Page 33 of Without You, Scotch and Sammy 2

“I fucking hate you for tearing me apart, Samantha.” He breathes through his clenched teeth. “I loved you so fucking much it tore me apart when you left. Now… I hate every hair on your body, and if I never saw you again, that would be fine with me.” He spins on his heels, snatches up keys and his wallet from the kitchen counter, then he stomps through the door and down the metal stairs. “FUCK!”

Lily whimpers at his booming shout, and I restart the bounces. “That didn’t go so well, huh, baby?” I kiss her hair and look around his kitchen. She’s smacking her lips, which means it must be close to nine a.m.

“If nothing else, Lil, I want you to remember how much I love you. I could never hurt him like this for anyone else but you.”

– Scotch –

Drink With Tink

The perks of being the exclusive band at Club 188, and basically being related to the people who own it, is they trust me to have keys to the place.

Suckers.

I let myself in the security door at the back and walk down the pitch-black hallway, banging my fist on the concrete wall as I move and humming an angry tune under my breath. This was something I wrote during my super angry phase after she left. Something about bitches, and the power in the pain words can inflict on another person. This is not a song I ever pitched to the guys, because they’d never go for it, and they’d possibly have me hospitalized, but my brain doesn’t forget this shit, so I remember every single key, every single word.

I’m here to make myself forget.

I walk past storage rooms and bathrooms, then moving into the main club area, I look around at all the tables with stools piled on top, the sparkling clean but worn floors, stained carpet from the alcohol being spilled on a nightly basis.

I look toward the stage, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out as I read our name on the front of Luc’s bass drum. ‘Who Cares?’ Jesus, we actually settled on the non-name. Years and years of arguing, and we chose the name that isn’t a name at all.

I shake my head and turn away, then walk to the bar and pull a stool down. I lean across the wooden top, glad that it’s morning and not night, so my shirt doesn’t lift away soaked with spilled booze, and I blindly grab at the first bottle my fingers touch.

I pull it out and sit hard on the stool behind me, then I look at the mystery bottle and sigh. Figures. I’m going to hate myself tomorrow. But that’s okay. I kinda hate myself today too. I’ve spent so much fucking time hating everything, that I don’t know how to stop.

I unscrew the cap from the bottle of scotch, and tip it up to my lips. Fuck shot glasses, I’m here to forget. Pouring shots takes too long. Measuring them out will be like playing sudoku. I’d be actively encouraging thinking and brain use. I don’t want that. What I’d like is some bleach, and maybe a cork screw.

She’s back. She’s beautiful. And she wants to use me.

Fuck that shit. Why should I spend even a minute with her, falling in love with her beautiful eyes and touching her sexy hair, just so she can leave again in two months?

I lift the bottle again, actually experiencing flashes of something akin to PTSD as the spicy liquid rolls over my tongue and burns its way down the back of my throat. I spin my stool to the left, then the right, nervously swaying in an attempt to not remember. I tap my fingers on the bar in an anxious tune. Words for a brand-new song coming to me like a movie in my brain. I take out my phone and start texting myself, humming under my breath as my fingers fly over the screen.

Images of a sweet baby Lily flash through my mind, with tiny wisps of fluffy hair, soft olive skin and rosy red cheeks. They should have named her Rosie, not Lily.

I hit the crescendo in my mind, closing my eyes to watch it play out, and blindly reach out for the bottle in front of me.

One song crosses over into another, but I push the intrusion away. This one isn’t for Sammy. Maybe for the first time in my life, I’m not writing a song for Sammy. Instead, I mentally write about the spring time, brand new flowers in bloom, sweet baby faces and the cries that are enough to tear a grown man down. I swallow another thirsty gulp of scotch as the face of Sammy’s baby mixes and collides with that of the baby she took from me all those years ago.

Yeah, there it is! That reminder. The anger. Samantha Ricardo stole from me! She aborted my baby without my permission. I know it’s a woman’s choice, but fuck! Give a guy two seconds to try to talk it out.

I continue to drink and push away the imagined baby, and instead, I slow down my own texting, because Lily’s song was getting too sharp, too mean, and no matter what Sammy did to me, Lily is an innocent.

My foot taps the stool leg and my eyes continue to drift shut as I watch a movie in my head. I text by muscle memory, knowing the words will be full of typo’s, but not minding because I’ll be able to decipher it later. A tiny baby that I didn’t know an hour ago dances in my mind; a tiny warrior princess out to slay dragons and sing in rock bands.

“It’s not even close to noon yet.”

My eyes snap open in surprise, but with a mellow grin and lazy movements, I place my phone down and spin at the pretty girl’s pretty voice.

Five foot nothing, sass for days, and short spikey hair, I smile. “What’cha doing, Tink?”

She wanders toward me suspiciously. “Not much. What are you doing… in my club… helping yourself to my liquor… while you talk to yourself?”

I smile lazily as scotch sloshes pleasantly in my stomach. “Had to get outta the apartment. Wanna come sit with me?” I hold the bottle in the air between us. “Have a drink with a buddy? Let’s get smashed, T. We’re only young once.”

“Ah, no.” She plucks the bottle from my fingers before I get a chance to hug it against my chest… like a baby. Fuck!

“What are you doin’ to yourself, Lemon Drop? This isn’t you.”

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