One Night

Colleen came home after closing the boutique early to get dressed for her parents’ anniversary party that night to find a man sitting on her porch. She approached the steps slowly until the form became recognizable.

It was Doug. He had been calling every day since she’d kicked him out. She never picked up, and he never left a message. So, why he was sitting on her porch now, confused her. “Doug?”

“Oh, you’re home.”

“Yes, I am.” She knew she was being short with him, but what did he expect? She wasn’t likely to be graceful around him anytime soon.

“How are you?”
Hearing his voice made all the hollow places ache. “Fine.”

“I thought maybe we could talk.”

“No. There’s nothing to say.” She closed her eyes and pushed past the pain—of loss and of loving a man that did not exist—as she pushed past him to unlock her front door. “It’s best if we both just move on.”

“I never meant to hurt you.” He followed close behind her as not to have the door closed in his face.

She opened her eyes and to turned to face him. “I’ve never understood what that means.” She laughed without humor. “You dated me, made love to me, and asked me to move in with you, but you weren’t physically attracted to me. Exactly what part of that wasn’t meant to hurt me?”

He was silent for several long moments. “You’re being sarcastic.”

“No. I sincerely want to know how you could lie to me for years, then claim you never meant to hurt me.”

“It’s true. I never meant for that to happen. I’ve always wanted a wife and kids and the house with the picket fence. I still do. With you.”

She almost felt sorry for him.

“What does it matter anyway? Men are unfaithful all the time.”

“That doesn’t make it right, Doug! It makes them just as guilty of lying and cheating as you.” She wished she could slam the door in his face now, but he was standing just inside the doorway. Looking past his broad shoulders, Colleen saw an unfamiliar car pull up to the curb in front of her house. A nicely dressed John stepped out of the driver’s seat. To Doug she said, “I think you should go.”

Following her gaze, he scowled. “Who’s that?”

“What does it matter?” she asked bitterly.

John strolled up the porch steps purposefully, obviously not fazed by the sight of a man in Colleen’s doorway. At least not until he saw the stress and slight anger in Colleen’s eyes. “Am I interrupting?” he questioned lightly, his gaze brushing over Doug before landing back on Colleen.

“Not at all. Doug was just leaving.” She looked only at John when she said this, thanking him silently with her eyes.

Doug’s shoulders seemed to widen, as he stood tall, almost as if he were ready for a fight. John noticed but didn’t look fazed as he broke eye contact with Colleen and settled instead on Doug. He extended his right hand. “Nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you,” he said, faux-nicely, as if the things he had heard were honorable or decent.

Doug’s eyes narrowed slightly as he stared at John’s outstretched hand. “And you are?” he questioned, his tone full of disdain.

Still unfazed and cool as the ocean breeze he had felt only from on the East Coast, John smiled. “John. Colleen and I went to high school together.”

“I thought you went to Morrison Prep,” Doug questioned, looking back at Colleen for the first time in minutes. She just shrugged as if that was an acceptable answer. Truth was, her mother had wished so much for Colleen to go to a fancy prep school that she had made up her own version of Colleen’s adolescent years – a version that was all high class, nothing average, ordinary, or the least bit rebellious.

“Nope,” John answered for her. “Mountain Pointe High. This one was top of the class.”

Colleen shook her head with an unstoppable smile creeping onto her face. “Second,” she corrected as she had numerous times when the pair were teens. He always put her on the highest pedestal, while she wished to be anywhere but.

John’s eyes rolled as an identical smile graced his features. After a moment, John turned back to Doug, who stood like he had been stunned into a statue at some point, a permanent glare fixed on John. “Weren’t you just leaving?” John questioned.

Doug didn’t answer. He just turned and stalked off the porch and down the sidewalk to his jeep parked several houses away. When he had ducked into the driver’s seat, Colleen reached out to touch John’s forearm. “You coming in?”

Her thoughts turned to that morning in the hotel. And the pheromones that rolled off him like heat waves tumbling across the Mojave Desert. Those pheromones had left her dazed, and there was no denying that she was very aware of him. The way he looked and smelled, the touch of his hand on hers.

What was wrong with her? She had just ended a serious relationship, and was already thinking about the touch of another man. But now that she thought about it for a rational moment, she realized her reaction to John probably had more to do with not have good-quality sex in ages rather than the man himself.

The last thing she needed, rebound or permanent, no matter how long it had been since she’d had good sex, was a man. No, she needed to be okay by herself before she even contemplated allowing a man in her life.

So she cleared her throat and stepped aside, allowing John to follow her into the home that was now hers alone.