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James looked at my patio sliders that led out to the loggia and without asking wandered over and opened the door. “Not here, come out here, I don’t want Colby to hear.”
“What the fuck is it with you?” I asked still following him, but my patience was growing thin.
When I stepped outside, he slid the door over so that it was barely a crack from being closed. “Remember you told me I should have come to you when Charlotte came on to me?”
“This again?” I challenged, my temper had risen from the moment he’d hung up on me and by then it was approaching boiling point.
“Yes, this. Answer me, Sawyer, because I need to know.”
“Yeah, you should have,” I snapped.
“Then, you know why I’m here now. This couldn’t wait. Not after the last time.”
“What? Jesus, you’re talking in riddles now.” Pulling out his phone he opened a picture text and turned it toward me. When I looked at it my heart almost stopped, and I felt all the air leave my lungs.
My heartbeat pounded in my mouth, pins and needles on my lips as I looked at the image on his cell. The female was unmistakable, I knew every single inch of her, and there was no mistaking Billie’s bare tits with a pearl necklace around her neck. A flashback of James with Charlotte on his lap came flooding back and my temper rose to life in my head.
“What the fuck?” I roared, as my wide eyes stared in disbelief at the picture and I shook my head. I may not have known Charlotte like I thought I had, but I had a hard time accepting Billie would have done something like this to me. Knowing he’d had possession of something this intimate in relation to my wife brought a cocktail of toxic, jealous thoughts through my mind. “How did you get this?”
He shrugged. “You can see Billie sent it to me. Obviously, there’s no face, but it came from her phone.”
Raging anger bubbled up from my throat and had been about to spew out of my mouth until I thought back to the game we’d played, and it suddenly clicked what may have happened.
“Did you get this after Billie called you to pick up Colby from baseball that same day?”
As soon as I asked the question, I saw the deep frown he wore turn to confusion as he thought and eventually his eyes brightened. “Yeah, it was about a couple of minutes after,” he confirmed.
“Fuck,” I spat, deleting the image and handing him his cell phone back. “She never meant to send that to you, it was an accident. I don’t believe she has any idea that she did.”
James shot me another puzzled look and I knew I owed him an explanation. “We were messing around. I was bored and missing her. I figured I’d do something to keep us … you know, entertained.” I snickered and shot him a sheepish grin before I realized the effect the picture had had on James and cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry on Billie’s behalf, and I’d rather you didn’t mention this to her. I’m sure she’d be mortified if she knew this happened. I’ll grab her cell phone the first chance I get and delete it on her end.”
The relief on James’s face was immense and for the first time I saw the full effect of what Charlotte had done to his confidence. His once arrogant manner had completely disappeared and his vulnerability told me how much he needed to be believed.
“That night when she called me to pick up Colby, I was really pleased she had trusted me with this responsibility, and I felt needed for the first time in a long while. However, the second that she sent the picture I felt devastated and fell into denial. It all felt too similar to what had happened before with you being away, and I imagined a scenario playing out where I had the potential to be the victim of someone else’s game again.”
Hugging myself against the night air, I shrugged. “I’ll admit, I hated that Billie advocated for you with me in the beginning.”
“From my point of view, Billie’s presence had helped us to take a huge step forward. She wasn’t part of our past like Charlotte was. I figured she was a person of influence, who could finally see the truth about Charlotte and me. Then I got the call and I felt excited that she had thought of me for the task with Colby, but holding that picture on my phone until you came home almost killed me.”
“I know now why you couldn’t wait,” I said, and stepped forward. Reaching out to him I hugged him, my only emotion sadness and pity that he’d had this unnecessary setback. “Let’s go inside, it’s freezing out here,” I prompted, and led him into the warmth of the living room.
“You have no idea what I went through when I brought Colby home and they insisted I stay for dinner. I initially refused, but Colby kept—”
“Stop. It’s okay, it all makes sense now. I’m glad she had someone to call in my absence, and I need to thank you for stepping in and doing what I should have been here to do myself.”
“I’m glad she supports you so you can keep doing what you love, Saw, she’s a rare woman.”
“That she is. Thank you for insisting I know about this tonight, had you kept this to yourself and Billie discovered what she’d done, she’d have told me…”
“And with my history…I get it. To be frank I almost called you when it happened, but I figured that may have put further pressure on you, what with you not being here.”
“None of it matters now. However, you coming here shows me how important I am to you, that you drove here at this hour to get this off your chest. It’s demonstrated to me that I can trust you, and I figure over the coming years there’ll be many more instances when we may have to call on your help.” I took into consideration our growing family and the age gap between the children and knew this to be true. My mind flitted momentarily to Billie and how sick she was at the hospital.
“What’s wrong?” James asked, and I knew immediately the strain of Billie’s condition was clear on my face.
“Just worried about Billie,” I said, not wishing to betray her by disclosing the news we had learned before she was ready. My mind was spinning when I thought about this again, and because James had insisted on showing up, I hadn’t had time to digest the impact two tiny people would likely have on our lives in the future. If I couldn’t learn to trust him after this, then there was no hope for me.
