Page 48 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

“Lily, we should…”

“Nope. Nothing has changed. This was a mistake. That’s all.”

“Fine!” I snapped as I tossed the washcloth back into the bathroom and snatched my shit up off the floor. I walked out of the room, still naked, and dressed myself in the living room before leaving the house altogether. She was right. It had been a mistake and a mediocre fuck at that.

I didn’t want to examine why that was, since I knew it was mostly my fault. She deserved more than a half-assed hate fuck from me. She deserved someone who would fucking cherish her, take his time with her, worship that perfect fucking body she always hid away. My wife deserved to never have to deal with my bullshit again, and I vowed then and there that I would take my needs elsewhere as I’d been doing before, because when her five years were up, she was going to find her perfect world, the man of her dreams, and I’d watch her go because it was exactly what she deserved.

For the next couple years, I fucked off and played with whoever I wanted and ignored our fathers when they begged me to just go the fuck home to my family.

As if to prove how much none of the men in her life – besides my son – deserved her, the Christmas and birthday presents for Boone, Robbie, and me continued to stack up under the tree on that table in the living room. We never touched them, because I think in the back of all our minds, we realized we hadn’t earned anything she was willing to give us. Instead, they sat there accumulating. As those presents piled up, so did my sins.

Lily and I became friendly enough that we co-parented Declan like pros. I was there for his first steps, first words, and for the first time Lily panicked and had taken our boy to the hospital when she couldn’t get his fever down after an ear infection.

I’d almost missed that because I was busy fucking one of the whores at the clubhouse. Robbie had broken my door off the hinges, dragged my ass out of the room, and told me to get to the fucking hospital I ended up there on slab in the morgue. He didn’t give me the chance to shower or clean up and for that reason, Lily turned me away the minute she saw me.

I’ve never forgotten the sick look on her face when she saw me as she held our sick son, rocking him back and forth as she slicked his sweat-damped hair back off his forehead. She warned me before that it would cause problems if I ever tried to go around my son like that, and she hadn’t lied. For every bit of progress we made, I destroyed with the stupid decisions I made.

We had missteps like that intermixed with all our good moments. There was never a doubt that I was the asshole at the root of every fuck-up that sent all the progress in our relationship reeling backwards just as quickly. It was one of those times that ended up cementing our family and taking away Lily’s chance to ever get away from me.

For a while, it made her hate me even more. I couldn’t have been more thankful though, because it gave me the shove that I needed to make things right with my family once and for all.

15 - A Desperate Moment

Tiger Lily

2 years later

“Where’s Deck?”

Merc was standing at the top step of the loft stairs watching me type furiously on the computer. I didn’t bother glancing up, just took note of him from my peripheral.

“He’s with our dads for the night. They’re going camping and gator hunting tomorrow.”

“Gator hunting?” Merc chuckled at the idea. “Those old fools ain’t huntin’ no gators.”

I shrugged. “That’s what they told me. Said it was man’s business and when Deck agreed with them, I just packed him a bag and let it happen. He’ll be happy to be able to pee in the woods.”

“Yeah, my kid does love to water the trees.”

We both laughed at that because if our son could be naked from the waist down every day, he would.

“So, what are you doing up here?” When I didn’t answer and kept typing, he stepped forward a few paces, coming to the chair I had on the other side of my desk. “You better not be writing other people’s term papers for them. Told you, it should be you going to college.”

Not for the first time, I scoffed at that ridiculous notion. “I could barely keep up with high school after having Deck. There’s no way I could handle college.”

“He’s older now, you could put him in daycare whenever I’m not around or our dads can’t help.”

“I don’t want him in daycare when I can be here with him.”

“Lily, you have to start living your life too at some point.” I remembered the last time he told me to do that and took me to a party. It ended up being the second, and only other time besides when we made Deck, that we’d had sex. It wasn’t exactly a night that bared repeating.

“Who says I don’t live my life, Merc?” That question seemed to throw him off a bit, which was my intention. “I get out. Stacey was just in town two weeks ago and we went out dancing.”

“Where the fuck did you go dancing?”

I didn’t bother answering that. “Plus, I went out to lunch with Mitchell’s dad the other day. He was really nice.”

“Mitchell’s dad?” Merc’s brows knit together so tight, I thought he might just give himself a migraine. “Who the fuck is Mitchell? And why were you having lunch with his dad?”

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