I'll Promise If You Do

It was a strange feeling that I had as my eyes focused on the man standing off to the corner of the entrance of the Eleven Hotel that shared its parking lot with KidZone. I have no idea why what I saw bugged me, I thought it was pretty innocent…

…Until I saw his face light up as a tall, very thin dark-haired woman walked up the sidewalk towards the hotel. As quickly as he could without drawing too much attention to himself, he went to the woman stopping her at the corner of the hotel. I watched as they walked down along the side of the hotel towards the key carded guest entrance where he took out a key and swiped it. He turned to her; she said something and replied with a pretty passionate kiss on her lips. Then with his hand firmly placed on her bum, he glanced around and disappeared into the building with the woman.

My first thought, after I picked my jaw off the ground was; as much as I hate Carol, Phil has no right to be taking other woman to hotels when Carol is wearing his ring and carrying his baby!

I wanted to do something, I felt like I should do something. But what could I do? I didn’t know Carol’s number and we weren’t exactly friends so she wouldn’t believe me anyway. And I didn’t think that calling Josh and telling him would work either. He might get offended that you aren’t respecting his request for more time. Plus, if Phil is cheating, who the hell am I to rat him out? It’s not like I’m completely innocent when it comes to hurting someone I love.

So I turned and made my way towards KidZone feeling like I was helping Phil cheat. It’s a dirty feeling to have, especially when you could care less about the people involved but I felt it anyway.

I tried so hard not to let it ruin my day with the kids and I was surprised how soon I ‘forgot’ about Phil and the other woman as I chased the kids from table to game to ride game. It was probably one of the best afternoons I spend with the kids in a long, long time.

It was getting late, the kids were getting very hungry and I wasn’t about to shell out a fortune for food at KidZone, so I suggested that we all hopped in the van and headed to Dani’s Diner, a restaurant that’s living like it’s in the 50s still.

I couldn’t help but glance towards the hotel when we left KidZone but I didn’t see Phil again.

Several hours after we left Chad’s house, I pulled back into his drive with five tired but excited kids. That night I got the best sleep I’ve had in about a month, they wore me out that badly!

Sunday rolled around, I woke up in the guest room of Chad’s house and it took me a while to figure out where I was. I spent the entire day with them Sunday, at least until I had to go to work.

Work that night was a little boring, I was very grateful that we closed early because it was a Sunday.

When I got home that night, Zack was downstairs watching “The Green Mile” on TV so I sat and watched the end of it with him.

By this time, I’ll I’ve been thinking about was what I saw yesterday, I needed to tell someone, to see what I should do. “Hey Zack, do you have a minute?” I asked him as the movie credits rolled. He told me he did so I launched into the story of what I saw. “I don’t know what I should do,” I told him. “I feel that Carol should know but…” I sighed. “What do I do?”

Without stopping to think for a second Zack replied. “Nothing Anna, I want you to stay out of anything that directly involves Phil.”

“But Zack -”

“No Anna!” Zack sat up straight. “I want you to promise me that you won’t get involved with this.”

“Does this have something to do with the investigation?”

“You know I can’t talk about it Anna.”

“Well then I can’t promise I will stay out of it!” I snapped. “If Phil is doing something that will hurt Jesse or affect Josh, then I can’t just sit by and do nothing!”

“Anna,” Zack’s hand came down on my shoulder, stopping me from moving off the couch like I planned on doing. “The woman that Phil met with is known to us, we have everything under control.”

“But?” I stared at him. “There’s a ‘but’ there, isn’t there?”

Zack sighed, “We would be more comfortable if Carol and Jesse weren’t around Phil.”

“Then let her know about the cheating! She wouldn’t want to hang around then!”

“She knows Anna.”

“What?” I stared at him in disbelief. “No, how could she know and still be with him?” Zack gave me a look that told me he wasn’t going to tell me anything else but the longer I looked at him, the more I tried to figure out what was going on.

Then it hit me, “Carol is working with the department, isn’t she?”

“I’m going to bed,” Zack leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Please don’t say anything about what you saw to anyone. And for God sakes don’t do something stupid, we don’t need any complications right now.”

I promised him that I wouldn’t do anything. “Just promise me that Jesse is going to be safe.”

“I promise you Jesse will be safe and sound when this all comes down.”