I didn’t know what to think about my conversation with Colton, but it wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t expect him to be necessarily happy about it, but I also didn’t expect him to outright call me weak. But, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t focus on that any longer. I knew exactly who was behind the front door, and I had to get my mind into gear for it. I had to admit, it shocked me when Colton made the decision to stick around and work from home for the day. It made me nervous, honestly. It was why I decided to take the opening and ask him how he felt about it. But after his rebuttal, I no longer cared about how he felt regarding the topic.

Until I opened the front door.

“Can I come in?” Matthew asked.

The second his voice hit my ears, I knew Colton was right. I gazed up into Matthew’s brown eyes I’d sought comfort in for so many years and felt myself cave a little to his presence. I stood in front of the man I’d loved for years. A man who ushered me into adulthood and wrapped me up in his arms at night. A man that whisked me away to exotic locales and made me feel special despite the disputes we had on a regular basis. I felt the body heat of the man I’d made love to for years. The man who took my virginity. The man who kissed my body at all hours of the night.

I gazed into the eyes of the man that broke my heart and suddenly understood what Colton had been talking about.

This was a terrible decision.

“I thought I told you not to come around here?”

“I go anywhere when I’m invited by a beautiful woman to attend,” Matthew said.

I felt Colton appear behind me, standing strong as he gazed over my shoulder. I felt his presence, tense and defensive. I looked over my shoulder at him and up into a jawline that was pulled taut with anger and frustration.

And Matthew simply smiled at him.

“We can talk on the porch,” I said.

“Callie.”

Colton’s stern voice caught my ear and I drew in a deep breath.

“We’ll talk outside. Alone,” I said.

I peeled my gaze away from Colton and stepped out onto the porch. I could tell Matthew wasn’t happy about being let in, but I didn’t care. If I let him into this house, there was no guarantee he wouldn’t leave without a black eye. And the last thing I needed was to give Matthew more ammunition for the press. I closed the front door behind me, shutting Colton inside and leaving us alone outside on the front porch.

Then, I ushered us over to a couple of chairs and braced myself for the impending conversation.

“You look good,” he said.

He tried to reach out and take my hand, but I leaned back in the chair and crossed my leg over my knee.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Do you want me to begin?”

“If you’d like.”

“I miss you, Callie.”

“I miss you too, Matthew.”

“I made a massive mistake. And yes, I made it several times, but it doesn’t make it any less of a mistake.”

“I’m glad you are able to admit that,” I said.

“I want us back.”

“You do?”

“I really do, Callie. All I can think about when I lay down at night is you.”

“Is that what you thought about when you were lying next to her?”

I watched him clench his jaw as I drew in a deep breath.

“I’m ready to go to counseling with you,” he said.

My brow ticked in confusion as my eyes dropped down his body to read him. He was relaxed. Poised. Tense, but rightfully so. He gave no indication of deception. But then again, he never had.

At least, I never registered it.

How could I have been so blind?

“We do have issues to work through, Callie. You were right in that regard. I wasn’t willing to see it before, but I do see it now.”

“What issues?” I asked.

“You know, the issues you always said we had. We do have them.”

“Then tell me what they are.”

“You know. Just, the growing distant. And the uh, you know, making sure our paths line up and everything. Figuring out what our future might hold. Things like that.”

“We can talk about that kind of stuff right now. We don’t need a therapist to mediate that stuff,” I said.

“You said we did.”

“I said we needed a therapist to help us work through the frustrations of those conversations. Not the actual conversations themselves.”

“Same difference, Cal,” he said, chuckling.

“Not really,” I said flatly.

“Okay, then let’s talk about them,” he said as he clasped his hands.

“Where do you see your life heading, Matthew?”

“Travel. I want to travel, Callie. And I want to do it with you. I want to take in the sights nd the wonders of the world. I want to take over my grandfather’s business one day when it’s my turn and completely redo everything.”

“What would you change?” I asked.

“I want to move their headquarters, for starters. It doesn’t make sense for it to be in Los Angeles. Hawaii is more the company’s speed. And I want a secondary headquarters in France. On the outskirts of Paris.”

“That sounds nice.”

“I want all of that with you at my side, Callie.”

“And that’s fine. What else do you want out of life? What about your home life?”

“You know this,” he said.

“Then say it again. Breathe it into the air between us.”

