35. Bailey

As I rushedto my car, my chin quivered, and I pulled my sweatshirt sleeves over my cold hands. The early morning air was crisp as I quickly got in and shut the door. I'd given up on sleep altogether at five and decided I'd head to the gym.

Yesterday, after Simon left, I'd thought about calling my sisters or Olivia for a tea-spilling session, but something stopped me. I wasn't sure what it was at first, but then, around midnight, I figured it out.

The reason I hadn't sent out the Bat-Signal and called an emergency meeting to debrief everyone on Simon showing up with his declarations of love was because I needed to process how I felt, or more accurately, how I didn't feel.

I wasn't happy that Simon had told me all the things I'd waited my entire life to hear. It had been anticlimactic, to say the least. When he was begging me to give him another chance, I felt…numb. When I looked at him now, I didn't see the guy I fell in love with; I saw a man I didn't really know and who didn't know me.

The problem I was having now was that I didn't know if my newfound immunity to Simon was just because I'd transferred my feelings onto Cole, who was not any more appropriate. He was, by his own account, not in the right headspace to have a relationship. He didn't see kids in his future. He was twelve years younger than me. And he was a professional plus one.

I still felt strange that he hadn't allowed me to pay for the weekend. But on the flip side of that coin, if I had paid him, I would have definitely regretted sleeping with him. It would have felt wrong to me. Not that I was totally convinced it had been the right thing to do. I wasn't. Mainly it was the aforementioned transference I was concerned about.

My head was spinning as I pulled out of my parking spot. I realized that I needed to tell someone about what was going on. If it weren't the butt crack of dawn, I'd have weighed my options between calling Olivia, Birdie, or Billie. But since the sun wasn't even up yet, the choice was made for me.

I grabbed my phone, which was synced to my car, and called my sister. Within two rings, her voice came over the speakers; "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I assured her. "I just couldn't sleep, and I knew you'd be up."

"You haven't slept?"

"No."

"Where are you?" she asked.

"In my car."

"So, this is a walk of shame call?"

"What? No. I'm on the way to the gym."

Billie didn't respond, which was her silent way of calling bullshit.

"I am. I was at my apartment, alone, last night." I figured I might as well get to the point. "But, when I got home yesterday, Simon was there."

"Simon was where?"

"He was waiting in front of my building."

"What the fuck did he want?"

I took a deep breath and filled her in on everything he told me: the fake pregnancy, how seeing me with Cole made him realize what I meant to him, that he was going to get the marriage annulled, and that he wanted me to marry him—all of it.

"I told you I didn't trust her," Billie remarked.

"Seriously? After everything I just told you, that's all you have to say?"

"Please don't tell me you're going to take him back."

That's more along the lines of what I'd thought she was going to say.

"No. No, I'm not." Billie was silent, which, again, meant she didn't believe me, so I reiterated. "I'm not."

"Good."

Since I'd already given her half the cup of tea, I figured I might as well finish it off. "Did you know that Simon went missing the night before the wedding?"

"I heard rumblings at the wedding."

"Guess who he was with."

"Please don't say you."

"No!" I couldn't believe she'd even say that.

"Who?"

"Helga."

"Helga…from the spa?" Billie questioned.

"Yep." After I told Simon that I wasn't interested in being with him, I'd asked him where he was the night before the wedding. At first, he stuck with his story that he'd been walking around. But after pushing him on it, he admitted he'd hooked up with Helga. The night before his wedding to a woman he believed at the time was pregnant with his child, he spent the night with Helga.

I'd always heard that you should be careful what you wish for, but man, I'd never truly understood the gravity of that statement. I'd dodged a major bullet with Simon.

"What a piece of shit." Billie sighed, then asked, "What about Cole?"

"What about Cole?"

"You said when he dropped you off, Simon was there."

"Yeah."

"Does he think that you two are back together?"

"What? No. I mean, I don't know." I replied at the exact moment it dawned on me that I hadn't driven to the gym. I was turning onto Cole's street. I wasn't sure why. It's not like I was going to show up at his house before six in the morning like a crazy person. I hadn't even consciously driven here. I took a deep breath. "Yesterday, when Cole was dropping me off, he said he had something he wanted to tell me."

"What was it? What did he say?"

"I don't know, nothing. Right before he was going to tell me, he saw Simon."

