Wedding Bell Blues Pt 09

The disclaimers: Every character who matters is at least 18. A work of fiction (more or less). Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is coincidental (for the most part).

Part 9 wraps the story up. Marriage or drifting apart in with separate lives in separate cities? RAAC or Revenge for Jennifer and Tom? Somebody's bound to be disappointed. All I can say is that I had to write the conclusion to fit the characters.

I am so sorry for the delay in publishing these latest and the last chapter. Too late I realized that I had written myself into an unacceptable corner, and that I would have to do a fair bit of reworking to fix my mess. And then real life and the need to keep my job intruded on my rewriting and editing time. And then I think I messed up submitting a previous chapter, which sat in Drafts for four days! But as promised, I have finished this series. I said in the beginning that every man has a Hayleigh. May we all be so lucky as to find her, and for her to claim us as her own.

~~~@~~~@~~~

~~~ A FINE WISCONSIN JULY EVENING ~~~

"Assume our relationship continues along its current arc. That means marriage, a family of our own, juggling careers and kids, all of that. I won't be trusting you with just my heart. I will have to trust you with the care of our children, our family's security and happiness, all of that grown-up stuff. Same with you, Hay. You'll have to trust me to deliver for all of us. For some deranged reason, I can't wait."

"We are so going to make it," she purred into my shoulder before drifting off. It was an inflection point for me in my love for her. I held off sleep as long as I could, savoring Hayleigh's rhythmic breathing and the fullness in my heart.

~~~@~~~@~~~

~~~ EARLY AUGUST ~~~

I didn't expect to see Hayleigh's car pull onto the job site, but I was glad to see her, despite my slight anxiety over an unannounced visit. She was in her hospital uniform and in a hurry. I was just about to take my lunch break, so the timing was good. We sat down at a makeshift table set in the shade of an oak tree that the crew used for breaks. She wasn't upset, but she was on edge.

"Sorry to drop in without warning. I tried to call you, but it kept going to voicemail."

"My bad. I've had ear plugs in because of the nail guns, and I can't feel my phone vibrate through these thick work pants. What's up?"

"Jennifer called me. She wants to talk, to both of us. Apparently it has to be tonight because she has to be back in Eau Claire for her job by tomorrow morning. What do you think?"

What I

thought

was it easily could go sideways, and I liked Jennifer's absence from our daily lives just fine, thank you very much. What I

said

was that we should jump at an opportunity to repair some damage.

"Do you think Jennifer can have a civil conversation with us?" I asked. "I want to improve things, not make them worse. I won't sit there and be abused by her, or let her abuse you. There are limits, Hay. It is starts going the way it did during the phone call in Nassau, I'm walking away."

Hayleigh was contemplative. "I really think Jennifer is reaching out to try to mend things. It wasn't just what she said, it was the way she said it. So it's a go?" I nodded my assent. "Thank you! Mangiano's at seven. I'll pick you up so we can go together. Sure you're OK with this?"

"Yep. We had agreed on this in principle already, and I told your father that we wanted to try to make peace, for the sake of your family. She's your sister and we have to do what we can to fix things, or at least make an honest effort."

"OK. But just so you know, if she starts any crap or says anything like she did on the phone in Nassau, you won't have to walk away because I will grab you by the arm and we're outta there! No one treats my man that way!" She glanced at her watch. "I gotta hurry back. I had to skip lunch to get over here during my break as it is."

I took one of my sandwiches, a bag of chips, and a cold pop out of my lunch tote. "Here, you can scarf this down in the car. See you tonight. Now scoot!"

Hayleigh gave me a sloppy kiss before dashing back to her car while pulling the sandwich out of the baggie. With a wave she sped away as Angel and a few of the other framers joined me at the makeshift table. The consensus I gleaned from the fractured Spanglish was that there was no way I deserved

that

, the "that" of course being Hayleigh. They weren't wrong.

Hayleigh and I headed to Mangiano's with trepidation. Hayleigh suggested Mangiano's because Jennifer and I hadn't been there before, so there would be no old memories of better times. Hayleigh and I decided not to hold hands or do anything openly affectionate, either, so it wouldn't appear that we were rubbing Jennifer's nose in our relationship. That still left many landmines. My bestest friend insisted that "what happened in Nassau stays in Nassau," but Jennifer's vicious attack on my manhood and my meltdown permeated my thoughts.