I cleared his throat and sat back into his chair as his legs spread wide. He was posturing. Like he was setting up for a fight. And I didn’t understand why this conversation needed such a powerful stance from him.

“I want a house full of children. Kids I can love and support. I want them to run to you for love and care and I want them to pile in our bed in the morning. I want to watch you play with them and hold your hand while we create a family. I want to fill our home with children that have my eyes and your lips. I want to experience a true family with you, Callie. I always have.”

“Well, I want to open up my own psychology practice in Los Angeles,” I said.

“That’s fine. You could open one up in Hawaii and France for all I cared.”

“No, Matthew. You’re not listening. I want to open up a practice right here, in my hometown. In Los Angeles.”

“And that's fine. We could get you set up somewhere and you could open up an installation here or something.”

“And again, you’re refusing to listen. I want to be in Los Angeles running my own practice. A clinical practice geared towards helping children and adults cope with tragic losses like the one I experienced with the death of my mother.”

“Callie, this kind of stuff can be negotiated later,” he said.

“No, it can’t. Because just as you have your hard wants and requirements for your life, I have mine. See, this is one of your issues. You think that because you have the money, that I’ll simply tailor my future to suit the one you already have rolling through your head. And that isn’t how this works.”

“Well, you never wanted to open your own practice before. How am I supposed to make sudden contingencies on plans that seemingly come out of thin air?”

I scoffed and shook my head as my eyes fell closed.

“When the two of us were discussing pursuing my Master’s Degree, the sole reason for it was for me to open my own practice,” I said.

“I mean, eventually. I figured after we had a family and the kids grew up a bit, sure. You could open up a small place wherever we had settled,” he said.

“No. I specifically told you I wanted that practice here in Los Angeles. Where my family is.”

“I don’t remember that part of the conversation.”

“Well, just because you don’t remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t take place, Matthew.”

I watched Matthew chew on the inside of his cheek as I opened my eyes and found his again.

“So, setting that aside, let’s address the first major issue,” I said.

“Great. I’m all ears.”

“I don’t know if I want children. But I do know that I don’t want a house full of children.”

“What?” he asked.

“Yeah. That’s right. I never knew you wanted children up until this point. It wasn’t something we had ever discussed. And now, all of a sudden, you want a house full of kids, and I don’t.”

“You don’t want children at all?”

“Maybe if I find the right person one day. But no, I don’t want to raise more than one child.”

“Well, we can work around that. There are nannies and governesses for that type of thing.”

“It’s just simply about raising them, Matthew. It’s about giving birth. Those children will still come from me. I will still be emotionally bound to them. I don’t want to put my body through that. I don’t want to put my mind through that.”

“You’re the one that’s always saying a relationship is about compromise. And now, you’re not willing to compromise a damn thing.”

“You don’t compromise on children. If there’s one topic no two people who ever compromise on, it’s children. They’re helpless. They can’t help the circumstance they’re born into. How selfish would it be of us to ‘compromise’ on helpless lives just to try and force something to work?” I asked.

“Why is this even an issue anyway? We wanted children when we first got together.”

“No, we didn’t. I didn’t. I never said that. We never had that conversation. This is the first time it’s happening.”

“Callie, you didn’t have to. We didn’t have to. I see the way you are with children. They flock to you. They love you. How could you not want any of your own when you’re so good with them. It’s one of the reasons why I fell in love with you.”

“Just because I’m good with kids doesn’t mean I want kids. It doesn’t mean I want to raise them.”

“So, I just spent the last six years of my life with a woman who had no intentions to spend the rest of her life with me?

“No, you didn’t. But instead of having these conversations, we simply made assumptions. You and I both did. Our communication is shot, and while we got better, we still didn’t talk about the big things. And that drove a rift between us. A rift that I think ultimately led to my pulling away and your infidelity.”

“So you do admit that you pulled away,” he said.

“I admit that I dove a little too far into my schooling in order to distract myself from the path we were heading down, yes.”

“So, this isn’t all me. You’re admitting that.”

“It takes two to make something like this work and it takes two to break something like this.”

“Callie, I spent too much time with you to not invest long-term in this. Why are you doing this now?” he asked.

“I’m not a business associate, Matthew. I’m not some investment portfolio. I’m not the stock market. I’m a person, and I’m a person that didn’t work out for you. But through this conversation--through giving you what you wanted--I hope you finally see that compatibility-wise, we don’t work for the long-term.”

