I pulled up into the driveway of my brother’s home and went tearing through the house. I got to my office to start on some paperwork for the acquisition of our international headquarters and I pass by a television with Callie’s face plastered on it. Again. The articles had been in full force all day with the rumors of the engagement being called off and I couldn't focus. For the past two months, I’d tried to get in touch with Callie. My brother, Clayton, tried calling her while I attempted to text her. Anything to get her to respond and let us know she was all right. And we heard nothing.

Clayton had to hold me back several times from driving to Stanford myself to see her.

I slammed through the front door and dropped my briefcase in the foyer. I headed straight for the living room as the drone of the television filled my ears. I heard Matthew’s name. I heard Callie’s name. I heard mention of the engagement.

Then, I came around the corner and saw the headline.

Official: Jenniper Engagement Cancelled!

“What the hell is a Jenniper?” I asked.

“It’s the fusion of ‘Jennings’ and ‘Roper’. Some sort of monicker for their relationship,” Clayton said.

I watched my haggard brother stand up from the couch as he raked his hand through his hair.

“Still can’t get in touch with her?” I asked.

He shook his head, keeping his eyes glued to the television screen. I walked over beside him and unbuttoned the my suit coat. I put my hand between his shoulder blades and eased him back into his seated position. He looked like shit. Pajama pants. Holes in his damn shirt. A tattered robe tossed around his shoulders. His hair sticking every which way except where it was supposed to be.

I wanted to say something to him, but I knew it was no use.

I turned my attention back to the television and settled my elbows on my thighs. I watched Callie’s life roll before my very eyes. The gossip stations were rehashing their entire relationship. I saw pictures from her junior year of college when they were out on their first official date. I saw pictures of a vacation they took together to Rome to celebrate her Bachelor’s degree. I saw multiple pictures of him down on one knee with that massive rock gleaming for all to see.

It burned my blood, watching those pictures flash up.

Soon enough, the pictures of Callie happy as can be turned over to pictures of Matthew with that woman. Red hair. Brown eyes. She practically fell all over the man. Pictures of them kissing and holding hands. Pictures of Matthew’s hands gripping her ass and pressing her against some random brick building in Australia. Vacations he should’ve taken Callie on. Places he should’ve whisked my niece away to.

Well, step-niece.

“She’s due home today and her phone is shooting me straight to voicemail, Colton.”

Clayton’s voice ripped me from my trance and I was more than happy to turn away from the media assault on Callie’s life.

“You know Callie. When she gets wound up, she needs space.”

“She never did from you.”

“Because I’m the cool step-uncle. No one needs a break from that.”

“Am I not the cool step-dad?”

“Not in this outfit, you're not,” I said.

“I don’t even know if my little girl’s coming home, Colton.”

“She’s coming home. That’s the thing about Callie. If she told you she’s coming home today, then she’s coming home today. No questions asked,” I said.

“What if she gets into a wreck? It’s a five and a half hour drive if she doesn’t take the coastline like she does sometimes. If she’s got her phone off, she can’t call for help.”

“You bought her a top-of-the-line SUV to usher in her Master’s degree. That thing will call for help at the verbal mention of an accident. She’s going to be fine, Clay. And anyway, she’s going to need a break from all of this drama that’s been dredged up. She’ll get here, and then you won’t be able to get her out.”

“I hope you’re right, Cole. I really do.”

I rubbed my brother’s back as he heaved a heavy sigh. A loaded sigh. It was the sigh of a father who was concerned for his only daughter. I really wanted this to pan out in his favor. I really wanted Callie to come walking through those front doors. I’d been sending her text messages letting her know that I had been thinking of her, but all of them went unresponded to. Which wasn’t like Callie. There were many times where she didn’t want to talk to Clay, but there had never been a point in time where she didn’t want to talk with me.

Until now.

Not hearing from Callie rose within me a protective instinct that was almost ill-placed. And my want to chase after her at Stanford myself had gotten me more than a few awkward looks from my brother. I tried to reign it in whenever I was around him. I tried not to let Clay see how badly all of this shit affected me. But every time a news cycles went by with Callie’s face plastered on it, I wanted to go to her. To protect her. To take her in my arms and let her know things were going to be okay.

I wasn’t sure when the feelings started. The only thing I knew was that they were inappropriate. I was a forty-nine year old man who helped raise my step-niece after her own mother died. To this day, Callie called me her ‘second father’. To this day, she regarded me as an authority figure. A part of her world. A part of her family.

