He was standing in the middle of the living room, bouncing Rory against his chest while she wailed like her world was ending.
I took one look at Drew—the panic in his eyes and the way his hands were shaking—and immediately crossed to him.
“Give her to me.”
He handed Rory over without argument—which was the biggest indicator of his state of mind—and I settled her against my chest, bouncing gently and making the shushing sounds that usually worked to settle herdown. It took a minute, but eventually her screams quieted to hiccuping sobs, then to sniffles, then to exhausted silence.
“What happened?” I asked.
Drew collapsed onto the couch, running his hands through his hair. He looked like absolute shit—eyes red, face pale, every line of his body radiating defeat. “Harper found out about that stupid bet.”
My jaw went slack with shock. “How the fuck did she find out?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t say how, and really the how doesn’t matter. She found out and now she thinks our whole relationship was a lie.”
“Fuck.” I settled into the chair across from him, Rory finally quiet in my arms.
“I know,” he groaned, scrubbing his hands through his hair. “I told her the truth about it when she asked. About how it started, how I found out, how I shut it down.” He met my eyes. “But she asked when I knew about it, and I had to tell her I’d known the whole time we were together.”
“Shit.”
“She trusted me completely,” he said. “She told me things she’d never told anyone. And I was keeping this huge secret from her every day.”
“You thought you’d killed it. Why would you tell her when it didn’t make a difference?”
“It makes a difference to her. She doesn’t believe that what we have is real.”
“Anyone who’s seen you two together can see it’s as real as it gets.”
“But how can I prove it now? Everything I say just sounds like more bullshit. She doesn’t feel like she can trust that I’ve changed at all.”
I didn’t know what to say. Because the truth was, Iunderstood why he’d kept it from her. He’d thought he’d killed the bet and that it wouldn’t matter. She’d never be hurt by something if she didn’t know about it. In his own way, he’d been trying to protect her.
But secrets had a way of rotting things from the inside out.
“Drew.” My voice was firm. “Look at me.” I didn’t speak again until he did. “The old Drew wouldn’t be sitting here freaking out about losing her. The old Drew wouldn’t have cared enough to feel guilty about keeping a secret. The old Drew would have just moved on to the next girl.”
“What do I do?” It was hard to see my best friend look so lost.
“You give her space to feel what she needs to feel,” I said. “You don’t chase her, you don’t blow up her phone, you don’t show up wherever she is. You prove you’ve changed by handling this like an adult.”
“What if she doesn’t come back?” he asked, his voice shaking slightly.
“Then you’ll deal with that too. But Drew, she loves you. I’ve seen the way she looks at you. Love like that doesn’t just disappear because of one mistake.”
“One huge mistake that makes her think our whole relationship was fake.”
“One mistake that you’re owning up to instead of making bullshit excuses. That has to mean something.”
We sat there for a while without talking. Rory stirred in my arms, making a small sound of complaint, and I adjusted her position. She was getting heavy, but I didn’t mind. Holding her gave me something to focus on besides the guilt eating through my stomach.
Because here was my best friend, destroyed by a secrethe’d kept to protect his relationship, and I was sitting across from him with a secret ten times worse.
One look at his face and I knew I couldn’t tell him. Not tonight. Not when he was already at rock bottom and barely holding himself together. Adding my betrayal on top of Harper’s departure might actually break him.
“I’m staying tonight,” I said finally, carefully moving Rory to her Pack ’n Play without waking her. “You shouldn’t be alone right now.”
“Thanks,” he said.