Something flashed behind Matthew’s eyes and it made me nervous. I watched his hands curl around the arms of the chair and I pressed myself further back into mine. I felt every muscle in my body tense. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. And when he stood to his feet and loomed over me, I knew I was in trouble.

“So, I made all of these plans and took you on all of these vacations and put down payments on all of this shit just so you could selfishly throw it out the window? I made a place for you in my future, monetarily and emotionally, and now you’re turning your back on it? I defended you to my father and convinced my mother that you were worth the time, and you think you can just hand that all back and everything’s going to be hunky dory? I could have saved my money on you, Callie! I could have spent it on a woman who made plans for me. Who considered me in her future instead of selfishly wanting me to tailor all of myself to her. You think I’m trying to make you compromise on your life, but you have no idea the compromises I’ve made to made your degree possible. To make our love possible. To make this relationship possible! Hell, I could have spent half as much money on another woman as I did you and I could have gotten my cock sucked twice as more!”

I flew up from my seat to defend myself as the front door burst open. It slammed against the wall inside the house, and in a flash Colton was on the porch. He slid in front of me, going toe-to-toe with Matthew as I stood there with tears in my eyes. I felt my hands shaking. My knees knocking together. I raised my hand and put it on the small of Colton’s back, then curled my fingers into his shirt.

I needed him to ground me, because I felt myself falling apart.

“You need to go ahead and make your exit now, Matthew,” Colt said.

“We aren’t done talking,” Matthew said.

“Yes, we are,” I said.

“We don’t have a conclusion yet. We sure as hell aren’t done,” Matthew said.

“The conclusion is that we’re done.”

I shot my gaze over Colton’s shoulder and connected my watery gaze to Matthew’s.

“We’re over, Matthew. We aren’t getting married and I’m not coming back. So, it’s time for you to leave,” I said.

Matthew’s eyes darted between mine and Colton’s before they narrowed. My hand trembled against Colt’s back as he reached around and wrapped his hand deftly around my wrist. Trying to comfort me as I drew in deep breaths through my nose. Matthew’s look made me nervous. Being this close to Colton made me nervous. Everything about this situation made me nervous and I didn’t know why.

Until Matthew spoke again.

“What’s going on here?” he asked.

“You’re leaving, that’s what’s going on,” Colt said.

“No, between the two of you,” he said.

“Nothing’s going on,” I said as my eyes hooked with Matthew’s.

But I knew that look in his eye. I didn’t know how he knew, and I didn’t know how he read the situation as well as he did, but he knew.

And that wasn’t good.

“Callie, that’s disgusting,” Matthew said.

“Get off this porch now,” Colt said hotly.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said breathlessly.

“Well, I do. I’ve been with you for six years, Cal. I know the face you get after you’ve been thoroughly fucked and satisfied by someone. You carry that glow about you for weeks when you’re dicked well,” Matthew said.

I felt every muscle in Colt’s back tense against my hand as his fists clenched at his sides. I stepped out from around him and looked up into his face. There was fire trickling through his icy blue stare. His veins pulsed with anger and his muscles twitched with fury.

I had to find a way to diffuse the situation.

“Matthew, I really do think you need to leave,” I said.

“I don’t know how the hell you could screw around with your uncle, but good fucking riddance. Nasty woman.”

He scoffed and shook his head before he moved to pass by myself and Colt. But he reached out quickly and fisted Matthew’s suit, dragging him back to his original spot. I yelped at the quickness of the action, then placed my hand on Colt’s arm. He held Matthew up on his tiptoes, staring down his nose as Matthew’s lips curled downward in deep disgust for what he had just found out.

“You have no right to judge based on what you’ve done. You can expect the police to be at your door by the end of the day with a restraining order in place,” Colt said.

I didn’t think the situation could get any worse. As the two of them stared one another down, I didn’t think things could escalate any further than they already had.

And then, it did.

“What the hell is he doing here and what the hell is he talking about?”

My blood froze in my veins. Tears flooded my vision. I looked between the bodies of Colt and Matthew, peering straight into my father’s eyes. I had no idea how long he had been standing there. No idea how long he had been listening. But as my heart stopped in my chest and my mind came to a roaring halt, I knew things were about to change forever.

I just didn’t know how much.