That alone was strange because normally she avoided admitting anything that might make her look questionable. That night she offered it before I even asked. The next morning she acted like nothing had happened. She made coffee, scrolled through her phone, and talked about some office gossip like the conversation from the night before had never taken place. I asked one more question while we were eating breakfast.
I asked why Jamie would suddenly try something like that after all these years. Jessica sighed like I had just asked the dumbest question on the planet. She said alcohol makes people stupid and that men sometimes get nostalgic when they drink. Then she added that she already told me she shut it down and that it was weird I kept circling back to it. That was her move every time.
If I asked a second question, she framed it like obsessive behavior. So I dropped it. For the next couple of days, everything seemed normal. She went to work, I ran my business, and life moved on like the party had been a minor footnote. Then about a week later something happened that completely changed how I looked at the whole situation.
It was a Tuesday afternoon. I was in my office packing orders when I got a message request on Instagram from someone I didn't recognize. The account name looked like a normal personal profile, not a spam account. At first I almost ignored it because my business page gets random messages all the time. But the preview of the message caught my attention.
It said something along the lines of I think you deserve to see this. That immediately made my stomach drop. I opened the message. The person introduced himself as someone who worked with Jessica. He said he debated for a few days about whether to send the message at all.
Then he said something that made my chest tighten. He said he was at Jamie's birthday party and what Jessica told me about the kiss was not exactly what happened. Under that message there was a video attachment. I stared at the message for a solid minute before opening the video. Part of me was already expecting something bad.
People usually do not send a message like that unless they are about to show you something unpleasant. Still, I tried to give Jessica the benefit of the doubt for a few seconds. Maybe the video just showed Jamie leaning in and her pushing him away like she described. Maybe the guy messaging me just thought it looked worse than it actually was. I opened the video.
The clip was about 15 seconds long and it was clearly filmed on a phone inside a crowded bar. Music was loud and people were standing close together near what looked like a long table with drinks everywhere. Jessica was easy to spot immediately. She was standing right next to Jamie with her arm around his shoulders. Not the kind of casual side hug you give an old friend.
It looked comfortable, familiar. They were laughing about something while people around them were singing happy birthday. Then Jamie leaned in. What happened next did not match Jessica's story at all. He did not randomly try to kiss her and get rejected.