Page 54 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

Now that I wanted to convince her to try to go there with me, I also had shit in my life that I needed to clean up. If she found out that I’d had a steady woman on the side for the past few months, there was no way in hell that she’d take me seriously when I suggested the two of us try a real relationship on for size. Maybe it was the fear talking and knowing that we had just a little over a year to go before she was free to leave me permanently. Maybe, it was the fact that she had entertained a date with another man that woke me up. Truthfully, I think it was just a matter of me starting to fall in love with my wife a little bit at a time as we developed our friendship. No matter what was at the root of things, it boiled down to me needing to clean my life up in order to keep her in it.

“Your woman is on fire tonight! She doesn’t look like a club whore though. Where’d you pick this one up?”

I turned to Tommy Burrows, the guitarist in the band that I brought Lily to see. They had just finished their set about fifteen minutes ago and my woman was currently dancing to the house music. “She’s no fucking whore. That’s my wife.”

“Your wife?” His head flew back. “Since when did you get married?”

“Since she was pregnant with Declan.”

“That’s your son’s mom?”

“Yeah,” I answered honestly while keeping my eyes on her the whole time.

“You have that fine ass ball of fun sitting at home, taking good care of your boy, and you still fuck around with nasty club whores?”

For the first time all night, I turned my eyes away from Lily in order to try to set my friend ablaze with the fury that I was feeling as a result of his question. He threw his hands up, as if he surrendered to something.

“Hey man! Don’t blame me for pointing out the obvious. Is she a raging bitch at home or something?”

“Nah. Never has been unless I absolutely deserved it. Even then, she’s never given me the amount of shit she should have.”

Tommy shook his head. “Why would you ever step out on her then?”

“Stupidity. Bad timing. Thought I was in love with someone else when I knocked her up, and it tainted everything. You name it.”

“You trying to change that shit up now?”

“Maybe, if she lets me.”

“You got a place in town tonight?”

“Nah. Figured I’d just ride her back when she was done having her fun.” My eyes were back on Lily as she continued dancing the night away with some of the girlfriends of the band members.

“Here,” Tommy said as he dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key. “It’s to my place. Ain’t much, but it’ll give you some privacy for the night and as luck would have it, I put clean sheets on the bed today.”

I laughed. “Hoping to get lucky tonight?”

“Something like that, man. I’ll stay with one of the guys though. When you leave tomorrow, just leave the key on the table. I’ll grab the spare from my mom’s place before I head home.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. They have a suite at the hotel just down the street since I’m the only one with an apartment here.” I still didn’t understand why Tommy kept a place in Savannah when the bunch of them lived in Charleston, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’d take a night alone with my gorgeous Tiger Lily over the two-hour ride back. I wasn’t drinking, but she had been.

When we got back to Tommy’s place, Lily gave me a dubious look. “He said it wasn’t much, but that it was a clean place to crash for the night. I can always go try to find us a hotel room.”

“No. It’s fine. No need spending the money.”

As if I needed to worry about money. Once we got inside the tiny apartment, Lily let out the breath she must have been holding. “Well, I guess he didn’t lie about it being clean.”

I laughed. “Tommy has a neat freak living inside of him. He’s always kept his place in Charleston pretty spotless because he says when they all tour together, the rest of the band are complete pigs and he can’t stand it.”

“Right.” Lily only gave a one-word response as she looked around. There was a chair sitting in front of the television, and it was not one of those comfortable reclining kinds. “I’m afraid to look in the bedroom.”

The bedroom was just a bed hiding behind some sheets that were thumbtacked into the ceiling. It offered the only privacy barrier from the bed to the kitchen/living room we were standing in.

“He did not over exaggerate when he said it was a tiny place.”

Both of us devolved into laughter at that. “Let’s do some shots!” Lily yelled as she grabbed Tommy’s sealed bottle of Patrón.

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