Page 57 of Savior

I glanced over to the empty passenger seat, wondering again if I should’ve stopped for flowers. She hated flowers, but maybe this was an occasion where flowers were mandatory.

Jesus Christ, Red had kept me on my toes since day one. She’d taken everything I thought I knew about women and turned it on its head. If I wanted her back, I was going to have to think like she did.

“If I’m Lauren, what is it I want? I’ve got a husband who’s a crushing disappointment and two babies on the way. It’s obvious that my life hasn’t turned out like I’d hoped.” I sighed. It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for her to take me back.

Torch’s house came into view, and my palms grew slick with sweat as I pulled in behind the generic black sedan her dad had loaned her.

Grey had mentioned opening an account in my name as a sort of emergency fund, maybe there’d be enough to get her something of her own. Something big enough for a family.

“Now you’re thinking like a chick, Mike,” I praised myself before realizing I still had no idea what to say to convince Lauren that I’d changed.

My boots crunched across the gravel, and I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my jeans before deciding it only made me look suspicious.

According to Angel, I needed to keep my body language open… whatever the fuck that meant.

I took a deep breath and knocked, watching a moth buzzing around the porch light as if it had found the holy grail. A few seconds went by, and no one answered, so I peered in through the living room window.

“Since you left, everybody says I'm not the guy they've known. The lights are on, but nobody's home,” I crooned softly, sounding nothing like Clint Black, before moving around to the side of the house.

“Oh, yes. Right there… right there,” a muffled female voice moaned loudly as I reached a bedroom window.

I froze in shock, knowing exactly what it was I was hearing, but not wanting to believe it. The curtains were drawn, but it didn’t matter.

I was going in.

God help the man who had his hands on my wife.

The front door was locked, but the back one was wide open. I slipped inside, easing the screen door closed behind me. They’d know I was here soon enough, but I wanted the element of surprise on my side.

Especially if it was Jimmy.

The goddamned tree was liable to take my head off.

“Yeah, do that again. Touch yourself, I wanna see it.”

It wasn’t Jimmy, I realized with a growing sense of nausea.

It was Torch.

“Torch, you motherfucker!” I roared as I marched down the narrow hallway and threw open the bedroom door. “She’s young enough to be your daughter!”

My hand came up over my mouth, and I fell into the wall. “Jesus, fuck!”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Torch growled, yanking the comforter over the woman’s body before wrapping a sheet around his waist, but not before I saw more than I ever needed to. “You got a death wish, boy?”

“L-L-Louisa?” I sputtered, struggling to cover my eyes. “Does David know? God, I thought you were—I’m trying to find Lauren!”

“She ain’t fuckin’ here! Now, get the fuck out unless you want me knockin’ some goddamn sense into that thick skull of yours.”

Keeping my hand over my eyes, I stumbled back out into the hallway. “I’m sorry. So, so fucking sorry.”

Torch slammed the door shut behind me as Louisa called out, “You tell David about this, and we’re going to have some real problems, Michael Sullivan!”

“I just wanna know where my wife is,” I pleaded helplessly. “I never wanted to see two old people going at it like rabbits—”

“Old? I’m forty-six, you piece of shit! Still more than capable of kickin’ your sorry ass!” Torch threatened.

“Forty-six?” I called back with a sudden smirk. “Why, Louisa Greene, you’ve gone and got yourself a younger man. Remind me again, did we just celebrate your fifty-fourth or fifty-fifth birthday?”

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