Beautiful Mistake

Isabelle felt her cell phone vibrating in her hands as she continued to stare at the name flashing across her screen in bold, green letters. She knew Brent was calling her back, seeing what it is that she had wanted before, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him at this moment.

“Aren’t you going to answer your phone?” Adam Burish’s voice sounded from across the table, watching her hesitation.

Slowly Isabelle opened up the phone, putting it up to her ear. “Hello Brent,” she greeted, her eyes closed.

“Hey Izzie! Sorry I missed your call before… we had a team thing. What’s up?” His voice was calm, not picking up on the slight hesitation in her voice.

She paused, her now opened eyes on Adam, as she tried to determine what she should say to him. “Umm, well, I just wanted to let you know that I…” she stopped, not knowing where she was going with this.

“Izzie?” Brent called out, puzzled by her pause.

Isabelle glanced around the room, desperate for some kind of excuse of why she called Brent and Kris. Her eyes landed on a Blackhawks logo and it dawned upon her. “Tickets! Yes, I just wanted to let you know that I only need two tickets for your game next week.”

Adam raised his eyebrows at her, but didn’t say anything.

“Um, alright, if you give me your address I can have them dropped off,” Brent offered, still somewhat surprised.

She gave it to him then muttered a ‘thanks’, before hanging up her cell phone.

Isabelle knew she should tell both Brent and Kris about Cayden, but she certainly was not about to do it over the phone.

“So when are you going to tell them?” Adam questioned in an unusual serious tone. He had long been done eating his pizza and now was sitting back in his chair, his hands folded on the table.

Isabelle hunched over, burying her face in her son’s shoulder. “Ugh, I don’t know,” she whimpered, her voice muffled by her son’s back.

Cayden giggled, “Whatca doing Mommy?” He turned around in her arms so that he could face her, gigging more.

Her arms reached around him, hands landing on his sides. “I’m tickling you!” she exclaimed as she began moving her fingers around, causing him to giggle even more.

He squirmed around on her lap, attempting to escape her grasp. “Mommy,” he spoke in between giggle. “Stop Mommy.”

Adam smiled as he watched on as the mother and son giggled together. The two of them looked so happy, laughing and fooling around with each other. He wanted his teammate, Cayden’s father, to be a part of this, whether it was Kris or Brent. He wanted Cayden to have his father and he wanted his friend to be with his son.

--

“Isabelle!” Audrey called out, “I can’t believe how close you were to telling Kris and Brent!” She was sitting in the kitchen of Isabelle’s apartment several days after Isabelle’s encounter with Adam Burish.

Isabelle watched as her son was eating his lunch in his booster seat, a large smile in his smile on his face as he chewed his mac and cheese. His hand somehow got covered in the messy, yellow cheese and he giggled as he licked it.

“I know, but I have awful timing,” Isabelle answered, her hands folded across her chest as she leaned against the green granite countertop. “I don’t even know why I went down to the United Center in the first place. What were the chances they were even going to be there?”

Audrey grabbed a napkin from the dispenser in the middle of the table, reaching over to wipe off Cayden’s dirty face. “But you got to meet Adam Burish! That’s pretty sweet,” she noted, getting up to through the used napkin away.

Isabelle straightened out her t-shirt and jeans, annoyed slightly by the wrinkles. “Yeah and now yet another person knows about the situation before Brent and Kris.” She paused, a look of horror gracing her features. “What if Adam says something to Brent and Kris? What if he tells them about—?” Isabelle pointed to her son, not wanting him to realize the two women were talking about him and his father.

Audrey sat back down at the table, her legs up against the chair next to her. “I’m sure he won’t say anything. He’d want both Brent and Kris to hear it from you,” she reasoned.

“I guess you’re right,” Isabelle mumbled, filling up Cayden’s empty cup with water.

“Besides, if Adam did say anything, you would have heard from Brent and Kris by now,” Audrey finished.

“Good point,” Isabelle nodded, a feeling of relief washing over her.

She closed her eyes for a second, calming herself down. She was going to tell them soon. Really soon. The next time it was just the three of them, where no one could overhear or distract them, she would confess everything about Cayden.

“It’ll be okay,” Audrey reassured her friend. “Everything will work out, Belle, you’ll see.”

