Old Friends

By this point, she was sobbing uncontrollably again. "Oh my God! Oh my God! What have I done?"

"What you've done Cheryl is destroy a twenty-year marriage over a lying sack of shit! Did it ever even cross your mind to just talk to me about it before you dropped your panties and fucked up two marriages? Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go up and talk to your daughter who was pretty shook up when she saw that video of her mother fucking up our lives!" With that, I left her with Joe and Melissa and headed upstairs to check on Megan.

I felt really bad about Megan. I had no idea she was at home. She and her sister were supposed to be spending the night with friends, but apparently, she started feeling bad and came home while we were out in the boat. I hadn't seen her since she left earlier and I just assumed she was still at her friend's house. I paused momentarily to get my nerve up and then knocked on her door. "Hey Megs, can I come in for a minute?"

When I opened the door, I found her sitting on her bed, crying. "Listen baby, I'm so sorry that you saw all of that. I would have never shown those videos if I had known you were home. I was planning on telling you and your sister about everything tomorrow when everything settled down. But I guess it's a little late for that now."

I spent the next half hour assuring her that her mother and I both loved her and Emily and that we would find a way to work things out so that they were both taken care of. I never promised that we would stay together, but I did promise her that we would both remain a huge part of their lives no matter what happened to the marriage. I also encouraged her to forgive her mother and try to work things out with her. God knows that two teenage girls definitely need their mother because I'm certainly not equipped to deal with female issues. I was fairly certain that my techniques for dealing with young football players would not work too well for teenage girls.

After talking with Megan, I headed back downstairs. I just needed another drink and some rest so I asked Melissa to help Cheryl get settled in the pool house. I had no intention of sleeping in the same room with her. Since she fucked everything up, she was the one that needed to sleep in a different room. Melissa walked with her to the pool house and made sure she was okay before she and Joe left for the night while I headed up to bed carrying what was left of the bottle of scotch.

The next morning, I woke up around 8:30 with a horrible hangover. I somehow made it down the stairs without falling or throwing up to find Cheryl busy in the kitchen making breakfast. "Good morning. I thought you could probably use this" she said as she pushed a freshly made Bloody Mary across the counter. I sat on a stool and sipped my drink, trying to make my head feel better as she continued making bacon and eggs and pancakes.

When she finished, she brought me a plate filled with food along with some maple syrup and a fork. "Baby, I know you don't feel like it right now, but can we please talk about everything later? I've been up all night thinking and for all I know, you already know everything that happened, but I would really like for you to hear it straight from me. I know I've really fucked things up, but I want to try to make things right if that's even possible."

"Listen Cheryl, we'll talk later. I'm really not interested in hearing your excuses and rationalizations, but we need to come up with a game plan for dealing with all of this and the girls. So, for their sake, I'll listen to whatever you want to say. But, for right now, I just need to focus on my pounding head and trying not to throw up."

Two Bloody Mary's and five ibuprofens later, I was starting to feel better so I took the boat out for a while to be by myself and think. It also helped me avoid Cheryl for a while until I was ready to deal with her. Around 3:00PM, I figured I had pushed it as far as I could so I headed home. While I was out, I called Andrea to see how she was doing and if she had heard from Trevor yet. She said he was coming by later to pick up some of his things and that she would fill me in at work on Monday.

I was just hanging up with her as I pulled into the dock and tied up the boat. Before leaving the dock, I looked up at the house and saw Cheryl sitting on the deck. Well, I guess now is as good a time as any so I may as well get this "talk" over with. So, I climbed the stairs up to the deck and sat down beside her in the swing. "So, is this a good time for that talk you were wanting to have?"

"Well, I don't think there will ever be a good time for a talk like this, but waiting won't make it any easier so we may as well do it now. I'll spare you all the begging because I know you well enough to know that it would just piss you off more. But, for what it's worth, I need for you to understand that I still love you. I know it doesn't seem like it after what I did, but I do. I'm also really sorry for what I've done and I hope that there is some way for you to forgive me and try to save our family.

There's a part of me that blames Trevor for lying to me and manipulating me, but in the end, I'm the one who made the choice for myself. You were right last night. I should have come to you and given you a chance to explain everything, but I was really angry and I was hurt. I finally just got to a place where I wanted to hurt you as bad as I thought you had hurt me."

"Dammit Cheryl! Why would you ever think that I would cheat on you? Have I ever done anything to cause you not to trust me?"

"Oh God no. You never did anything and I didn't believe him at first. You have to understand that I didn't just fall for everything the first time he told me and jump into bed with him. He's been working this for months. I've only been with him sexually a few times in the past month or so. When he first came to me after overhearing Andrea's conversation, he begged me not to go to you and ask you what was going on. He claimed that if I asked you that you would just deny everything and then you guys would go further underground so that we could never find the truth."

