“And you know what the fucked-up part is, Murse Kelly?” I downed my seventh shot of tequila, or was it my eighth? I didn’t know. What I did know was that there was a fantastic dive bar five blocks south of the arena that was well stocked with premium tequila. I found it by accident after I ran from the bus. Of course, murse-slash-bodyguard Kelly followed and parked himself right next to me on a stool. For every sip of water he drank, I took a shot.
“No, lass, I don’t. But I imagine you’re going to tell me.” Kelly tapped his fingers on the sticky bar top. The lighting was low, the seats a dark maroon vinyl. A perfect place to get wasted and dwell on everything that was going wrong.
“He never stayed at home for me.” My rant about Billy and his lack of parenting skills neared its second hour. It seemed like Kelly was tiring of it, but I was just warming up. “And when he was home, he slept until noon at least. He smoked in the house. He paraded a different woman through every night. I hope Daisy knows what she’s getting herself into because he’s going to be a shit father.” I stared into my empty glass, trying to keep my righteous indignation intact, but it dwindled. “That’s not true. He was a pretty good dad even with all that stuff. And now with this new baby he’s going to be even better.” I started to cry. Again.
“I’m about to cut your girlfriend off, man,” the bartender said to Kelly. He was cute, not as cute as Kelly and not nearly as hot as Warren. But he had a beard and I’d always liked a little scruff. What girl doesn’t?
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Kelly scoffed.
I couldn’t muster any indignation at Kelly’s quick denial. I slapped the counter. “Keep them coming.”
The bartender gave me the side eye, pouring me another shot. “Last one,” he said.
I downed the shot. “Take me to another bar!” I demanded to Kelly. I tried standing but the earth swayed, therefore, I swayed. Gravity was a son of a bitch.
“I think it’s time you called it a night.” Kelly settled the tab with the bartender. Looping his arm around me, he guided me to the front.
I collapsed into him and inhaled. “Do all Scots smell so good? Nah, I bet not, I bet they smell like sheep.”
I felt his chest rumble. “Like sheep?”
“Yeah, when Billy and me went to Scotland all we saw was sheep.” That was not true. I didn’t know why I’d said that. Oh, I knew why, because I was drunker than a skunk. “Billy took me to this farm and there were all these baby sheep.” I’d missed two weeks of school. But I’d learned how to shear a sheep, knit a sweater and plant winter squash. “I loved those baby sheep. It was like The Sound of Music.” Wait, that wasn’t right. I frowned, confusing myself. “The Sound of Music was in Switzerland.”
“C’mon, Drunky McDrunkerson. Let’s get you to bed.”
I scrunched up my nose. “Pooh, I don’t want to go to bed. Let’s go to a strip club. I’ll help you pick up a girl. I’m an excellent wing-woman. What’s your type? Brunette, redhead?” Kelly didn’t answer. Then it dawned on me. “Oh, I’m sorry. You’re into dudes. We can totally go to an all-male revue. In fact, I am very into that. I’d prefer it.”
I felt Kelly’s deep sigh. We were standing at the curb. Kelly had one arm in the air trying to hail a cab while keeping his other arm firmly anchored around me. “I prefer blondes. Blonde women, if you must know.”
“My friend Lily is blonde. You’d like her. She can drink even more than me. And she’s bigger too. Men fall in love with her.”
His arm came down, cab hailing abandoned. “She sounds lovely. A big, blonde woman who can drink like a fish, exactly my type.” I meant bigger as in taller and more breasts, but I couldn’t form the words in my mouth. My body had decided it was time to sleep with or without my head’s consent. I staggered and Kelly’s hold tightened. “Whoa there, lass. I don’t think we’re going to get a cab. I’m going to have to call for reinforcements.”
“Don’t call Billy,” I mumbled.
“I’m not going to. I’m going to call that deadbeat husband of yours.”
I didn’t want him to do that either. Opening my mouth, I started to tell him so but all that came up was my spaghetti dinner. I’d apologize to Kelly later for getting it all over his shoes.
“How much did you let her drink?” I woke to Warren’s angry voice. My body hit air. With a not-so-gentle drop, I landed on a soft velvet couch. Ah, I was on one of the buses. Wild Minds’ bus, if I had to bet on it.
“I didn’t let her drink anything. In case you haven’t noticed, she’s got a mind of her own.” Kelly’s voice.
“Yeah, she’s stubborn as fuck,” Warren agreed.
“She can hear you,” I said and groaned. It felt as if my head was full of cement. Tequila was not my friend.
“I got it from here, thanks, man,” Warren said.
“I’ll stay with her,” said Kelly.