To look at her and feel my heart slam against my chest was wrong.

And yet, it had been happening ever since she came back from her freshman year of college.

The day Cathy died slapped us all across the face. That woman had been there for all of us. She had been a caretaker for all of us. Ever since she had been hired by Clay to be his secretary for our flourishing real estate company, she had been part of us. I watched their romance blossom. I saw the looks Clay gave her when he thought no one was looking. I saw the times Cathy came out of his office disheveled and I babysat Callie more times than I could count so they could go out on dates.

I’d known that girl every since she was five years old. Cathy would bring her to work and Callie would run up and down the hallways with her little feet. She’d dip into my office and climb into my lap, giggling and rattling on about her days in kindergarten. And first grade. And second grade. And all the grades. Running into my office turned into talking behind closed doors in her room. Sitting in her fuzzy white chair while she gossiped to me about all of the drama of her high school years. I loved that girl. She was part of our family. Cathy and Callie both were. And the day Cathy died, I promised her I would look after Clayton and Callie. I promised to protect them. To lift them up and hold them down when things got to be too rough.

What would she think if she saw me now? Falling in love with her twenty-six year old daughter.

She’d think I was sick.

“I can’t listen to this shit anymore,” Clay said.

He picked up the remote and switched off the television, blanketing the house in silence.

“At least the engagement’s been called off?” I asked.

“For all we know, it’s another fabrication to get attention. And since I can’t get Callie on the phone, I can’t confirm anything. He’s a fucking attention-whore, Cole. Useless and begging for attention. How the hell did we ever give him approval to marry my daughter?”

“Well, if you remember correctly, I wasn’t on board that train.”

“I should’ve listened to you. You said that boy was no good for her.”

What he didn’t know was what my point of view came from a very selfish place.

“If she doesn't come home tonight, both of us are headed to Stanford in the morning,” Clay said.

“Now that’s a train I can get on.”

“And you haven’t heard from her at all? Not even from one of your little secret conversations?”

“Secret conversations?”

“Oh, come on, Cole. I’m not stupid. I know she confides in you and talks to you about things she’ll never tell me. You don’t have to tell me what you two talked about. Callie needs someone like that in her life. But have you heard from her? At all?”

I looked into my brother’s eyes and saw a desperation there I hadn’t seen since Cathy’s accident. The distraught written all over his features ripped me back to that moment. To the time we got that phone call at his office. I’d been meeting with him to discuss moving forward with the acquisition of our first ever international piece of property. I was in the throes of convincing him to let me spearhead the project, even though I was technically C.F.O. of Roper Realty, Inc. I could still remember how pale my brother’s face went. The tears that rose to his eyes. The absolute panic that washed over his features when he slammed the phone down.

The shake in his voice when he told me Cathy had been hit by an oncoming car.

She had been in the I.C.U. for days before her body finally gave out, and it was one of the worst points in all of our lives. Cathy had been the spoke that held all of us together. And when she went under, we all tumbled to the floor. Crumbled underneath the weight of her loss. She had been our support system. She had single-handedly helped us to lay the foundation for what became our multi-billion dollar real estate empire. It had been her fleeting idea to branch out internationally. To take Roper Realty to places it never thought to go before. That was all her idea.

“Do you remember when I adopted Callie?” Clay asked.

“Like it was yesterday,” I said.

“Callie was so confused. When I told her this meant I’d be her father for real, she wrinkled her nose and said, ‘but I thought you already were’.”

“I remember how stunned you were when she wanted to change her last name to ‘Roper’,” I said.

“That day was the happiest day of my life. It rivaled the happiness I felt when I married Cathy. Getting her newly-minted birth certificate and Social Security Card in the mail with ‘Callie Rose Roper’ on it brought tears to my eyes for days.”

“What’s going on in that head of yours, brother? Why all the memories?”

“What if Callie isn’t picking up the phone because she doesn’t think I can give her good enough advice?”

“Oh, come on. That’s nonsense.”

“I mean, it’s plausible. And with her not talking to you, I’m wondering if she’s shutting all this in and becoming angry at the fact that her mother isn’t here for this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“This is one of those moments where moms are needed. Callie’s entire world has fallen apart and her scumbag fiance has cheated on her. That’s Mom territory if I’ve ever heard it. But she doesn’t have Cathy here. She’s only got us.”