"Of course he did. That asshole always had the worst timing."

"You can't blame Simon for that. He didn't know that Cole had something he wanted to tell me."

"You're still doing it," Billie argued.

"Doing what?" I asked.

"Defending that prick. Stop. He doesn't deserve it."

Billie was right. I knew she was right. She was almost always right. It was sort of her thing.

"Do you have any idea what he wanted to say to you?" my sister asked.

"No." But I couldn't shake the feeling that it was important.

"Are you going to find out?"

"He wouldn't let me pay him." I wasn't sure why I'd shared that information with my sister instead of answering her question.

"What do you mean?"

"For the wedding, you know, coming as my plus one, he wouldn't let me pay him."

"Yeah." Billie didn't seem at all surprised by that information.

"Yeah? What do you mean, yeah?"

"I mean, it makes sense that he didn't. He obviously likes you; if I had to guess, he likes you a lot. He probably only agreed to go because he thought it would be his in to spending time with you."

"He's too young."

"No. He's not."

"You don't even know how old he is."

"I know he's old enough to handle going as a plus one to your ex's wedding. I know he's old enough to come to my room to get your meal because you're tired, and he doesn't want you walking around at night by yourself. I know he's old enough to have his ex show up at the wedding and not make the entire night about himself."

He had done all those things. That last one hit home in a very different way after spending time with Simon yesterday. After Cole saw Lindsay, he'd addressed it without making it a big deal. If that were Simon, the entire night would have been spent with him talking about how strange it was to see her and how he felt about seeing her again.

Yesterday, he'd gone on and on about how betrayed he was by Devin. Which was rich coming from a man who'd slept with another woman the night before his wedding. Maybe it was because he'd been born wealthy, or maybe it was because he was an only child, or maybe it was because he was a narcissist; whatever the reason, Simon always made everything about himself.

"Age and maturity are two different things," Billie reasoned. "Cole is a man. A real man."

Billie was right. Again. Cole was a real man. And I missed him. I couldn't stop thinking about him. The question was, what was I going to do about it?

"Thanks for listening. I'll call you later."

The phone disconnected, and I stared at the door to his building. I wasn't going to just show up out of the blue and demand we finish our conversation. Not that I could even get into the building if I wanted to do that. I couldn't. I considered leaving him a note on the door, but if I did that, anyone could find it. The chances of someone actually giving it to him were slim to none.

I could text him. He'd mentioned that he woke up early for work. He said there were a lot of days he had to be on the job by 6:00 a.m.

Yeah. I would text him to see if we could maybe meet for a drink, or something, and finish our conversation. I'd just pulled out my phone when I saw the door to his building open. My heart stopped when I saw Cole walk out. He was wearing a hoodie, jeans, a baseball hat, and his work boots.

It had been less than twenty-four hours since I'd seen him, but in that time, he'd gotten sexier and more handsome. My heart skipped all the beats as my breath caught in my throat. This was kismet. It was fate that I'd shown up at his house when he was leaving for work. My timing was destiny at work.

Instead of the door closing behind him, he held it open, and another person walked out. Not just any person—Cole's ex, Lindsay.

My heart skipped seeing Cole but stopped completely seeing Lindsay. It flatlined, and it didn't matter that my breath was caught in my throat because I didn't remember how to get oxygen into my body.

I froze as they stood on the steps of the stoop, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He hugged her back for what felt like an eternity but was probably only a minute or so. When he pulled away from her, she lifted up on her toes and pressed her lips to his.

They were kissing. Kissing.

A car pulled up on the street, and they stopped. He opened the back door of what I assumed was an Uber, and she climbed in. Then, he started walking up the street in the direction he'd come from when I had been waiting for him, which was toward where I was now sitting in my parked car.

Panic rose in me, and I ducked down, feeling like a stalker who was about to be caught. After a few minutes, I slid back up in my seat and saw the coast was clear.

As I sat in my car out of breath and feeling like I was going to throw up. I told myself the best thing to do would be to stick to the original plan and go to the gym. But even as I thought about it, tears formed in my eyes.

I had no clue what I was crying about. Cole getting back with his ex. Simon saying all the right things at the wrong time. Me putting my life on hold for a man I wasn't even truly in love with. Or, D. All of the above.

Whatever it was, I knew an hour on the elliptical was not going to solve it. I just wish I knew what would.