“Jason,” she cried, her head hanging down in front of her, shoulders shaking as she cried.
“Ask me,” I pleaded. “Ask me if I did anything remotely sexual with her last night. Please just ask me.”
She took a deep breath, trying to control the shudders that wracked her body. I moved in closer and wrapped my arms around her shoulders. She tensed, but she didn’t shove me away.
“Because the answer is unequivocally, irrefutably, no.”
She took a deep breath before saying quietly, “You kissed her.”
“Actually, that part would be my fault,” Sara said behind us. “He didn’t kiss me. I kissed him. I kiss most people on the lips. Jason has told me for years that I’ve lived in Hollywood for too long since I kiss like one of those crotchety old SAG members.”
“Please, babe,” I begged. “Please come hear what we have to say. I can’t lose you over some stupid fabricated story that was designed to entertain the masses. Please.”
“Addison,” Mick said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think maybe you ought to hear the man out.”
She looked over at him quietly for a moment before nodding. She pulled out of my embrace and walked over to the couch, making sure Mick was sitting next to her so I couldn’t. Sara and I grabbed the recliners directly across from them.
I cleared my throat. “I know you saw the pictures, baby. I saw them, too. But every single one of them was taken out of context. They look bad because you didn’t see the overall picture. You just saw what they wanted you to see.”
“Why did you have to stay in New York?” she asked quietly, looking at the floor.
I leaned in and rested my elbows on my knees, clasping my hands together. I would answer every single one of her questions if it took all night.
“Sara called me last month to ask if I would take her to this red carpet function for her new movie. I’m kind of her default date. We’ve been friends for a long time, so I didn’t think twice about saying yes. After the game, we went to dinner and then the movie. Then we went back to her place and she fell asleep while I watched a movie with her . . . manager, Elaine.”
Addison’s eyes whipped up. “So you had a slumber party with two women? How is this supposed to make me feel better?”
“Jason, stop,” Sara interrupted. Addison glared back and forth between us as Sara spoke. “She’s not gonna understand what’s really going on until I give her the whole truth. That’s what I’m here for, right?” I nodded and hung my head down, silently praying that Sara could take the sting out of the last eight hours.
Sara shifted her legs so she was sitting on one of them before turning her attention to Addison. “Before you fully believe me, I need to tell you the whole story. From the beginning. You know Jason and I dated a few years ago, right?”
Addison nodded. She was listening, but I could tell she wasn’t fully engaged quite yet.
“We had a really nice relationship. We clicked, ya know? Good conversation. Lots of humor. We got along great. The intimacy was ok, too.”
“Ohmygod,” I said, rubbing my hands down my face. “That is not helping, Sara.” She waved me off with a flick of her hand.
“Just let me get to the point,” she said. “Anyway . . . the intimacy was ok, but it wasn’t . . . I don’t know . . . anything more than just sort of mechanical. On my end, anyway.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Addison asked. She didn’t sound defeated yet. She was starting to sound pissed.
“Because when Jason broke up with me, and yes, he broke up with me,” she emphasized, “I was pretty ticked off. He told me he still wanted to be friends, which is the kiss of death right there, but that it just wasn’t . . . right for us to be together. I knew he couldn’t put a finger on it, but he tried to reassure me that it wasn’t me he didn’t like. Just that our relationship wasn’t meant to be in that kind of capacity.
“After a couple of months of stewing, I realized he was right. Dating him wasn’t right. Our friendship was great but anything more than that was just . . . off. I couldn’t quite figure out why. And then I met Elaine.”
We sat in silence as I waited for everyone to catch on to what Sara was saying.
“Addison, I’m gay.”
Addison looked up at Sara quickly, with a stunned look on her face. Mick’s jaw just dropped wide open. Sara didn’t seem to notice and continued.
“Elaine isn’t just my manager and best friend. She’s my girlfriend. We’ve been together for almost two years,” she smiled a wide grin. “She is everything I ever wanted and didn’t know I was looking for. And I’m so, so happy with her. Jason didn’t stay over at our place to have sex with anyone. He stayed over as our guest because he’s our friend.”