Jennifer was sitting alone at a booth in the back corner. She already had a drink in front of her. She looked nervous, and a bit forlorn. The booth seating forced Hayleigh and I to sit together, with Jennifer opposite us. We didn't like the two-against-one appearance of that arrangement, but no other seating arrangement made sense. We all exchanged polite greetings, and I ordered an appetizer tray that I thought Jennifer would like. Hayleigh and I wanted a resolution, even if it meant extending small courtesies that we otherwise would have refused on principle. Jennifer took the bull by the horns right off the bat.

"I have a lot to explain and get off my chest," she said while mostly avoiding our eyes. "I can get through this better if you let me do most of the talking first."

"I've had a lot of time to think since the wedding, and Aunt Joycelynne knows about

everything

. She and Uncle Carl have let me stay with them, but the price was that I had to accept a lot of tough love. More like endless hell, but it's been for the best." She wiped at her eyes before continuing.

"So first, I want you both to know I'm not here to make a pitch for Tom giving me another chance. He doesn't want me anymore, and for good reason. I accept that, not that I really have a choice. And to be honest, I'm over him, too. We weren't right for each other. I'm going to answer honestly some of the questions Tom asked me on the phone when you were in Nassau. Aunt Joycelynne had a lot of the same questions for me. You won't like some of my answers though, and I'll understand if you get up and walk away." She cleared her throat.

"The big thing first. I apologize for what I did to both of you. Messing around with David behind your backs was beyond awful. I don't know what more I can say about that. Awful is awful. So why did I do it? I didn't plan on it, not at first. I met him at one of Hayleigh's sorority parties and something just clicked. I should have walked away, but I didn't, even though I knew he was my sister's boyfriend and I was engaged. It was fun to flirt with him, and he can be a charmer, even though he's really an asshole. I'm haven't seen him since the wedding, by the way. We don't like each other much lately."

"Anyhow, I meet him at the party and before long he's talked me into going out with him the next week. Like a dumb bitch, I agreed. Hayleigh, I should have told you that night what he was up to, but I didn't. That was shitty of me, and even worse of me to agree to see him. And Tom, I should never have even been flirting with him, much less agreeing to go out with him. I figured neither of you would ever find out, and it would just be one date. What could that hurt, right? It wasn't going to change anything with us, Tom, so I didn't see it as cheating on you. That's what I told myself. Of course it was cheating." She took a big sip of her Cosmo.

"So I went out with him. We went to this dance club. I'm drinking, he's drinking, we're dancing, the dancing gets hot, and pretty soon we're kissing. I'm not trying to blame the drinks! I knew damn well what I was doing. Like I said, I thought it was harmless fun, and who's going to know? God, I was stupid! I'll tell you the next parts only because I think both of you want me to explain how everything got all fucked up, and why I was such a colossal, heinous bitch. If you want me to stop, I will."

"So David starts getting frisky with his hands, feeling me up and stuff, and I'm letting him. Next thing I know, he puts my hand on his junk and my god, it's just huge. And I'm thinking, if this is going to be my one time to cheat on my fiance, I'm going to make it count. Like I said, I was an evil bitch. So we went back to his place and we did it."

"Tom, this part is so even more awful. Dave treated me like a piece of meat, and I LOVED IT. You were always so gentle and loving with me, and I was so uptight and shy. Anyway, when it was over I felt so guilty about what I did and how much I liked it that I started shutting you out and cutting you off. I felt like somehow you would know that I'd been with somebody else. I couldn't bring myself to do with you stuff that I did with him, and somehow in my twisted up head I turned it into YOUR fault. I should have had the decency to break it off with you clean. Instead I decided to have a fling with David to get him out of my system. I told myself that after I lost my fascination with David's big dick and my head was out of my ass we'd be fine." She took gulp of her Cosmo.

