“Yeah,” he agreed.
His agreement somehow still didn’t make her feel better. Cameron approached her and shut the water faucet off. Then he grabbed the sponge from her hand and set it down. “Will you stop for a minute so I can talk to you?”
“Talk or grumble?” she asked.
He went to the fridge and snagged a bottle of beer. “Want one?” he asked her.
She shook her head and waited for him to talk.
First, he popped the top off the bottle and pulled a long sip. After lowering it, he crossed the kitchen again and leaned against the counter next to her. “I had an affair with Drew’s wife.”
Well, then. That she hadn’t been expecting, even though that tidbit Lois told her about the married woman had never been far from her mind. Audrey opened her mouth, to find some appropriate response, but nothing came to mind. “You slept with a married woman?” she blurted, probably not doing a good enough job of keeping the disappointment out of her voice.
Cameron must have sensed it because he slid her a dark look. “I didn’t know she was married.”
“But didn’t you, like, go to high school with this guy, or something?” she wanted to know. “How could you not know the woman was his wife?”
“We both went away to different colleges, and at the time I was coaching football for a high school in a different town. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Drew in years.”
Audrey watched Cameron take another sip of his beer, suspecting he needed the moment to gather the details of the story. “And you saw no wedding ring, and she made no mention of a husband?”
Cameron lowered the bottle and stared down into it. “No. She was in pharmaceutical sales and traveled all over. We met at lunch when she accidentally picked up my sandwich instead of hers. I’d never seen her before, and she told me her last name was Jones.” Cameron looked at her and, for the first time, seemed more exhausted than angry. “I had no reason to believe she was married.”
Damn. Okay, so simple mistake. But still. Sleeping with another man’s wife. That was no bueno.
Audrey leaned back against the counter next to him. “So how did you eventually find out?”
Cameron blew out a heavy breath. “About a month later, Drew showed up at my house and landed a right hook to my jaw. Told me to stop banging his wife or he’d make me pay.”
“Make you pay?” Audrey repeated.
Cameron tossed back some more beer. “Apparently he’d been suspicious of Lauren for a while and hired a private detective to follow her around. The guy followed her to my house and snapped pictures of us through a window.”
Audrey swallowed and decided not to ask what the pictures were of. Her imagination was doing the work for her. She held back a shudder.
“Drew tossed a manila envelope at me and said if I didn’t quit my job as head coach, he’d send copies of the photos to every newspaper in the area. He wanted everyone to know what a home-wrecking bastard I was.”
“And you saw the pictures he had?” Audrey asked. “That’s what was inside the envelope he gave you?”
Cameron nodded. “Yeah. So I left my job, even though the school district had offered me another contract.”
Audrey stared at him. “You just quit your job?”
Cameron was silent for a moment. “I didn’t want my mom to find out. Bad enough she had to deal with a cheating husband. I didn’t want her to think her son turned out the same way.”
Something inside Audrey twisted at his words. She wanted to reach out to him and soothe the tension away from his brow, to take the pain away from the cut on his mouth. But she wasn’t sure he’d accept the comfort, so she kept her hands to herself.
“Your mom has no idea this happened,” she guessed.
“Nope.”
Audrey inhaled. “Does anyone know?”
“Blake and Brandon know about the affair. Nobody knows about the photos or the real reason I left my other coaching job.”
And yet he’d told her. Audrey squashed back the glimmer of hope that burst inside her. He’d confided in her, a very deep and painful thing for him. He told her something he kept buried from others. But it may not mean anything. Of course she wanted it to mean something. She wanted it to mean that he felt enough for her to share that part of his life.
“That was kind of a shitty thing for him to do. Bullying you like that.”
Cameron just shrugged. “I did a shitty thing to him.”
“Yeah, but not intentionally,” she pointed out.
“Didn’t matter to him. His marriage had ended, and he blamed me.”
Audrey watched Cameron peel the label from the beer bottle, noticing how his knuckles were bruised and covered with dried blood. “Sounds like it wasn’t much of a marriage if his wife was running around on him.”
Another shrug as he lifted the bottle to his lips.
“So how did you end up working for Drew?” Audrey wanted to know. “Seems to me like he’d never hire you after all that.”
Cameron laughed, but it lacked humor. “Now that’s a funny story. When Blake retired from the NFL, Drew hired him, and then Blake asked me if I’d be interested in being his assistant coach. Told Drew he’d only take the job if I came on board too.”
Audrey scratched her chin. “And you had no problem coming here and working for Drew?”
“I don’t really work for Drew. To be honest, I don’t see him that much. But yeah, part of me wanted to accept the job just to piss the guy off.”
“So you’ve just been one big, happy family?” Audrey asked.
Cameron snorted. “Hardly. But we’ve turned the team around, so Drew knows to keep his mouth shut.”
Audrey nodded and ran her gaze over Cameron’s bruised face. “Except for tonight.”
“Yeah, that,” he agreed.
“So you took this
