Page 66 of Barron's Second Chance
She nodded slowly, unsure where he was going. "Okay."
Another squeeze of her hand which sent a thrill up her arm. "But then you called."
Alarmed, she jerked her head back in shock at his statement.
He cleared his throat. "You called to clear the air, break the ice. When I heard your voice, that's when I knew that I had been kidding myself. All thoughts of bedding Tracey went out the window after that."
He let go of her hands to gesture his emotions. "To be honest, my desire to go through with it had gone by the time you called. But I fully admit that I most likely would have gone through with it -"
She shook her head. "That doesn't matter, Barron. You're free and single. That was never the issue I had."
"I know. It's the thought that I was dishonest with you. I get it. And if I did have sex with Tracey, I would've told you on Wednesday. But after your call, I was honest with Tracey and turned her down gently."
"How did she take it?"
He gave her a droll look. "I think her attitude towards you on Wednesday let you know how well that went down."
The other woman's open contempt of her made sense now. If the guy she had been chasing after for a while had turned down sex with herafteroffering it first, she would be a little miffed at first, too.
Not pissed enough to attack another woman, though.
"Do you believe me, Eden?" Barron again turned to her, eyes full of nervous energy that she might respond to him in disbelief.
She nodded slowly, "Yeah, I do," she told him.
"And it wasn't because I tried to hide it from you; I honestly forgot about Tracey. She and I hadn't had sex in so long, so the idea that I had slept with someone who lived in town didn't register, plus -"
"Barron, Barron," she held her hand up to halt him mid-speech. "You don't need to explain. I believe you and your explanation. It's all good. Truly."
"But it's not all good," Barron said, his eyes filled with tortured emotion. "Because I don't have you in my life, not even as a friend."
"You can't undo years of hurt and distrust over a few weeks," she snapped, impatient and tired of going over the same issue.
"Fuck, I know that, Eden." He ran his hands down his face and groaned in frustration. "You can't know how fucking sorry I am. For Lissa, for not trying to make amends to you as soon as it happened. As soon as you caught me, I knew I had made a huge mistake. I tried talking to you after, but I figured out that you had blocked me."
"What did you expect? There was no coming back from that. And honestly," she sighed tiredly. "Even if I hadn't blocked you, if you came at me hard to get me to talk to you, even if you came to my window with a stereo system above your head playing some love song, it wouldn't have made a difference. I was heartbroken and humiliated."
He nodded miserably as if he knew that he had broken her but that it hurt him to hear her confirm it.
"Do you think you would've eventually given me a chance if you hadn't gotten the opportunity to move to New York?" He stared at his hands, jaw clenched.
Well, that was the million-dollar sliding doors question. What would have happened if her Mom hadn't suggested that they take a spur-of-the-moment trip to New York?
She didn't get complete closure from Barron, not that she was seeking it at the time. But after a while, if he had kept up trying to make amends, would her resolve have softened? Modeling wasn't on her radar then, so she had no doubt that her path would not have organically led there.
"Honestly? I don't know."
He nodded moodily as if he wanted to hear a different answer.
"Barron?"
He turned his head in question.
"I'm not sure how to say this, but... in a way, it was meant to happen."
He jerked up, shaking his head. "No, no. no. I was never meant to cheat on you."
"I don't mean that. I mean, the career I have, moving to New York. It was meant to happen."