“Is that Addy?” Was that Lix? Ash? No, it was Derren, a pissed-off Derren if I had to guess. Great. I didn’t want to stay on a bus where a good fraction of the population hated me. I tried to work out the percentage, but my brain wouldn’t compute. I decided to blame my inability to calculate on Billy. If he hadn’t taken me from school so often I’d probably be awesome at math. My muddled thinking had nothing to do with my inebriated state. Everything was Billy’s fault. Warren’s, too. The two men I loved most in the world caused me the most problems, the most pain. Go figure.
I groaned again and moved a leg so that it touched the ground. Ah, the world stopped spinning. Now I just needed to get the rest of my body to move. It didn’t cooperate.
“She can barely move.” Warren’s voice was accusatory.
“I know. She drank more than my father, and he was an alcoholic.” Murse Kelly was no longer my favorite.
I felt myself being lifted. My body knew Warren’s embrace and naturally turned into it.
“I’m staying here.” Kelly sounded far away. Warren was carrying me to the back of the bus, to his room.
“Suit yourself,” Warren called back as he kept walking. “The couch is all yours. It’s uncomfortable as hell. I hope you throw out your back.”
Warren settled me into the middle of the bed. I felt a tug at my legs. Opening my eyes, I saw Warren removing my shoes and then my jeans. It was nice to have them off. I didn’t feel shy. He’d seen me in less. “Why are you being so nice to me?” I whispered.
“In sickness and health,” he replied. “We made vows. Even if some people don’t take them seriously, I do.”
Ouch. I turned to my side so that I faced the wall, away from Warren. The door opened, and I knew I was alone. I always felt Warren’s absence like a deep cut, a wound that never healed.
Warren came back. The bed dipped with his weight. “Here,” he said, turning my head. A bottle of water pressed against my lips. I took a sip. “Open.” I complied and two pills were placed under my tongue. The water bottle was put to my mouth again and I swallowed the pills with a huge gulp. “You’re going to have a hell of a hangover tomorrow.”
The light turned off.
The window curtains were shut but through the cracks, the full moon shimmered. Warren pulled the covers up over us both.
My chest tightened.
Tears leaked.
His arm came around me and I welcomed his comfort. We fit perfectly together, like puzzle pieces or two halves of a heart. We were always at our best with each other, in the dark, in the silence. That didn’t say much about our relationship. The night was clear, and I wished it would rain.
Warren clasped my hands with his, bringing our joined fists up under my chin. “Billy’s having a baby. He won’t need me anymore. I won’t have him anymore,” I confessed. The tequila made my lips loose.
He kissed the tip of my ear. He shifted, moving his body closer. I could feel his hardness against me. But he didn’t try anything. “I need you. And you have me. You always have me.”
It was a sweet thing to say. But I knew it wasn’t true. I didn’t have Warren any more than a tree had its leaves in fall.
The sun was like a slap to the face waking me. My mouth was dry and tasted like vomit. Ugh. The night before came back to me in flashes. Billy and Daisy announcing their pregnancy. Drinking my sorrows away in a dive bar with Murse Kelly. Warren putting me to bed, whispering sweet nothings in my ear until I fell asleep.
I stilled.
I’d slept in the same bed as Warren last night. But I didn’t feel him now. Maybe it had all been a dream. I hoped it had all been a dream.
Stretching, I peeled an eye open and nearly jumped out of my skin. “You scared the shit out of me.” Warren sat in the corner of the room. He wore jeans but no shirt, inked chest and six-pack on full display. He didn’t have to work hard for his physique, a fact I begrudged him for. My midsection, no matter how many sit-ups, remained soft and dimpled, fluffy.
He wasn’t staring at me. Instead, his eyes were on something in his hands. My gaze drifted down. He was holding the divorce papers. Slowly I sat up. My heart beat frantically. Had he signed them?
“I’ve been thinking all night,” he said.
“I hope you didn’t hurt yourself.” I was grouchy most mornings. But grouchy plus hangover equaled raging bitch.
Warren never shied away from calling me on my shit. His gaze snapped to me. “A little early in the morning to be so bitchy, don’t you think?”
Even though I could be small and childish, I knew when it was important to be the bigger person. “Sorry,” I muttered.
He snorted. “Yeah, you sound sorry.” I shrugged. It was an apology—he could take it or leave it. “Like I was saying, I’ve been thinking all night.” He paused a beat, obviously waiting for me to insert a sarcastic comment. I made a motion with my hand, zipping my lips and throwing away the key. Warren had me intrigued. I would bite my tongue for the time being. The divorce papers crinkled in his hand. “I think there’s a way we can both get what we want.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What do you think I want, War?” I asked, voice husky.
He frowned and leaned forward, big muscles flexing. “You want a divorce.”
“Hmm.” My noise was noncommittal.