"But you do believe me when I tell you that he lied about that conversation, don't you? Andrea told me about it when I first found out that you were cheating. She was talking to her old roommate, Paula, a few months ago when she came to visit them for the weekend. They were drunk and reminiscing about their college days and that weekend at the cabin came up. He overheard them and Andrea told him immediately that we were only together for a few times when they were broken up like 25 years ago."

"Well I know that now, but at the time I only had his version. He asked me to just try to watch you really carefully to see if I could find any evidence of an affair. I agreed, but I wasn't convinced that you and Andrea were involved in anything. Then a couple of weeks later he showed up on one of the nights that you were out of town for a boosters meeting and asked if I knew where you were because Andrea had, 'gone out with friends,' and turned her cellphone off. He claimed that they had GPS trackers on their phones for emergencies, but that she had turned her tracker off for some reason. The only explanation that made sense to him was that she was trying to hide her whereabouts that evening to meet you."

"So, after all that time, you just suddenly believed him and decided "hey, I think I'll fuck this asshole to get back at my husband who doesn't deserve a chance to defend himself?"

"No, it's not like that at all. Well, I guess maybe it was, but he was SOOO convincing and when I started really focusing on your every move, there were things that made me suspicious. I kept thinking about how the two of you work together and you could be meeting up at work and Trevor nor I would ever know. I also thought about all of those away football games where you and she were on the same charter flight and staying in the same hotels while Trevor and I were home dealing with the kids. I even began to get jealous when we went out with them as a couple reading into every smile the two of you shared or every time you touched her on the arm or on the back."

"So, tell me Cheryl, now that you know that it was all a big lie from Trevor, just what do you propose we do?"

"I don't know. I just want you to forgive me and see if there's any way for you to get past this. Just tell me what you need from me to give us another chance and I'll do it."

We spent the next couple of hours talking, with Cheryl giving me all of the details about how Trevor worked to convince her that Andrea and I were cheating and how she started to buy some of his suspicions. She even told me the details of the times they had sex together in our pool house. She swore that it was only four times and I was inclined to believe her. Then the second part of our conversation centered on what it would take for us to work things out.

We finally came to a point where it looked impossible before I threw out one last proposal just to see how serious she really was about doing whatever it took. "Listen Cheryl, you know me well enough to know that I don't just let things go and move on. I hold grudges and I fight like hell to destroy anyone who has wronged me, so the idea that I can just forgive you and work things out seems impossible to me at the moment. But there is a part of me that still loves you and wants to try to make this work for the girls. Besides, we've been together for a really long time and if things don't work out, I want to be able to look myself and the girls in the eye and know that I did everything that I could to make this work before I just walked away."

"Oh my god, you don't know how happy that makes me," She said with tears running down her cheeks. "You just tell me what I have to do to make things right and I'll do it. I swear."

"Well, before you get all crazy, hear me out. You may not like the next part. First, I had Jack Henry draw up divorce papers when I first found out about you and Trevor. I'm not ready to completely stop the process yet, so you will be served with those papers this week. I don't want to have it done at your office or anywhere that will embarrass you. I'll find out from Jack when he plans to have you served and we will arrange a place for that to happen that is as discreet as possible. You need to take them and have them reviewed by an attorney of your choice. As of right now, I'm not filing for adultery which would accelerate the process. I'm filing for irreconcilable differences which will give us around a year to work on us before anything is final.

Next, I need some space so we need to separate for a while. I don't think anyone needs to move out, but one of us needs to move into the pool house. Even though this is your mess, I am willing to move out there. I think that will be easier since once fall practice starts in a few weeks I will be spending 12-15 hours a day at the football complex. I will, however, expect to keep eating dinner with you and the girls and seeing them as much as I want.

And finally, I can't promise you that I won't see other women occasionally. You broke our vows and in my mind that nullified any obligation that I had to keep them. I won't be actively seeking out anyone, but if the opportunity arises, I think I've earned the right to explore those options. I can promise you that I will never bring anyone around the house or the girls until we decide to end things for good. You, of course, are free to date others as well. But, if you do, that will be the end of me trying to reconcile and I'll change the divorce filing to show that the grounds are adultery and see if we can speed the process up. If you need to think about it before you commit, I will completely understand. But I won't wait forever, so don't take too long."

"I don't need to think about anything." She replied. "Yes, yes, and yes. I told you I would do whatever it took and I meant it. I'm not real thrilled with the idea of you dating other women, but I never gave you that courtesy before I started sleeping with Trevor, so I can't protest too much."

So, with a plan in mind we moved forward together. Cheryl was served with the divorce papers at home during her lunch hour the following Tuesday and was shocked when her new attorney told her that I was being extremely fair based on the circumstances. I also moved some of my things into the pool house, but I still spent most of my time at home in the main house with Cheryl and the girls. We had dinner together most nights and even went on vacation to Disney World together as a family before the players reported back to school since the arrangements had already been made before everything blew up.

