was his? We both know you were having a hot girl summer."
Chelsea rolled her eyes. "I had been messing around with other men, but Carter was the only one I had sex with who fit the timeline of my pregnancy. Even that day you caught me with Carmello, we were doing sixty-nine. We hadn't had sex yet." She twisted her neck before she continued, “I didn’t know you were pregnant, too. So, when I told him, he was livid. Telling me he couldn’t have two babies at the same time.”
I looked back at him. “You told her to have an abortion?”
He shook his head, though he cut his eyes at Chelsea.
“Well, when a man tells you he can’t have two babies at the same time and refuses to take your calls...” Chelsea let the rest of her words trail off.
“So, your son is his? My sister saw you with a little boy, but thought he was too young to be Carter’s.”
“I lost the baby when I was sixteen weeks. I texted him with the news since he wasn’t taking my calls, and he still didn't respond.” Chelsea said, and her breath quickened. “Once again, I assumed that Carter treated you the same way. I was dead wrong. Not only was he there for you, but he married you right before he started playing in the NFL. It fucked with me. Kept wondering what it was about me that he treated me the way he had. I thought I was being punished while he was being rewarded when we were both guilty of lying to you.” She studied her manicured nails before she looked up at us.
I inhaled deeply, feeling empathy for her. I’d been the woman looking from the outside as everyone seemed to be living. Still, I hadn’t been a pregnant woman in love with a man who chose another woman and then married her while I lost a baby. That kind of hurt would be unimaginable. And Carter, who'd been so good to me, had been a horrible human being to her.
Carter leaned forward. “Chelsea, I told you this before, and I want Darren to hear it too. I can’t speak for all men, but I can speak for some men. We do stupid shit with women because we can, especially someone like me. It’s unfair, but it’s the truth. You always seemed so tough that you could handle anything, and I didn’t realize I hurt you as much as I did. When you told me you were pregnant, I didn’t want to believe it. Not because I thought you were lying to me. It was because, as much as I fought it, I was no different than my father. He wasn’t there for me because I have a sister a couple of months older than me, and he didn’t know how to handle having two babies, and their mothers pissed with him all the time. I swore I wouldn't bethat man with multiple baby mamas. I wanted to pretend you didn’t exist and deal with the woman I knew I wanted to marry. And my wanting to marry Darren wasn’t because there was something wrong with you.” He then looked at me. “I wanted to marry Darren because she made me feel like I could be the man I knew I wanted to be.”
I rubbed my aching stomach, trying to reconcile everything being said and how these two people who should hate each other seemed to be the best of friends. Carter attempted to hold my hand, and I moved it away. “How did you forgive him?”
“Five years ago, I ran into Carter while he and some of the Rams were in Miami at a bar. When he saw me, he approached where I sat with a friend and hugged me like we were cool. He asked for a moment.”
I glanced at Carter, and his attention was on Chelsea. His expression was relatively blank, so I couldn’t tell where this story would end.
Chelsea wrung her hands. “I remembered thinking, was he trying to be slick and hook up again? And I was so ready to fuck him just so I had something over his head to get back at him and you.”
His head went slightly back. He didn’t know this part.
“Surprise...surprise. He wanted to apologize and beg for my forgiveness. He told me he regretted not being there for me and that he was sorry that I lost our baby...that he was a better man now. He asked if there was a way he could make it up to me...was there anything he could do? He wasn’t flirty at all or hinting at anything sexual.” Chelsea looked at him. “He did seem different. Kinder. He treated me like a person that he cared about instead of some random he fucked. So, I told him I wanted another baby.”
