Without You

– Scotch –

Aftermath

“I heard there was a girl fight in town today.” Luc’s teasing face pops up as soon as I walk through the doors. I stop on the spot and look around. Angelo watches me through his lashes while he pretends to be busy at his keyboard, and Marc slams his case shut after he pulls out his guitar.

My body is still revving from my time with Sammy, but I have work to do, and I’m already mourning something I’m certain won’t be available to me again when I go home.

“Hey.” I walk toward the stage with my guitar over my shoulder, and stepping up, I throw a stack of papers onto Ang’s keyboard. “I have new stuff.”

Luc smirks arrogantly. “I knew you would. What happened today with the girls? Rumors are flying, bro.”

I don’t miss Tink as she walks by the stage with a load of bottles in her arms and a sassy smirk on her face. Rumors, indeed.

“Brat was ready for a throw down. Certain other women in town were willing to just stand back and watch.”

“We would have stopped it,” Tink calls out. “Kit told Britt to cool it. How’m I supposed to know she’s yours? Brat is part of my tribe, I don’t know that other chick.”

I roll my eyes and turn to her. “While I adore the fact that you have my sister’s back, I need you all to not attack Sammy in the street.”

“So what happened?” Luc repeats.

“Jack stopped Brat from almost kicking Sammy’s face in. Britt cussed me out for not kicking Sammy’s face in myself. Britt was sent home with a warning from the chief, and, it turns out, Sammy found out in that moment that her lawyer liaison is none other than Juliette, my almost sister-in-law.”

“No shit?” Angelo murmurs. “How’s that not a conflict of interest?”

“She’s not Sammy’s lawyer. She was Lily’s mom’s lawyer. Now she’s basically just a spectator with a giant bucket of popcorn in her lap.”

“And Sammy didn’t know?”

“Nope. She was blindsided. And she’s pretty fucking pissed at the world. We got home and she was ready to smash me Hulk style.”

“You got home?” Tink asks, stepping close to the stage and resting her box by my feet. She’s not even trying not to listen in anymore. “She’s still staying with you?”

“She’ll be with me for a while, at least until Lily is finalized.”

“Who the hell is Lily?”

I sigh. “Lily is Sammy’s daughter.”

“But that’s not your kid, right?” She looks around our group. “I just want to get the timeline right. I don’t know if you know, but you haven’t actually told me shit.”

“That’s probably because it’s none of your damn business, T.”

“I was witness to an almost smackdown today, and now I’m copping shit because I didn’t step in the middle. Either it’s my business, or it’s not, Samuel. Make up your mind.”

“Lily’s not his,” Marc snaps out. “Sammy is a chick he dated back in high school. They got married on a whim. He knocked her up. He stepped up to the plate, but before he could take care of her, she took care of it herself. She killed her baby and ditched town. The end.”

I turn and glare at him. “Stop it, Marc.”

“Stop what?” he taunts. “Which part of all that was untrue?”

“How about you just be a little more sensitive? Dick. I know how it went down. I was there.”

“Which is why I don’t understand why you didn’t boot her ass to the curb already. You shouldn’t have even let her into your apartment. She’s no good for you, Scotch. She didn’t just disrespect your friends or family. She killed your kid!”

“Hey now.” Tink frowns. “Back it up. How do you mean she--”

“She aborted his baby,” Marc snarls. “They talked it out. They made plans. They were gonna be okay, and if anyone can take care of his girl and baby, it would have been Scotch. But she snuck off, aborted, then ditched town like all she stole was his iPod.”

“Okay, I hear you, Marc. But abortion is a very personal choice. Women don’t make it lightly--”

“No!” He slams his guitar down by his feet. “You don’t get to defend her!”

Tink broadens her chest, like a man stepping into a boxing ring. “Sounds to me like someone needs to.”

“Are you saying you’d abort a kid? Really? Mom of the year, mother of twins, woman who tried for years to get knocked up. After all that struggle, you’re still okay with her choice?”

“The thing is, it doesn’t matter if I’m okay with it. It’s her choice, and her choice alone. That’s her body. Her life. Her future. We don’t get to treat her like shit just because she made a choice that was personal to her.”

“I can’t believe this bullshit--”

“I considered aborting once.” She continues on, shocking Marc’s gaze back to hers. “Back when Jon and I weren’t in a good place. It was only a momentary thought and I don’t think I would’ve gone through with it, but it was there. We just weren’t ready.”

I wait for her gaze to come back to mine. “When?”