“So, you think she isn’t picking up because she’s angry.”

“What if she doesn’t come home because she’s angry?”

“Like you said, tomorrow morning--if she isn’t here--we’re headed to Stanford.”

“But wouldn’t that make her angrier? For us to just show up like that when all she wants is her mother?” he asked.

“Have you gotten any sleep in the past two months?” I asked.

“No,” he sighed.

I chuckled and shook my head before I pulled him into a hug.

“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. First off, you need a shower. You stink and it’s gross. Then, you need a fresh change of clothes. Some of your Dad jeans with your polo shirt tucked in with a belt will do just fine. Then, you’re going to come down here and we’re going to wait for Callie to show up and I’m going to cook dinner.”

“Cathy liked my ‘Dad jeans’ and my polo shirts tucked in.”

“Doesn't mean you don’t look insane,” I said as I patted his chest.

“I should wait until she does show up. You know, if she does show up.”

“Clay, you’re running yourself in circles. You do this all the time when you think Callie needs the world on a platter. If she comes crashing through those doors, the first person she’s heading for is you. It’s always you. Which means you can’t smell like moldy cheese and B.O. when it happens.”

“I don’t smell like--.”

I watched him lift his arm and sniff before he grimaced.

“Be right back.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” I said.

I heard my brother’s footsteps backtrack behind me before he headed up the steps. Then, I reached for the remote and turned the television back on. I needed to know what was being said about Callie. What that little shit was up to next. But every time her picture flashed up on screen, it reminded me of his disgusting I had become. My heart slammed against my chest every time I saw her face. My mouth went dry at the sight of her smile. My mind swirled with jealousy at every picture that flashed up of Matthew with his hands on her.

I groaned as I put my face in my hands.

Callie’s phone calls from college lit up my entire day, and they shouldn't have. Our long conversations at night when she needed to vent made my chest swell with pride, and they shouldn't have. Getting texts from her throughout the week made my heart soar, and they shouldn't have.

And I sure as hell shouldn't be as relieved as I felt that her engagement had fallen through.

“Do you think I should call Callie again?” Clay yelled down the stairs.

“Take a damn shower, you nasty fuck!” I exclaimed.

“Then you try calling her!”

“I’m not doing anything until I hear that water running!”

I heard my brother grunt his disapproval before he walked down the hallway. I sat and listened as the water turned on upstairs, then I waited a few minutes for it. I waited, and I waited, and I counted down the seconds until…?

“Every time when I look in the mirror, all these lines on my face getting clearer. The past is gone. It went by, like dusk to dawn. Isn't that the way everybody's got the dues in life to pay.”

I chuckled and shook my head as I pulled my phone from my pocket. I had no idea how Cathy put up with his awful singing in the shower. I guess it was just one of those things married people did. Not that I’d know. I’d never been anywhere near a woman I would have even considered that type of life with.

Except Callie.

I shook the thought away as fast as it entered. No. It couldn't happen. I helped raise the girl. She was twenty-six. I was forty-nine. She was my step-niece, for crying out loud. It wasn't happening. Ever.

“Sing with me, sing for the years. Sing for the laughter, sing for the tears. Sing with me, just for today. And maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away.”

Yeah, what he needed to take away was my wildly inappropriate crush on Callie.

I scrolled through my phone and pulled up her number, my finger hovering over the phone. I wanted to call her, but I wasn’t sure if I could handle her not picking up again. It killed me every time she shot me to her voicemail. Every time my message was read, but never responded to. I closed my eyes and sighed as the shower turned off upstairs, and Clay’s terrible singing came closer as he moved from room to room.

I sighed and put my head in my hands. I felt like an idiot. It was just Callie. Little Callie. My Little Callie. I pressed my finger down onto her number and held the phone to my ear, then gritted my teeth when it didn’t even ring. Just picked up her voice mailbox I’d practically memorized over the course of the last few weeks.

“Anything?” Clay asked.

I turned around and saw him coming down the stairs in an outfit I’d never be caught dead in. A dark green polo shirt tucked into the band of his jeans with a brown belt wrapped around his hips. I was about to tell him ‘no’. That her phone was off. That we needed to give her more time. That we had no reason to panic yet. That she needed space.

Then, our heads swiveled over to the door when we heard tires roll across the pavement of the driveway.