I blink. “Fine?”
She shrugs and nods. “Fine. Let’s have another kid.”
We stare at each other across the table. Her face is so stoic and resigned, like she’s just agreed to live in Siberia for the next fourteen years.
“Ash…” I swallow and put down my fork and knife. “I wasn’t asking you to have them.”
Her mouth falls open but suddenly the doorbell jingles followed by a loud, hard thump of a fist on the door. We both jump.
“Are you expecting someone?” I ask skeptically.
“No.”
We both stand and make our way through the house and into the front foyer. I swing the door open, tense and unsure of what will greet me. When I see Callie’s tearstained face and giant, puffy parka over sweats with her giant brown Ugg boots, I almost smile. She’s a hot mess and that’s honestly how I love her best. But the fact that she is so disheveled and teary makes me worry something is terribly wrong with someone we love.
“Callie…what’s wrong?” I ask cautiously. “Is everyone okay?”
It’s a crazy moment where everyone I love flashes through my head. My mom, dad, Luc, Jordan, Cole, Rose, Jessie, Leah…Our lives—mine and Callie’s—are so completely linked that if anything happened to any of our loved ones, we’d both be affected dearly.
“Everyone is fine,” she says in a shaky voice and glances over my shoulder at Ashleigh. “But I’m not fine. I need to talk to you. Alone.”
Ashleigh pushes me out of the doorframe and glares at Callie. “We’re in the middle of dinner, Callie. Please leave.”
Callie ignores her completely and looks at me. “Devin, please.”
I open my mouth but nothing comes out. Ashleigh doesn’t have that same problem. “He ismyhusband. Go find another man to be your bed buddy. We’re working things out here, Callie.”
“Really, Ashleigh?” Callie shoots back suddenly, letting anger slip into her vulnerable disposition. “How, exactly, are you doing that? Are you going to unfuck the accountant?”
“Callie…let’s not go there,” I say defensively.
“I’m sorry, Devin,” she says, her big brown eyes wide and pleading again. “But she doesn’t deserve you.”
“And you do?” Ashleigh snorts in disgust. “You don’t love him. You don’t know what love is.”
Callie straightens her shoulders and gives me a strong, intense stare I don’t have time to even figure out the meaning of before she turns a hard, cold stare at Ashleigh.
“I know that he’s the strongest, kindest, sexiest man I have ever met,” Callie tells my wife with a hard edge to her voice. “I know he’d do anything he could to help me or save me from something. Even now after I fucked it all up, I know he’d be there for me. And I know that I would rather die than watch him suffer with a woman like you who has no idea how amazing he is and doesn’t appreciate everything he does and gives to a relationship.”
My heart is racing a mile a minute. I feel almost woozy, like I might pass out.
“I don’t want to mess up your marriage, but I know this…” Callie smiles at me and her eyes fill with tears and then she turns back to Ashleigh. “I know I would never, ever have even thought of cheating on Devin. I know that I could spend a million nights alone while he was on the road if it meant having even one night with him when he got home. I know when I’m with him, I am everything I never thought growing up I would ever be—happy, content and loved.”
I feel a lump start to form in my throat.
“Callie, you don’t know anything,” Ashleigh says, her voice high and grating like nails on a chalkboard. “You haven’t lived it.”
“I did live it,” she argues back. “I lived it when you kicked him out. I lived with him and Conner. I fed them and I cleaned the damn house and I sat home alone worrying he might get injured in away games.”
“And you made cupcakes,” I croak out for some reason.
Callie turns her face to mine and she grins, a tear slipping down her cheek. “And I made fucking cupcakes.”
“He chose me to live it with him. You were just there by default,” Ashleigh says in an angry whisper. “And now I choose him too.”
“I chose him all along.” Callie turns her eyes from Ashleigh and focuses on me again. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it seem that way. I was scared and stupid. But, Devin, I…I want to be with you.”
I gently move Ashleigh out of the way and place my hand on the doorframe and lean toward Callie on the front stoop.
