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He never chastised me, condescended, or made me feel like my errors in judgment were born of idiocy. He merely listened to everything I had to say, and then he said the words that have had me contemplating all day.
He had said, “In my opinion, unaccomplished people only consider the risks, not the rewards. ”
It was a bold statement by my father, meant to slap me with reality and make me remember some very important things about myself.
Then my dad said even more important words. He said, “Son… you are not an unaccomplished man. ”
I am not an unaccomplished man.
I have succeeded over and over again, sometimes against great adversity. And yet, when it came to Mac, I’ve been so focused on being fearful of the risks, that I never really thought about how f**king great the rewards could be. I never let my desire to have Mac drive me forward. I never let it push me to seek that which I desired most.
So very strange, because seeking reward is the very crux of my career. It’s what drives me to be the very best attorney I can be for my clients. Because I’m striving for that reward… which is justice… and it is beyond motivating.
I feel like ten times the fool for letting my own fears get in the way of my own drive and determination.
But no more.
I’m taking back what is mine, and Mac Dawson is mine.
There is one more thing that needs to be done though, before I can seek Mac out.
I walk to the receptionist desk and give a curt smile to the regal-looking woman sitting behind it. She peers at me over the rims of tortoiseshell, cat’s-eye glasses.
“I’d like to see Cal Carson,” I tell her firmly.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asks pleasantly.
“No, but buzz him… tell him Matt Connover is here to see him. ”
I’m not sure if the woman recognizes my name, or the tone of my voice brooks no nonsense, but she nods and does as I ask. After a few murmured words into the phone, she turns to me and says, “Mr. Carson will be right up. ”
I don’t bother sitting on one of the plush leather chairs scattered throughout the lobby, because if I know Cal, and I believe I do, he’ll be up quickly.
“Matt?” I hear from behind me, and turn to see Cal standing there looking at me with worry. “Is Mac alright?”
The concern in his voice is touching… truly. I think he’s going to be a very good friend to Mac in the future, and that makes me grateful. “She’s fine. ”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I was hoping we could talk,” I tell him as I stick my hands in my pocket, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet.
Cal just stares at me blankly, because I’m sure what I just said was probably as shocking as if I had said, “Cal, I’m a transgendered werewolf that wants to enter the priesthood and I need your help”.
Finally, Cal gives a little shake of his head and nods. “Let’s just go in this conference room right here. ” He motions with his hand to a door off the lobby.
I follow him in, noting that his spine is ramrod straight, his shoulders stiff. His brain must be short-circuiting right now, trying to figure out what I want.
When he takes a seat at the end of the long, rectangular table, I take the one to his left and lean back casually. Cal doesn’t relax a bit, putting both forearms on the table and his hands clasped so tightly that his knuckles are white.
I take a moment to study his face… one I’ve looked at hundreds of times over the years, mostly in friendship, lately only in hate. I used to trust him with my life, and that will never be regained. But I think I might have some room to possibly try to understand him.
“Mac told me some details about that night. She urged me to learn the entire truth, and she thinks I need to forgive you. ”
Cal’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Do you think you need to forgive me?”
“Yes,” I tell him simply, watching as he jerks in his seat and his jaw drops in disbelief.
And I do.
Need to forgive him, that is.
If I’m going to truly open myself up to Mac, I have got to let it all go. The hate, the bitterness, the regrets. I have no room for it if I’m going to give one-hundred percent to Mac. I have to get rid of it because I don’t want any of it to taint what I have with her.
“You want to forgive me?” he asks, still incredulous.
“I want you to tell me what happened with Marissa,” I tell him with a hard glint in my eye. “Then I want to forgive you. ”
Cal takes in a deep breath and lets it out with a stuttering quality of gratefulness. “Okay. ”
“I don’t need the details… I just need to know your involvement,” I say quietly.
He nods in understanding. “First, you need to know. I was wrong. It was my fault. ”
I hold up a hand and stop him. “I’ve heard that from you already. But I want to know the part where you realized it was wrong. ”
Cal hangs his head in shame. “I knew it was wrong from the start… at least, I think a part of me did. ”
“But you didn’t initiate it,” I prompt him urgently, because he’s not giving me what I want. He’s still stuck on the liability when I need him to focus on the absolution.
“No,” he says quietly. “Marissa crawled into bed with me. I was passed out, I think… I came to and she was…”
He trails off thankfully because I really, really don’t want the details, and he doesn’t want to say it out loud. “Then what happened?”
“We consummated, Matt. I had sex with her. But just moments after we started… I stopped it. I pushed her off because I had a wave of guilt slap me hard. I knew my friendship with you had already been ruined, but I couldn’t go through with it. I just want you to know, I will never be sorrier for anything I do the rest of my life than I am for what I did to you. I never want to cause that type of pain to another person. ”
He doesn’t say anything more, and he really doesn’t need to. Cal stares at me, his shame and remorse obvious. The funny thing is… I always knew he was remorseful. I never doubted that before.
