Change of Hart(37)

“He was cheating on you,” I interrupted.

She shrugged. “When I confronted him, he swore he would end it. That it had been a mistake and he loved me. And I stupidly believed him.”

“He didn’t stop the affair?” I asked, already starting to feel angry that her husband could just toss her aside for another woman.

“Of course not. She had just graduated from college when he met her at work,” she said, sitting down on the steps. “She was young and beautiful. I wasn’t old. I’m only 31. But I was a mom with a mom’s body. And I did mom things like take care of his son. For two years he had been seeing her. Two years.” Her elbows were on her knees, her hands clasped in front of her. I sat down next to her. “When I confronted him the second time, he told me he wasn’t going to stop seeing her. Said he had fallen in love with her. That she was his best friend.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“That’s the thing,” she said, still staring at her fingers. “I didn’t know what to do. I could take Jaxon and leave him, but I hadn’t worked in six years. Technology changes faster than that. I didn’t have any real marketable skills. How would I take care of us? And then I had to take Jaxon into consideration. Do I leave and uproot his whole word? Put him in daycare every day? Only let him see his dad, whom he worshipped, every other weekend? I was stuck in an impossible situation.”

I looked out to the road in front of us. “And then he died.”

She looked over at me. “You know he was headed to work from marriage counseling when he was killed? He had left a little early to get to some big meeting, supposedly. Once he left, the counselor had told me that I really needed to sit down and weigh my options. That there was no indication he was going to divorce me because he was getting the best of both worlds.” She snickered sadly. “Before I could even start making a list of pros and cons, fate stepped in and made the decision for me.”

“Wow,” I said, not sure what else to say. “I’m really sorry he put you through all that. He sounds like a real jerk.”

She smirked. “I didn’t think so when I married him. Turns out I wasn’t the best judge of character.”

I cleared my throat. “You’re not a bad judge of character. He just made some really douche moves.”

“I agree.”

“But Addison, I’m not him,” I said, turning my whole body to face her. “I have never, ever cheated on a girlfriend and I certainly wouldn’t start now.”

“Jason,” she said softly, “I’m not turning you down because I think you would cheat on me.”

“You’re not?” I asked, confused.

“No, Jason, I know you would eventually cheat on me. That Danielle woman is a good representation of your life when it comes to women,” she said, waving her hands around as she talked. “Eventually some young, glamourous, successful woman would come along and we’d be forgotten.”

I started to speak, but she put her hand on my forearm, stopping me.

“Let’s say you and I were to try this,” she said. “When you date a mother, you date the whole family, right?”

I nodded.

“Fast forward to when it didn’t work out. You’d stop coming around as much. You wouldn’t call as often. Not only would I be heartbroken, but Jaxon would be, too.” She sat back and looked at me. “I’ve watched my little boy lose one hero. I’m not willing to watch it happen again. Not even for a really hot guy.”

She stood up to walk inside.

“Hey, Addison,” I said, looking up at her, “If I had met you first, would you have gone out with me? And maybe left Jaxon out of it until you trusted me more?”

She smiled. “Probably. But the thing is, you didn’t meet me first. And him being able to count on a hero is more important than me being able to date.”

With that, she turned around and walked in the house, gently closing the door behind her.

I sat on the steps thinking for a good ten minutes after she went inside, trying to come up with a way to make it all work. But I couldn’t. So as much as I didn’t want to, I got in my car and went home.





I didn’t sleep worth a shit that night, which wasn’t good, considering I had a game to play the next day. My mind kept going over the conversation Addison and I had had. I wasn’t just pissed off at how Austin had treated her. I was also pissed off that he had wounded her so deeply, she was too scared to put herself out there again. It wasn’t fair to any of us . . . me, her or Jaxon.

At five-thirty I jumped in the car and headed to the weight room. Since we had a game, Deuce wasn’t meeting me. But I couldn’t sleep anyway, so I might as well find a few things to do on the machines by myself. Whatever it took to work off this negative energy I couldn’t get rid of.