Chapter 8
Old Friends
Chapter Eight
Mitchell
EL: The boys want a taco bar for dinner tonight. Dinner at my place?
Ever since yesterday on her back porch when I got that image of her in my lap grinding her ass against my thighs, the moment her name flashes across my screen or gets brought up, my dick immediately hardens.
Glancing down at my lap at the bulge behind my jeans, I roll my eyes.
“Fuck, you got to get it together, buddy.” I pull at the denim crotch, rearranging it from pressing against my erection.
I cannot have thoughts like that about Ella. She’s my friend, my son’s godmother, and my best friend’s wife. Well, that last one isn’t so important.
The moment the thought of Drew pops into my head, my cock softens. Anger takes the place of arousal in my bloodstream. I can’t believe how he spoke to her. Calling her a bad mother? He’s lost his mind.
I need to talk to him about the shit AJ told me too, but I’m still too pissed off about it to have that conversation without kicking his ass. Drew and I have only fought twice in our entire friendship. Both times had to do with Ella.
The intercom on my desk goes off. Putting my phone down, I press the button to talk to my front desk receptionist.
“Hey Tina, what’s up?”
“Hey boss, Andrew is here to see you. Want me to send him back?”
I shut my eyes and take a deep inhale. What the hell is he doing here? I guess that conversation was going to happen sooner than I thought.
“Yeah. Send him back.”
I lean back in my chair, willing myself to calm down and have a serious conversation with him. This was probably the best place to have it. I’d have second thoughts about kicking his ass at my place of business.
My door opens and Drew walks in. We are both a far cry from the five-year-old boys who bonded in kindergarten. Our friendship, once more a brotherhood, has become strained.
“You hired a new receptionist? What happened to Mrs. Jackie?” he asks. I stood to my feet and offered him a hand to shake.
After greeting each other, I point to the chair across from me. He takes a seat, unbuttoning his suit jacket. I fall back into my chair.
“She retired. She and her husband moved down to Florida last year.”
He chuckles. “Damn, I thought she’d never leave this place.”
We both laughed briefly, allowing that old camaraderie to seep back between us. There was a time when having him here would’ve been the highlight of my day. That time has long passed.
“So, what brings you by?”
I know why I needed to talk to him, but I was curious why he showed up at my job when he hadn’t been here in two years.
He leans forward in his seat. “Well, I wanted to apologize about how I came at you yesterday. I was upset, and I wasn’t acting like myself. My apologies.”
I shrug. “It’s cool. I understand.”
He shifts his weight in his seat, leaning toward the right. “You know you really stepped in with the boys during this hard time. They needed you.”
I wave my hand through the air. “No need to thank me.”
“No, seriously. You went above and beyond for them. Honestly, the divorce was hard on them, and Ella didn’t make it any better the way she kept trying to cling on.”
“She wasn’t clinging on to you, fuckface. She was trying to fight for the marriage she had held down for fifteen years.”
Although those words come to my head, I don’t say them. Tilting my head to the side, I grind my back molars together. The urge to react is strong, but I’m trying to hear him out. I’ll give him this pass.
“But,” he continues. “You took your role as godfather to heart and truly made a difference. So, thank you.”
“Again, you don’t have to thank me for that.”
He nods his head up and down before leaning back in his seat.
“Well, with that said, I think it’s time you stepped back a little.”
Clearly, I must've misheard him. This time, I sit up in my seat, placing my arms down on my desk and clasping my hands together.
“Come again?”
He chuckles, pulling at his goatee. “Look, not because of the boys, but I think you’re giving Ella the wrong impression. She’s getting a little hung up on you. A bit too reliant on you. And you showing up there all the time isn’t a good look.”
“A good look for whom?”
He grins. “Come on, Mitch. Let’s not act like there isn’t history between you and Ella.”
With each word he spoke, I felt my temper rising higher and fucking higher. What the hell is he suggesting?
“What the fuck are you talking about, history? There has never been anything inappropriate between EL and I.”
He waves away my comment with a laugh. “Of course I know that shit. Ella would’ve never stepped out on me.”
The cockiness in his tone makes me wish I had a story to tell that could burst his bubble. But we both know she's too loyal for that.
“I’m saying I know you had a crush on her first,” he goes on to say.
“Yeah, I did. Didn’t stop you from going after her.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re still mad about that? It’s not my fault you were too scared to make your move. Besides, I did you a favor. Let’s face it, Ella is a far cry from the fifteen-year-old hottie we both fell for—”
“Don’t. Fucking do that.”
He laughs while shrugging. “What? I’m just being honest.”
“No, you’re being an asshole. Same way you are when you’re around AJ.”
This knocks the smug smile off his face. He sits up straighter in his seat. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, be a fucking man and stop talking down on the mother of your children to your son. It’s his gotdamn mother, Drew. And you putting her down doesn’t make her look bad. It makes you look like a degenerate asshole.”