"So I keep seeing him. Every week he calls me, and I figure just one more time and I'm done. And that turned into another and another, and I start to think that I can get away with anything. Then he starts making shitty remarks about you both of you. Really nasty stuff about how I need his monster dick and how Hayleigh won't take care of business because she can't handle his size like I could. And instead of it pissing me off I'm encouraging him because it stroked my ego to know that I was able to satisfy him. There wasn't any emotional attachment, none worth speaking of. I just got off on the sex and feeling like I was all that. I'm so ashamed now, but back then it was a huge power trip for me. The more I did things for him that I refused to do for you, the more exciting it was. I got into the dirty talk, too, what I never would do with you. Do you want me to keep going?"

Hayleigh and I looked at each other and told her to go on. Neither of us gave a damn why Jennifer had done or why, but if a night of Jennifer's True Confessions was what it took for Hayleigh and me to secure a workable future with her family, we'd let Jennifer prat on.

"So there's the answer to why I cheated on you, Tom. I found out that I loved nasty sex, that I liked pulling one over on both of you, and that neither of you would ever find out. Then David tells me that he got a job offer in Chicago, and wouldn't it be great if we could keep seeing each other. I figured why not? So far everything was great, at least for me. When I got tired of it I could break it off to become your faithful wife and you'd never know. I even convinced myself that I deserved to have him around because you would be so busy with school I'd need something on the side. And doing it with my sister's boyfriend only added to my vanity that I was the hotter sister. How fucked up is that? And doing it at my wedding right before the ceremony? That was the ultimate sexual rush. But I got caught, and you know the rest."

There was a long silence, and an unanswered question for me that I couldn't resist asking.

"Jennifer, it's obvious from what you've said that you stopped loving me a very long time before the wedding, and that you needed the kind of nasty, big-dick sex I could never give you. The wedding was off, and you were free to pursue David or whoever you wanted who could give you what I wasn't. Why did you try to get me back? Why were you begging for another chance for us? It's not like you wanted me at that point, and certainly not as your husband."

"Aunt Joycelynne and I talked a lot about that one. It's pretty simple. I couldn't handle that YOU walked away from ME. Can you believe it? After everything I had done, I was upset over being rejected! I understood why you stopped the wedding, but I figured eventually you would cool off and take me back. If you took me back it would be like what I did wasn't all that bad. Also I was emotionally invested in getting married. All the sudden I was going to be alone, with no husband, no job, no plans, and nowhere to go. My mother was ashamed of me, my father was disgusted with me, and my sister wanted to kill me. I was scared, and humiliated, and really pissed that you called me out in front of everyone in the church. Even asshole David bailed on me. You know what he said to me? He said that he hung out with me to fuck me, not to listen to my problems! I couldn't believe that you didn't let me off the hook, as if THAT was going to happen! When you told me to take a hike on the phone it all hit me, and I lashed out."

Then she looked at Hayleigh. "There was something else, too. I always knew that you had a thing for Tom. I didn't know it was this serious though! So when you and Tom were in Nassau it really got to me. That was supposed to be MY husband, and MY honeymoon! Instead of ME screwing YOUR boyfriend it all was turned around on me. It made me crazy that you were there together. If I wasn't going to have him, then why should you? That's why I lashed out so bad and said those terrible things to Tom on the phone when he rejected me. I wanted to hurt him for choosing you over me, and bringing up David would hurt you, too. So I took the cheapest shots I could come up with. I told you, I've been horrible."

"So, what now, Jennifer?" asked Hayleigh. "What is it you want to happen now?"

"I wanted to apologize. I have been talking to a therapist to help me try to be less awful. She says that making amends is a necessary part of my healing. I hope that one day you both can forgive me, for some of it anyway. Mostly, I don't want to lose my sister."

Hayleigh looked at me. "You or me?" she asked. I nodded to her.

"Jennifer, both Tom and I are glad you reached out. We know this was hard for you. It's been hard on all of us. You are my sister. I can forgive you. I mostly have already. Understand though, Tom and I love each other completely. Nothing is more important for us than our future together. We want to be able to have something resembling normal family relationships with you. We don't want Mom and Dad to suffer over this either. We want to be able to celebrate holidays and birthdays together like other families do. One day Tom and I will be parents. We want our kids to know their Aunt Jennifer and for her to be in their lives in a good way. Is that something you can do?"

Jennifer was sniffly. "I can try."

"One last thing, Jennifer, and listen like your life depends on it. If you EVER hurt Tom again I will make you regret the day you were born."

"I understand. I won't. What about you, Tom?"

