Liam

I don’t even have to pack a bag. My shit’s still by the door. I throw on some jeans and a Freedom t-shirt from an old tour, grab a brand new, all-white pair of Adidas from the stack of boxes in my closet, and slip out the front door.

Amira is still on the phone ordering dinner when I quietly close the front door. Damn woman refuses to learn how to cook. She orders out every meal unless she’s drinking one of the hundred-dollar energy drinks her personal trainer sells her. I’ve never met a woman with so much potential and such low self-esteem. It’s a constant battle for her to be more beautiful, more in shape and more popular, but her father has been crushing her spirit her entire life.

Three months ago, I had to make a short trip home during my tour, and I found Amira living in my house. She got a locksmith to let her in when she told him she was my wife and she’d lost her keys.

After a long afternoon of arguing and screaming about the validity of our marriage, we sat down and talked. I saw through her nasty bad girl façade and learned that when she was growing up, her father had verbally abused her. He wanted a son to carry on his legacy, but there were complications when she was born and her mother had to have a hysterectomy. He blames Amira for something she has absolutely no control over, and he’s destroyed her self-image. As angry as I was for everything she had put me through, a tiny part of me felt bad for her, so I told her she could stay for a little while, even though she could have afforded to stay anywhere she wanted in LA. And I slept with her.

That was a colossal mistake.

She took my pity and sexual attraction for love, and that encouraged her delusions. Now, she was sure that we were a happily married couple. For such a smart guy, I can be a total fucktard sometimes.

Before I knew it, I was getting bills for things I hadn’t ordered and she was redecorating my house. I sent people by the house to kick her out—twice—but she just waved our marriage certificate around like a golden ticket. I gave up and decided to wait until my tour was finished to deal with her. And now that’s what I’m doing . . . sort of.

I’ve got my bike between my legs on the winding road, with the warm wind in my face, before Amira even hangs up the damn phone. I don’t know where I’m going, but wherever it is had better have a big ass bed, because I need to get some serious sleep.

Steve is my stage manager, but he’s also my best friend, so when I show up on his front step, he doesn’t ask questions. Without a word, he arches one eyebrow high, leans around to look at my bike parked in the driveway, and then down at my bag before swinging the door open wide. The stage crew has been taking bets on how long the marriage scam would last. I hope Steve was the one to choose six months, because this so-called marriage is over.

“So lemme guess: you got in a fight because she didn’t pick you up at the airport?”

“No, we got in a fight because she’s an ill-mannered, disrespectful, over-indulged brat and I’m through with her.”

“Wow. Ok. Well, it’s about fucking time, man.”

Steve leads me through the house and out back to his deck overlooking the ocean, where he fixes himself a drink and offers me a bottle of water, but I decline. I just want to go to bed, but I have manners, unlike my wife, so I sit and talk with him for a few minutes.

“Ya know, this is probably one of those moments in your life when it’s cool to have a drink, Liam.”

I developed a serious aversion to alcohol when I was five years old. I watched my father punch my mother in the face so hard it knocked her out cold.

“It’s all right. I knew this was coming. It’s not like this marriage is real. I can’t believe I let this shit go on for so long. I was just too busy with the tour to deal with her and her father and a divorce.”

“What about your PR chick? She’s gonna flip her shit when she finds out you did this without a warning. And what about Amira’s old man? He flat out threatened to ruin you if you divorced his little Nigerian princess. Dude, you’re screwed.”

“I’ll worry about it later. Do you mind if I just crash for a while? I can’t even think straight right now.”

“Sure, take one of the spare rooms. Felicia is out of town visiting her parents with the kids. She won’t be home for a couple of days.”

“Thanks. If I don’t wake up before she comes home, come get me.”

Steve chuckles and whacks me on the back before I scoot the chair away from the table and drag my ass through his beautiful beach house to bed.

I’m disappointed that Felicia and the kids are gone. Steve’s wife is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and I love his kids. They’re awesome. I’ve never been much of a family man kind of guy, because of my lifestyle, but if I could have what Steve has, I’d take it in a heartbeat. I used to dream of having a big brood of kids. I especially wanted a son, so I could name him after my baby brother who died when I was five. But being a DJ came naturally. Things just fell into place with my career after a while, and I abandoned the idea of a wife and kids.

I choose the bedroom that faces the front of the house, where there is less sun and more shade. I need a room dark enough to sleep during the day, because I wasn’t kidding about sleeping until Felicia and the kids come home. I’m that fucking tired.

I power off my phone, throw my clothes on a chair in the corner, slide into the California king sized bed, and pull a pillow over my face. How the hell did I get here? How did my awesome, carefree life turn into such a damn nightmare?

Three words: Amira Oni-Wild.

PR chick and Mr. Oni be dammed. I’m getting out of this mess, no matter what the world or Amira’s father think of me. I’d like to see him try to destroy me now. I’ve had two albums go double platinum since he made that threat. I’ve become the worldwide phenomenon, DJ Freedom. I don’t think anything an oil tycoon could say or do would sway the dedicated fans and ravers all over the planet who love my music.

I’d pay good money to see my little glowworm from last night smearing glow in the dark body paint all over the stuffy dignitary, Mr. Oni’s, ebony skin during a meeting with the secretary of state. That would be abso-fucking-lutely priceless. I’d have a photographer take a picture of the moment so I could blow it up and hang it over my bed. I hate that man, I hate his threats, and I hate that he raised a daughter who is so fucked up that she would drug someone to trap them in a loveless marriage just for attention. It’s just like my mother used to always say: Bad attention is better than no attention, and Amira is a classic example of that notion.