“A long time ago. A long time before you and I met. But that night, the night he came in here and hit you… that was the night I told him about it. The difference is, the choice was taken out of my hands before I could decide one way or the other.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, I lost my baby. It wasn’t my fault. It’s just one of those things that happens way more than people think. And in the days and weeks after it all went down, when I was so alone I could cry for days and no one would even notice… well, that might have been the worst time of my life.”

“This is different,” Marc snaps. “Sammy didn’t lose her baby. She threw it away.”

I turn on him, angry with his callous words. Even if I’m working through my anger with Sammy, even if I’m no longer tearing her down every chance I get, I don’t need him throwing such cold words around. I’m still hurting, even if I’m starting to accept what happened.

“My point is,” Tink continues. “I still considered it at the time. And I was older than Sammy, and I had more life experience. I wasn’t a scared teenager. To carry a baby, or not, is a decision some women are forced to make, and no matter which way they go, it’s not easy. So instead of condemning the grown-up version of her, maybe you should ask the teenage version if she’s okay.”

“Nobody asked you,” Marc snaps. “Go back to work, so we can too.”

She shrugs. “Whatever, dude. I’m not saying she’s out of the shit. But I am saying that if Britt attacked her today because the chick had an abortion more than a decade ago, then Britt and I need to talk. Girls are supposed to look out for each other. There’s already enough shit going on in this world. Judging each other on how we use our wombs isn’t up there on my list of shit to do.”

She lifts her box of bottles again and walks away, and Marc mutters nonsensically about how girls always stick together and it’s a load of shit.

“Alright, whatever.” I rub my hands over my face. “Let’s just practice. I have shit to do before we’re back here tonight.”

“Anybody else notice how Jules kept this giant bombshell close to her chest?” Luc asks. “She knew Sammy would eventually come back here, but she didn’t say anything.”

I shrug. I’m not even mad. “Family or not, she can’t just gossip about her work. She could lose her entire career.”

“She could have warned you, at least.”

“Legally, no, she couldn’t. But, she still nearly ripped my shoulder off at my birthday. She hinted that something was going down. She called me Sam. That should have been my first clue. Next thing I knew, Ricci was at my door.”

“Ricci?”

I groan.

“You’re calling her Ricci again? Just like that, it’s all better?”

“Marc, enough--”

“Jesus, she must really give a good blowjob.” He looks at me in disgust, then bending over, he picks up his guitar. “You guys can stay here and learn all the new love songs about Sammy, but I’m not doing it. Not today. I’ll be back for our set tonight, but I’m out of here for now.”

“Marc--”

He jumps down off the stage, then pausing, he turns back to me. “I love you, and that’ll never change. But I don’t agree with this. When you’ve got nothing else in the whole world but common decency and loyalty to your name, then it becomes a pretty valuable asset. I’ll be back later.”

We all watch him walk away, and I can’t even be mad at him. Ever since the day I met him, he’s been nothing but loyal and kind to me. He’s not trying to hurt me. He’s trying to protect me from making the same mistake twice.

“Alright guys, lets just play for a bit. Lemme show you what I’ve got.”

“Do any of the words in your new song rhyme with Sammy?” Angelo asks.

“Or ass?” Luc adds with a smile.

I smile and grab my notes. “Nah, but there’s a lot of shit in here about flowers.”

“I wonder how many words I can find that rhyme with squeak?” Angelo asks with a soft laugh.

***

Since the weekend is nearing, which means club nights three nights in a row and three a.m. finishes every morning, I haven’t been able to spend much time with Sammy and Lily.

We’re back to being roommates who rarely see each other, and we pass in the hall as Sammy gets up to Lily for her three a.m. bottle.

But that’s not such a bad thing either. Marc’s harsh words at the club reopened a wound that hadn’t really even healed. An afternoon of rekindling something a couple teenagers once had, had me believing that maybe things could be okay. In a perfect world where I could forget the past, maybe if I met her all over again as adults without all the hurt, maybe that could work out to be something for us.

But this isn’t a perfect world.

This is just the world where I’m still married to a woman I don’t know, and she’s still not the same Sammy that I fell in love with.

“You’re not actually considering this, are you?”

Britt walks toward me, swatting me over the head with her used newspaper, as Jack stands by his kitchen counter, and Alex mirrors him on the opposite side of the kitchen. Juliette was here a few minutes ago, but claiming a headache that I know translates to ‘I can’t be objective about this, so I’m just not going to be involved,’ she took baby Charlie outside to play in the afternoon sun, and left me to deal with my brother and sister.

“I’m gonna help her.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Britt snaps. “Why would you help her? Why would you even let her past your front door?”

“It’s not Lily’s fault that Sammy and I screwed things up.”

“Oh. No!” she snaps. “You didn’t screw anything up. She did!”

