Cole & Jamie

Chapter 10

It's been three days since what I have begun calling, The Incident, and I have not heard a word from Cole. Not even so much as a good morning text, so needless to say I royally fucked up. 

As much as I wanted to talk about the...incident, I held off. Maybe this is what we needed. I would give him some space and then we'd get back to normal. I hope. 

I laid next to Trish on her guest bed. Since the party, she has gotten herself put on bed rest. Now Joe had her holed up in their spare bedroom. You would think after receiving an order to rest from her doctor she would take caution and relax a little. Trish has done no such thing. She's offering a new virtual service for all of her clients and if what I hear from Joe is true she's even gotten some new ones. 

"I need to tell you something but you have to promise not to make fun of me," I said staring up at the ceiling.

"Jamie, I've known you since I was twelve years old and you've witnessed me at my worst," she said without looking away from the tv. She dug into the bowl of popcorn that was nestled between us. "Don't you know you can tell me anything and I won't judge you."

"I didn't say anything about you judging me I asked you not to make fun of me." Her judgment I could take but if she were to make fun of me right now I would die of embarrassment.

"I cannot make any promises."

"Can you at least try?"

She paused the Real Housewives episode we were supposed to be watching. I hadn't been able to pay attention with this weighing on my chest and I'm not a big fan of the Beverly Hills franchise anyway.

"Go ahead," she encouraged. "I'm listening."

I squeezed my eyes closed as the words rolled off my tongue. "I may have accidentally, on purpose, kissed Cole at your baby shower."

"Wait, so you kissed him on accident or on purpose?"

"It was on purpose," I groaned. "But now I'm starting to think the whole thing should have been an accident." After pouring my heart out about how worried I am about potentially ruining Cole and I's recently mended friendship the last thing I expected was for my best friend to do is laugh in my face.

I frowned. "You promised not to make fun of me."

"No, no, I said I would try," she reminded me. Trish squeezed my cheeks. "And after hearing the problem I fully plan to make fun of you, because you, my friend, are dumb."

"Oh, so you think I made a mistake?" I worried my lip between my teeth.

She shook her head in disbelief. "Jamie, I don't know how to say this but Cole is in love with you."

I scoffed, crossing my arms over my chest. "No, he's not." I would have at least gotten a phone call by now if he was, or maybe, he would have even kissed me back. 

Exasperated, she said, "Don't be dumb."

"Stop calling me dumb!" I yelled, sitting up.

"Then stop acting dumb!"

"I'm not," I huffed. "He can't be too in love with me. He didn't even kiss me back." I cringed as the image of our one-sided kiss flooded my brain. It was humiliating.

"I wasn't there so I can't say why he didn't kiss you back but I do know that man has always been madly in love with you."

"I don't believe you."

Trish scoffed. "Don't believe me? Ask anyone, they'll tell you the same thing. Everyone thought you were sleeping together back in high school."

My jaw dropped. "They did not."

"Did too," she argued. "I can prove it." Trish sat up straight. "Joe! Joe, come in here, please!"

"Don't bring him into this." I'd become comfortable with the fact that any secret I told Trish would make its way to Joe over the years. Though he's proven himself to be trustworthy I liked it better when Trish was telling him my secrets behind my back.

Joe rounded the corner carrying a load of laundry. "Yes, my love?"

"Tell Jamie Cole is in love with her, and everyone in high school thought they were sleeping together."

"Oh." He set the laundry basket down at the end of the bed. "We're talking about that."

"You've talked about it before?" I covered my face in embarrassment.

"A couple of times," he admitted.

From her pile of pillows, Trish demanded, "Tell her it's true!"

"Yes, he is in love with you. And there might have been some rumors that you were hooking up back then." He put his hands up. "These are just things I heard."

"I believed it," Trish said with a shrug.

"Why did you never tell me?" I swatted her leg. With the way, Trish used to gossip surely she would have told me about such a damning rumor.

"I thought you were embarrassed."

None of this is making any sense. Trish knew I was a virgin until I was a sophomore in college. All those times we talked about my severe lack of sexual experience did she think I was lying every single time? And even if Cole and I were sleeping together I would not have put up with him being with other people and he was with several. " Cole was dating Tracy back then."

"I thought it was an open relationship type of thing," said Joe.

"I thought you didn't believe it?" He pursed his lips together turning back to his basket. I folded my arms across my chest as I sat settled back into the pillows. "Well, that explains why Tracy hated me so much."

"Tracy was, and is, a bitch. She was going to hate you regardless." Trish sipped from her water bottle. "You mean to tell me, that you and Cole never so much as shared a peck before now."

I pursed my lips together. "There was one other time..."

"I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!" She shook my shoulders. "I knew you were holding out on me."

"It was once and it never happened again." It had been years since I thought about that night. We were sixteen and he was the only one who even feigned interest in kissing me. At the time, I thought he felt bad for me but now I'm not sure. "I still don't understand if Cole is so in love with me why did he stop being friends with me in the first place." He left me. Not the other way around.

"Now that I will never understand, but maybe if you're real nice, he'll tell you himself."

"And say what? I heard through the grapevine that you are in love with me. Is that true?" Wasn't it embarrassing enough that he didn't kiss me back without adding rumors to it? This was becoming borderline mortifying.

"What could it hurt?" asked Joe. "You've already kissed him."

I could get my hopes up and then have my heart shattered all over again. "I should have just kept my lips to myself and avoided all this."

Trish laughed. "I quite like the drama of it all."

I buried my head into one of Trish's many throw pillows. I only hoped what they were saying is true because if he was really in love with me then maybe I wouldn't feel so bad about being in love with him.