“Oh, so now you’re giving parenting advice?” He shoots to his feet. “You were in the house with Jacob for seven years before you ran Val off. Talk to me again when you’ve been a father for more than ten damn years.”
I stood from my desk, folding my arms over my chest. “Now I know you must be delusional. I’ve been a surrogate father to your boys since AJ was three days old.
Remember, I drove him and El from the hospital because you couldn’t leave a meeting.
I’ve shown up for those boys when you weren’t there, and that was long before you called off your marriage. ”
The truth is, Drew was never really father of the year.
Although he did the right thing at the time and married Ella when she was pregnant, he never really took to fatherhood.
He supported his boys financially and was in the house with them.
But Drew’s idea of parenting was much like his own father's.
He supplied the roof over their heads, and their mother took care of everything else.
“Here we go again,” he tosses his hands up in the air. “Now you’re going to throw up in my face every time you chose to step in? I was out building wealth for my family.”
“Oh yeah,” my tone matches his. “And where the hell has that gotten you?”
He steps back as if my words actually shoved him. Drew can pretend all he wants that he is happy, but I’ve known this man since I was a child and all that glitters isn’t gold. If it were, he wouldn’t be in my office trying to keep me away from El.
His face goes from pissed off to neutral. He takes a step back, and that smug smile spreads across his features.
“I didn’t come to argue. Just a warning, stay away from my family.”
“And if I don’t?” I spread my legs shoulder-width apart. I wanted him to challenge me. I wanted him to make the first move so I could be justified in kicking his ass.
However, the chuckle that slips from his lips tells me he isn’t going to fight. Not that I ever thought he would. It never ends well for him.
Drew tosses his arms in the air. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come here.”
“You're damn right.”
He continues to laugh. “Maybe I should have gone to Ella first. I’m sure if I told her how you knew about the affair before the divorce she’d dead this shit before I could.”
My restraint snaps. I shove my desk to the side and in three steps I have Drew by the collar of his shirt and shoved into the wall.
“You mutherfucker.”
He chuckles. “Is this really what you want to do, Mitch? You want to physically attack a lawyer?”
I didn’t give a shit about him being a lawyer or catching a charge for kicking his ass.
However, I did worry about what would happen if I went to jail.
I’d have to explain to Ella why I beat her exes’ ass and why he’s pressing charges.
That alone caused me to let him go, but not without shoving him against the wall again.
“If I’d known that was why you wanted me to lie that night, I’d have never fucking done it.”
Drew knew I was telling the truth. He and I have ever only come to blows twice. Once, when he cheated on Ella in college. That was because he tried to accuse me of sabotaging him because I let Ella into the dorm room. As if I would’ve ever intentionally caused her that type of pain.
The second time was when he told me he had slept with Kiely.
The night before, he called me and asked me to lie to Ella, saying that he was with me that night.
I assumed he worked late and forgot to come home, as he’d promised.
At the time, I never would have thought he was cheating on his wife.
When Ella called me the next morning, I lied easily for him.
When he came to my house to thank me, he admitted to me what had happened. It was the first time he had slept with the paralegal. I was fucking pissed. Pissed that he got me caught up in his bullshit by lying to his wife, and pissed that he would jeopardize his family for some young ass.
After knocking him into my coffee table, I told him he needed to end that bullshit with Kiely or I’d tell Ella. He promised he would and told me it was a one-time thing. The next thing I knew, six months later he was standing at the head of that table telling Ella he wanted a divorce.
Drew fixes his shirt where I’d wrinkled it up. “You and I both know Ella isn’t going to care about that. She’s too emotional to even listen to you explain it. The moment she finds out you knew my secret, she’s going to be done with you, and your little white knight in shining armor act is dead.”
I run a hand down my face as I fist my other at my side. The last thing I wanted was to believe him. I wish I could have called his bluff, but I know El. She would be heartbroken to know that I knew about the affair. Drew knew he had me by the balls.
“Now,” he snidely says, messing with his watch. “I don’t want to have to tell you again. Stay the fuck away from my ex-wife.”
I watch him as he opens my office door and storms out.
Walking back over to my desk, I straighten it out and then take a seat in my chair.
The thought of staying away from El had my chest tightening.
Seeing her every day, and just being in her presence, improved my day. But I couldn’t risk her hating me.
Just then, I noticed my phone on the desk, and I remembered the text she sent me that I never responded to. Picking up the phone, I go to our text thread.
EL: The boys want a taco bar for dinner tonight. Dinner at my place?
Me: Actually, I think I’ll just eat at home tonight. You can send Jacob over when he’s finished eating.
After sending that text, I tossed my phone on the desk. I know I never had a chance with Ella, but damn, even losing her friendship feels like a heartbreak.