Before, though… I just didn’t care.
Tapping my fingers on the table before me, I give Cal a sardonic smile. “I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately. What I’ve determined is that I’m not the man I have the potential to be… for myself, for Mac. I need to be free from this. ”
Cal just nods at me in understanding.
“I forgive you, Cal. I forgive Marissa too, for that matter, but I’ll need to have that conversation with her later. ” I stare at him with conviction, so he understands I mean this from the bottom of my soul. “I’m letting it go, and I want you to as well. ”
He swallows hard and says, “Thank you, Matt. I don’t deserve it. ”
“Sure you do,” I tell him with a short smile. “Doesn’t mean we will ever be friends again… but you deserve forgiveness. Besides, looks like you’re in Mac’s life and I intend to be back in her life, so you and I needed to make amends. ”
He grins at me. “So are you going to do some groveling?”
“Yup. And you can help me out. Besides, you owe me. ”
“That I do… what do you need?”
“I want to run an idea by you first, and then I want you to make a phone call for me. ”
***
Cal is handling the favor I asked of him right this very moment by making a call to Mac. I’m standing outside of her office with my ear pressed against her closed door, listening to her entire conversation with him. None of it’s confidential, because he’s doing nothing more than telling her about the conversation I just had with him an hour ago at his office.
I can only hear Mac’s end of the conversation, but I hear excitement, and joy, and wonder in her voice as Cal tells her about our meeting just a bit ago. I can tell the moment that Cal tells her that I’m standing outside of her office door, just as I asked him to, because she has a quick intake of breath and then says, “I’ll talk to you later, Cal. ”
My heart is slamming in my chest, waiting for her to open her office door. In just moments, the course of my life will be determined.
In just a moment, I’m saying f**k the risks and reaching for my reward.
The door opens, and I’ll never get tired of looking at this woman. Her eyes are clouded and I don’t know what she’s thinking. She gestures me in and says, “Cal said you forgave him. ”
“It needed to be done,” I respond as I watch her sit back down behind her desk.
Turning to me, she cocks an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
I don’t answer her, instead reaching inside my coat pocket and pulling out her letter of resignation she turned in to me two weeks ago. Throwing it on her desk, I watch as she stares at it a moment, and then looks up at me in confusion.
“Open it,” I tell her, nodding back down at the envelope.
She reaches out and picks it up, opening the flap and looking inside. Her eyebrows furrow inward and she turns the envelope upside down, letting the tiny scraps inside flutter out over her desk.
“I don’t accept your resignation,” I tell her firmly, and as evidenced by her letter I just returned to her torn to shreds.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re not quitting. I need you. ”
She curls a lip upward and scoffs at me. “You don’t need me. You can put an ad in the paper and have a hundred attorneys lined up in the morning, all with better grades and references than I have. ”
“No. You don’t get it,” I tell her softly, I but annunciate very clearly. “I. Need. You. ”
Mac’s eyebrows rise high now, as she understands what I’m saying. I take two steps until I’m standing directly in front of her as she looks up at me from her chair.
Dropping to my knees, I watch her eyes go warm, her lips slack. Leaning forward, I don’t say a word but merely wrap my arms around her waist and lay my head in her lap. It’s a move calculated for her to understand how very sorry I am for hurting her, and how very much I need her. I’m literally putting myself in her arms and begging her to let me back in. It’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever done in my life.
Mac’s arms come up and she puts her hands on my head, stroking her fingers through my hair. I sigh in contentment, because her touch feels so comforting. I decide this is the best thing I’ve ever felt. I’m never moving from this position, and I let Mac pet me as I lay in her embrace.
After what could be forever of basking in her touch, I squeeze her waist before pulling back.
My voice shakes with emotion. “I need you, Mac. I need your smile, your touch, and your wit. I need your tenderness, your brilliance, and your common sense. I need you to be my champion, and I need you to want to come home to me every night. I need all of those things… desperately. I think I might die without them. ”
I’m relieved when her eyes fill with hope and yearning, yet she still feels the need to clarify. “You need me?”
“You’re usually not this dense,” I say with a grin.
She’s adorable when she exposes her ear by pushing her hair behind it with her fingers. “It’s just… I’m not sure I heard you correctly. You did say you need me?”
“Yes,” I affirm as I bring my hands up to cup her face. Leaning in, I give the sweetest kiss I’ve ever bestowed. “I need you because I love you. When you love someone the way I love you, the need for that person is unquenchable. It will never go away… it will never abate. My need for you will be forever. ”
Her voice cracks with sentiment. “And when did you come to this realization?”
I smile at her with understanding eyes. “I think I’ve always known it. I was just too filled with so many other things that I refused to acknowledge it. But last night… I held you while you slept, and I just laid there… the entire time, realizing how wonderful it felt to have your body next to mine. When it got close to the time I needed to leave so I could get ready for work, I felt like my heart was being f**king pulled out of my chest. That’s the moment I decided to acknowledge it. ”