“I want you.” Was it wrong my heart leapt hearing him say that? I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to. I tucked the covers around my legs. I had no response.
Warren stood and loomed over me, bracing his arms on either side of my hips. All the heat in my body went to my core. Warren grinned as if he could tell. “And you want me. In fact, I bet if I put my hand inside your panties right now, I’d find them soaking wet.”
I tilted my head and tried to look bored. “You were saying something about getting what we both want. A divorce and sex seem mutually exclusive.”
“I don’t think they are. It’s simple. I want you. You want a divorce. You give me everything I want the next two months while we’re on tour. And if”—I gave him a mutinous look—“once I’m satisfied, you’ll get your divorce.”
I looked at my nails and studied a hangnail. “Clarify the ‘everything I want’ part.”
“Your time, your attention, your body—I want everything from you.”
Swallowing hard, I thought his proposition over. Warren gave me my time but not my space. He stayed in the exact same position, hands fisted on the bed on either side of my hips and face carefully watching mine. His biceps flexed. I wanted to lick his corded muscles. My panties grew damper. Warren’s eyes went to my tightened nipples that were visible through my thin bra and even thinner T-shirt. Two months. How much damage could be done in two months? How much havoc could he wreak? A lot. “If I said yes, I would need some things from you too.”
He grinned, wicked like the devil after he’d just won a soul. “Name them.”
“Condoms,” I blurted.
Warren sneered. “We never used them before.”
“I know I’m on birth control. I’m clean. But I don’t know if you are.” I sniffed. “I don’t know where you’ve been the last few years.”
He grasped my chin. “I’m clean, too. And there hasn’t been anyone since you.” I didn’t believe that, not for one minute. Warren had an abnormally high sex drive. And he never wanted for willing females. He couldn’t possibly have kept it in his pants all these years. “But I’ll suit up if that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want. Also”—here came the deal breaker—“also, I don’t want Billy to know about us. The next two months will have to be a secret.”
A long silence followed and Warren stared at me, his expression a mix of disbelief and annoyance. It seemed as if he was going to say no. I girded myself for his refusal, for the fight that would ensue. He blinked and said, “Okay. But when we’re in L.A., I want you in my house, in my bed. I don’t care what excuses you have to make to Billy. But I want those few days with you. Then the rest of the tour we can sneak around like we’re teenagers.” His hand moved from my chin until it was sticking out for me to shake. “Deal?”
Avoiding Billy in L.A. wouldn’t be a problem. I’d just tell him I needed time to adjust to the baby news. This was true. Tentatively I grasped my soon-to-be-ex-husband’s fingers. “Deal.”
Warren grunted and unceremoniously yanked me forward. His arm wound around my waist, steadying me. His ice-blue eyes glittered down at me. “I can’t wait to have you back underneath me. I’m going to fuck you quickly the first time. The next time, I’ll be slow. I’m going to make you come so hard, you’ll forget why you ever left me.”
Yes, please, my body thought. Still, I ignored my physical response and sniffed. Taking a page from Lily’s feminist playbook, I muttered, “Typical male, thinking you can solve everything with your penis.” My fingers curled around his bicep, stroked it once.
Warren barked a laugh. “The shit you say. Life with you was never boring.” His big warm hand dipped down, slipping underneath my panties, cupping my rear. “Maybe I should make you come now. Would you like that baby?”
“I—” The bus lurched and started moving. One minute I was in Warren’s arms and the next I was thrown back onto the bed, our connection severed. “What the hell? Why are we moving?” I rolled off the mattress and shoved the curtain aside. We were pulling away from the arena. “I need to get off this bus,” I said, searching the floor. Where had Warren put my clothes? It was a six-hour drive from Phoenix to L.A, more with gas and dining stops. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck all day on the bus with Warren and Wild Minds. What would Billy think?
“Billy’s bus headed out a few hours ago. I had your nurse”—he said ‘nurse’ like it was a dirty word—“call them to say you were sleeping it off and would just catch a ride with us.”
“Oh.” My hand moved from the curtain to hang limply at my side. And so it started. Billy would’ve never taken off without me. But I guessed his plate was pretty full with Daisy and the new baby on the way.
That was fine. Or I’d make it be fine. I would be an adult about this. I needed to put my big-girl panties on and get happy for Daisy and Billy. But I couldn’t muster it. And I guessed I didn’t need to. I had a full day on another bus to adjust, plus some additional time in L.A. Warren would help me forget. I wanted Warren to make me forget.
I felt Warren behind me. His arms snaked around my waist and held me firmly against him. He nuzzled my neck, kissing his way up my ear. “Looks like you’re stuck with me, baby. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry. Not sorry at all.