Page 70 of Without You, Scotch and Sammy 2

We all watch him walk away, and I can’t even be mad at him. Ever since the day I met him, he’s been nothing but loyal and kind to me. He’s not trying to hurt me. He’s trying to protect me from making the same mistake twice.

“Alright guys, lets just play for a bit. Lemme show you what I’ve got.”

“Do any of the words in your new song rhyme with Sammy?” Angelo asks.

“Or ass?” Luc adds with a smile.

I smile and grab my notes. “Nah, but there’s a lot of shit in here about flowers.”

“I wonder how many words I can find that rhyme with squeak?” Angelo asks with a soft laugh.

***

Since the weekend is nearing, which means club nights three nights in a row and three a.m. finishes every morning, I haven’t been able to spend much time with Sammy and Lily.

We’re back to being roommates who rarely see each other, and we pass in the hall as Sammy gets up to Lily for her three a.m. bottle.

But that’s not such a bad thing either. Marc’s harsh words at the club reopened a wound that hadn’t really even healed. An afternoon of rekindling something a couple teenagers once had, had me believing that maybe things could be okay. In a perfect world where I could forget the past, maybe if I met her all over again as adults without all the hurt, maybe that could work out to be something for us.

But this isn’t a perfect world.

This is just the world where I’m still married to a woman I don’t know, and she’s still not the same Sammy that I fell in love with.

“You’re not actually considering this, are you?”

Britt walks toward me, swatting me over the head with her used newspaper, as Jack stands by his kitchen counter, and Alex mirrors him on the opposite side of the kitchen. Juliette was here a few minutes ago, but claiming a headache that I know translates to ‘I can’t be objective about this, so I’m just not going to be involved,’ she took baby Charlie outside to play in the afternoon sun, and left me to deal with my brother and sister.

“I’m gonna help her.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Britt snaps. “Why would you help her? Why would you even let her past your front door?”

“It’s not Lily’s fault that Sammy and I screwed things up.”

“Oh. No!” she snaps. “You didn’t screw anything up. She did!”

“You don’t know, Brat. You were a kid.”

“I know that the guy who used to be my big brother went AWOL after she fucked him over. I know that my brother, who used to skate with me and pick me up when I fell, turned into a zombie after she left. I might have been too young to know what went down, but I wasn’t too young to notice the broken man she left behind. Why aren’t you angry about this?”

I shrug my shoulders and look down at the cooling coffee in front of me. “I was angry. I was really fucking angry. But, I dunno… I guess I’m trying to let go of the hate.”

“So call Nancy and let it go with her! Let it go all over her, and tell that other bitch to fuck off.”

“Don’t do that! Don’t call her names.”

“Jesus. Are you kidding me right now?

“I’m not kidding. You need to back up.”

Snarling, she picks up the newspaper and smacks me in frustration. I lift my arms to protect my head, because my baby sister is no wallflower, and her fighter husband has, evidently, been a bad influence on her.

“Jack!”

He chuckles. “Are you suggesting I can actually do something about this? Because I can’t. Not a chance in hell. She’s just letting go of the hate, bro.”

Alex steps forward and steals the paper from her hand mid-swing, but she turns on him with a filthy glare. “I’ve got some energy for you too, X.”

“You need to cool it, Brat. You might not agree with his choices, but you need to stop hitting people.”

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