Isabelle offered her a half smile. “So many things could go wrong, though,” she insisted. “Eat your veggies, Cayden,” she encouraged her son.

Cayden looked at the slimy, green vegetables, his face scrunching up in disgust. “Yuck.”

Audrey drummed her fingers lightly against the kitchen table’s tablecloth, her body turned slightly to face her best friend. “Like what, Belle?”

Isabelle moved away from the counter, heading over the sink to wash the pots she used to make dinner, the warm water pouring into the big, cheese-covered pot. “They could never talk to me again, they could not want to be a part of --,” she stopped, gesturing to Cayden, not wanting him to realize what they were talking about, “his life, they could try to take him away from me….” Her hands begun scrubbing harshly against the metal pot in the sink as she continued, “They could never talk to me again, they could get mad at each other for both sleeping with me—especially so close together, they could—“

“Belle, just stop,” Audrey said coming up to rub her friend’s back. “Just stop, those things are not going to happen. “Everything is going to work out. They would never take your child away from you. It’s going to be okay,” Audrey comforted Isabelle.

“But what if it’s not? What if—”

Isabelle was cut off by several sharp knocks at the front door. “Will you watch him for a second?” she asked her best friend, pointing at Cayden.

“Of course,” Audrey promised, as Isabelle dried off her hands before heading around the corner and into the other room.

Turning the door handle, her jaw dropped to the floor as she saw the two tall hockey players standing in her doorway. Both young men were wearing huge smiles as Isabelle’s eyes widened.

“Hey, Izzie,” Kris greeted. “Is this a bad time?” he questioned upon seeing her worried face.

Isabelle quickly snapped her jaw shut, her eyes closing slightly. “No, not at all, what’s up?”

“We just thought we’d stop by and give you your tickets for the game against the Kings on Monday,” Brent informed her, holding out the tickets.

Isabelle silently prayed that Cayden and Audrey would stay in the kitchen, not even wanting to think of what would possibly happen when they saw her three-year-old son.

“Um, thanks,” Isabelle replied, gently taking the two tickets from his grasp. Did she tell them about Cayden now? “So, uh, how was your trip?” she conversed.

“It was a lot of fun,” Kris started. “It was a Father-Son trip, so it was great to hang out and play golf with all the dads. I know my Dad had a great time, but it would have been nice to win a game.”

Brent nodded his head, his hands stuffed inside his dark blue jeans’ pockets. “Yeah, the trip as a whole was a of fun, but I wish we’d won a game.”

Isabelle took a deep breath. This was it. This was when she was finally going to her two former best friends the truth. She didn’t know how they were going to react, but she hoped for the best. She could not keep putting this off and she didn’t know when she would get another chance in semi-private to do it.

She breathed in and then out, before starting her speech. “Hey, um guys, there’s actually something I really wanted to—“

“Mommy!” Cayden called out, walking into the room. He had a big grin on his face as he looked up at his mother, not noticing the new company in the room.

Isabelle stared in horror was both Brent and Kris looked over at Cayden with wide eyes and confusion.

“Cayden!” Audrey yelled, quickly following him into the room, stopping when she saw the realization flash over the two newcomers’ faces.

Both men were looking back and forth between mother and son, placing the pieces together. They took in Cayden’s appearance, his name, both realizing that the Cayden Brent had heard Isabelle talking on the phone with was not a boyfriend, but her little boy.

After several moments of nearly complete silence, Kris managed to get out “He’s mine, isn’t he?” at the exact name moment Brent uttered, “Is he mine?”

Kris and Brent turned to look at each other, realizing what the other was implying.

“You slept with him?” Brent spoke, gazing at Isabelle with both hurt and confusion.

“You slept with her?” Kris questioned, his eyes focused on Brent.

“Mommy, I ate all the veggies!” Cayden exclaimed, tugging on her pants, attempting to pull her attention back to him, away from the two strangers.

Isabelle was speechless, her eyes darting back and forth between the four other people in the room. Audrey was mouthing a ‘I’m so so sorry’, Cayden was now hugging tightly on to Isabelle’s leg, burying his head in her thigh, Kris was staring out her with a look of betrayal clear on his face, and Brent’s attention was focused solely on Cayden.

Why did she let it come down to this?