“You don’t know, Brat. You were a kid.”

“I know that the guy who used to be my big brother went AWOL after she fucked him over. I know that my brother, who used to skate with me and pick me up when I fell, turned into a zombie after she left. I might have been too young to know what went down, but I wasn’t too young to notice the broken man she left behind. Why aren’t you angry about this?”

I shrug my shoulders and look down at the cooling coffee in front of me. “I was angry. I was really fucking angry. But, I dunno… I guess I’m trying to let go of the hate.”

“So call Nancy and let it go with her! Let it go all over her, and tell that other bitch to fuck off.”

“Don’t do that! Don’t call her names.”

“Jesus. Are you kidding me right now?

“I’m not kidding. You need to back up.”

Snarling, she picks up the newspaper and smacks me in frustration. I lift my arms to protect my head, because my baby sister is no wallflower, and her fighter husband has, evidently, been a bad influence on her.

“Jack!”

He chuckles. “Are you suggesting I can actually do something about this? Because I can’t. Not a chance in hell. She’s just letting go of the hate, bro.”

Alex steps forward and steals the paper from her hand mid-swing, but she turns on him with a filthy glare. “I’ve got some energy for you too, X.”

“You need to cool it, Brat. You might not agree with his choices, but you need to stop hitting people.”

“This is my choice, Brat.”

“She’s not a puppy, Scotch! You’re just gonna sign on as her dad, then walk away? What about when she goes to school? Who’s gonna pay tuition? You said she’s an unwell baby. What if she needs surgery or hospitalization? As her legal father, you’re obligated to help fund that. Sammy can ask you for child support for a kid you don’t even know. Why are you trusting her like this? You’re already married – which, by the way, you should have fixed last decade, dumbass. But now you’re gonna add a kid to the mix? She’s already got you legally trapped with the marriage, now you’re just gonna give her your balls too?”

“She’s not like that--”

“She’s not like that?” Britt snatches the newspaper and hits me again. “Are. You. Stupid? She is like that! That’s exactly who she is.”

I snatch the paper from her hands and smack her in the arm. She’s big enough and loud enough for a taste of her own medicine. “Sammy isn’t here for money, Brittany. God knows, she has access to as much as she damn well wants. She doesn’t need me for money, which was evidenced when she left me thirteen years ago and went with the money. And if she wants child support for a kid I already love, then fine, she can have it. I’m a single man living above a garage. I don’t need money.”

“You’d pay child support for the next eighteen years for a kid that isn’t yours? Hell, the kid isn’t hers, either! You’re willingly opening yourself up to a lifetime of more shit, when you can literally just tell her no.”

“Marc and Kari weren’t ours! Mom and Dad set themselves up for a lifetime of school tuition and medical expenses for a couple kids that weren’t theirs.”

“That’s different,” she snarls. “They were just kids, and their parents were stolen from them.”

“And Lily is just a baby, and her parents are gone too. She doesn’t even have a Marc looking out for her. How’s that fair?”

“Don’t try and make me feel bad for a baby I don’t know! I’m not saying she has to live in a dumpster. I’m just saying she’s not your problem, and you allowing Sammy to manipulate you is only going to turn to shit. Are you literally that suicidal? Because you haven’t exactly been living this whole time she’s been gone. Did you get that closure you were hoping for? If she leaves tomorrow, will you actually go on to live a healthy life? No! And now you’re gonna add a kid that I know you’ll spend the rest of your life supporting and feeling bad because you and her mom aren’t together anymore.”

“So fucking what, Brat? No, I haven’t been living, but having those girls in my apartment this week suddenly has me breathing easier again. Even when I’m pissed at her, she helps me breathe. Wouldn’t you hold onto that? If Jack fucks up, are you just gonna walk away and live your life?”

“That’s different! Jack didn’t leave me thirteen years ago. Jack didn’t leave town without a word and traumatize me for the rest of my life. Jack didn’t do something huge that I specifically asked him not to do.”

“And yet, you love him enough that if he did, you’d make excuses for him.”

“Scotch…” Her eyes turn from anger to sadness. “She’s not it for you. You just didn’t try and move on in the time apart. If you just tried, you’d see that there are other people out there who could help you breathe.”

My heart knocks painfully around in my chest. Brittany is loud and abrasive, but she’s only looking out for me. She’s not trying to hurt me, she just wants me to be happy.

She walks into my arms as soon as she sees the defeat in my eyes.

“Why’d she have to do that, Brat? Why’d she do what she did?”

Britt lays her face against my chest and softly rubs my back. “I don’t know. But I’m really sorry she hurt you.”