"Hayleigh and I are on the same page. I agree with everything she said. However, while I've gotten past what happened, sometimes I get so mad at you that I want to spit in your face. The fact of your betrayal still stings, so do not ever joke or make light about what happened. I mean it. But more than that, if you EVER hurt Hayleigh all bets are off. I will go medieval on you."

"I understand. Thanks for hearing me out. I'm grateful that you invited me to stay for dinner, but after all this I don't think we're quite ready yet to have pleasant meal together. I'm going to stop by the house to see Mom and Dad, then drive back to Eau Claire tonight. I'll get something to eat at their house. Hayleigh, I'll try to call you sometime next week."

Jennifer scooted out of the bench seat. "Before I go," she said softly, "I want to say that even though it's tough for me to see you two together, I'm happy it's working out for you. You probably don't believe me, but I am." Hayleigh slid out of her seat and gave Jennifer a hug before Jennifer left. We decided to stay have dinner there while we talked it over. Hayleigh wanted to know if I was OK, and what I thought about Jennifer's story. I wanted to know the same things.

"I'm actually doing fine. I don't think Jennifer was totally honest. I think she carefully rehearsed her speech. So much of it was too convenient. What, she meets her sister's boyfriend at a party and before she knows it, his irresistible charm has her agreeing to go out on a secret date that she KNOWS would blow up her engagement to me and her relationship with you? Then she's unable to summon the will to stop him from groping her in public and even joins in? And once she feels his big dick through his clothes she falls completely under his spell, and decides to fuck him that very night? Then rough sex unleashes a latent size-queen who gets off on cuckholding her fiancé, while also getting a bonus rush by betraying her sister? Basically, we're supposed to believe that she goes from shy and uptight with me to a conniving, remorseless cheater who gets off on turning the slut dial to Level 10? I don't think so!"

Hayleigh nursed her Leinenkugel draft. "Did you notice that she went out of her way to bring up the size of his package? Not even cleverly disguised passive-aggressive."

"I noticed that too. She could have left out all of the big dick stuff and her explanation would have been fine. It was a shot at you, too. 'I could handle a real man, but you couldn't.' I'm OK, it doesn't bug me anymore. As long as I ring your bell, I'm good."

Hayleigh looked upward, quietly saying "ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding" to the ceiling. I felt her foot trace along my calf.

"We're also to believe that it was a mere coincidence that David gets a job offer in Chicago, where she was to be going. What was that line from

Star Trek

? 'I believe in coincidences, but I don't trust coincidences'? Even if it was merely coincidental, she figures they can pick up where they left off without getting caught? Even the stupidest gamblers know that you can't roll the dice forever and never get Snake-Eyes. Oh, here's the next big hole in her story. So after David goes to the trouble to arrange to be in Chicago so she can continue to have this emotionally meaningless but physically addictive wild monkey sex, David will happily let her drop him when it suits her so she can seamlessly become Suzy fucking Homemaker with me? Yeah, sure. NO ONE is that naive. But wait! She's had this moral epiphany because she's been having tough-love chats with Auntie Joycelynne? The only thing missing is seeing the face of Jesus in her oatmeal and having a religious conversion that has turned her away from her sinful former life. There's a lot that isn't right in her story."

"I was thinking pretty much the same thing," Hayleigh remarked with a slight sneer. "Let's stay on our toes, because I'm not buying everything she's selling. I think what's really going on is that my parents have decided to accept you back into the fold as my boyfriend, even if it means she becomes the outsider. They invited you to spend the Fourth with the family, even knowing it meant she would refuse to be there. My guess is that she sees my parents choosing me and you over her, and she doesn't like the new pecking order. So she's going to try to look like the better person by taking the lead in forging the big reconciliation. And if we don't play along, then we become the bad guys for not be willing to forgive her and standing in the way of restoring the family, blah blah blah."

"That would fit her narcissistic personality. She admits that she did horrible things, but she's only a victim of her own unfortunate appetite for abusive guys with big dicks, which of course she couldn't control because it's merely her human weakness, so she will say her therapist says. If we don't forgive her, she gets to say that she's being punished when all she wants is family harmony, and she knows that your parents are sensitive to the 'Jennifer has been punished enough' angle. It tracks."