Cheryl and I were even intimate a number of times in the months that followed. However, that didn't keep me from taking advantage of my hall pass. Since she had him over a barrel, Andrea decided to strike while the iron was hot and divorce Trevor for adultery. Her divorce was final by early that fall and since she was single and I had permission, we spent a number of nights fucking like rabbits while we were away for the teams five road games that fall. It was like being back in college again. She even invited Paula along to one of the games so that we could relive that fall break in my parent's cabin.

When the season ended, everything changed when my lifelong dream of being the head coach of a major college football program became a reality. I had met with the school's Athletic Director and President in the hotel before our season ending game and my agent received a generous contract offer the following week for $15 million over the next six years. I quickly agreed to the deal and signed the contract with the only stipulation being that they give me a week before scheduling the press conference announcing my hire to give me time to talk to Cheryl and decide about our future.

Cheryl didn't even know that I had interviewed for the position, so she was totally shocked at my news over dinner that evening. She tried to put on a brave face for the girls and act excited for me. But I could tell that she was nervous about what this meant for us and our marriage. The four of us talked about the school and the town where it was located. Emily was worried about changing schools and Megan was already trying to figure out a way to stay here and finish her senior year.

After dinner, Cheryl and I fixed a cup of coffee and sat on the porch to relax a bit. "I'm sorry to just hit you with something like this with no warning, but it all came about really fast," I told her. "I know it's short notice, but you and I really need to decide about our future before they announce me as their new coach next week. I think I know what I want to do but I want to hear your thoughts first."

"Nothing's changed for me Matt. I still want us to stay married, like I told you last summer. I've tried my best to be a good wife these past few months whenever you would let me, but I can't ever tell what you're thinking. You said that we need to decide, but in reality, it's you that has to decide. What I want hasn't changed, but I can't force you to stay with me if you really feel like you need to move on. But, just so there's no confusion, let me say it again. Matt Durham, there's nothing I would like more than to stand beside you next week at your press conference and be announced as the new head coach's wife."

"Fair enough. So, I've been thinking a lot about us over the past few months as well and I think I want us to give it another try. I don't just want you by my side when I'm introduced next week, but I want you with me forever. I want you to go with me and find us a new house and for us to start over in a new place. I'm ready for us to leave this town behind and leave Trevor and Andrea in the past."

I hadn't seen Cheryl this excited in a long time as she rushed over to kiss me. When she broke from our kiss, she looked up into my eyes and said, "I think this deserves way more than just a kiss. Will you please take me up to our bed and make love to me like you use to?"

Cheryl and I spent the rest of the night and most of the next week reacquainting ourselves. We hadn't had this much sex since our honeymoon. The next week, we were presented as the new "first family" of State University football and started making plans to move.

I made one last trip back to my old campus to pack up the last items from my old office. I was almost finished when Andrea came in and closed the door before sitting down in front of my desk. "Well, I guess this is it, huh?"

"Yeah, this is it. I'm really going to miss you," I said.

"You better. We had some really good times, didn't we?" she asked.

"Yes, we definitely did."

By this time, she had come around the desk and sat on my lap with her arms around my neck. "Do you know what I'm going to miss most about you?"

"No Andrea, what exactly are you going to miss most?" I asked.

"You're really going to make me say it aren't you?"

"Yes ma'am. I may not see you for a while and I love to hear you say it."

"Okay, since you put it that way, I'm going to miss the hell out of that big cock of yours and I'm going to miss coming in here every Wednesday during lunch and locking the door so you can fuck me senseless on that sofa over there. That's not something a girl can let go of very easily after three years of the best sex of her life."

"Oh God, Andrea. I'm going to miss it too. Hell, I can't believe that we got away with it for so long. I thought for sure that we were screwed last summer when Trevor overheard you and Paula talking. We're just lucky that we were able to convince everyone that it only happened back in college."

"Yeah, I have to give it to you, you came up with a great plan when you found the condom wrapper and that security video. I can't believe how pissed we got about the two of them doing to us what we had been doing to them for so long. I was so scared that we wouldn't be able to pull it off, but you were an amazing actor. Hell, I almost believed you myself and I knew the truth."

"But it all worked out in the end didn't it? I got a hall pass for a few months that freed me up to fuck you without having to sneak around and eventually a wife that was so grateful that I didn't divorce her that she'll do almost anything that I ask. And you, you got rid of a husband you didn't love and got to keep half of his shit. Now what do you say, you want to give that sofa one last ride for old time's sake?"

I didn't have to ask twice. A couple of hours later, I left with a box of personal items and a big smile on my face.