Chapter 49
NOLAN
49
Idrive home from the bar after my closing shift, which I ended up handling solo.
It’s late.
I’m tired. I’m grumpy. I’m irritable.
I’m feeling a little pissed at the whole world right now.
Inez is gone again, and it’s just as I said. Everything has gone to shit.
Work today was a complete disaster. It’s days like this that make me doubt every decision I’ve made in life. Like, what the hell am I doing, thinking that I can run a successful business? But here I am playing head honcho, accountant, and waiter, all in one.
Tonight was a disaster of epic proportions. In the middle of the evening rush, some idiot started smoking right there inside the bar. I told him to cut it out and he dropped his cigarette on his plate, storming out like I was being unreasonable.
When my bus boy cleared the table, the idiot threw out the burning ash. He just tossed it all out with the regular trash, right into the alley dumpster. Which naturally sent the dumpster up in flames, fueled by half empty bottles of beer. It was a fucking spectacle.
Luckily, Joe saw the fire through the kitchen window and was out there with a fire extinguisher by the time the fire trucks arrived.
There wasn’t any major damage to my place, other than some charred, smoky brick on the outside wall that’s going to require some serious elbow grease to scrub clean.
In the end, all the kid had to say for himself was, “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know. I didn’t know,” about three hundred times.
Good fucking grief. Can I fire an employee for being a total dumbass? Can I put that on a dismissal form?
If our HR department was any more than the one-man-band of me, myself, and I, I’d probably have a definitive answer. And a better staff.
Just add it to my list of things I need to figure the hell out without Inez.
In a blur, I somehow make it home. I pull into my yard, tires crunching over the remaining gravel. After I turn the car off, I just sit there in the dark.
I stare off into the night, watching my mother-in-law’s darkened trailer. Stella’s fast asleep in there.
I worry about her. I can’t help but wonder what the future will hold, now that Inez is out of town. Knowing my sensitive and intuitive daughter, she probably has a whole lot of big, confusing feelings about that. I’m guessing we need to talk about how she feels with Inez being gone. But I still haven’t figured out how to approach the subject.
With a tired sigh, I climb out of my vehicle and head into my house.The moment I step inside, the overbearing scent of Lilian’s essential oils smacks me in the face. As does the lingering smell of incense smoke wafting throughout my living room. I groan in frustration, my annoyance peaking when I step into the kitchen and spot empty food wrappers and crumbs of dried weed scattered around my counter.
“Are you freaking kidding me?” I grumble, cursing my way back down the hall.
I’m not sure when Lilian was here, but she’s left her evidence all around the place. The night she came back to town, I made it clear to her that she’s not welcome inside my house. We’re divorced. This isn’t her home. She’s not allowed in here anymore. For the sake of our daughter, I’ll tolerate her across the yard at Gen’s place. But I drew a clear line in the fucking sand when it comes to my house.
But obviously, she wants me to know that she waltzes in here, acting like she owns the place when I’m not home. It’s like she gets a rise out of pissing me off.
Typical Lilian.
I don’t have the energy for this shit tonight.
I make sure to lock the front door. Marching straight to my bathroom, I tear off my clothes and step in the shower. It’s not until the scalding hot water sprays down over my face that I can finally take a deep breath.
I’m ready to crawl into bed and just have this day be over.
Christ, I miss Inez. It makes no sense to me. I knew this day was coming. I knew that her stay here in Starlight Falls was only temporary. I was reminded of it every single day, as I helped her prepare for her audition, and she helped me get things in order at the bar. Everything we did together should have only prepared me for this. But now that she’s really gone, I’m just…miserable.
She’s not coming back. Accept it, asshole.
The permanence of Inez’s absence was cemented earlier this week when she texted to tell me she got the part. The part she worked so hard for.
She’d tried calling me before texting, but we’d been playing phone tag and missing each other all week. So we ended up exchanging a few text messages instead.
Our back and forth didn’t last long that day. After she announced the big news, I told her ‘congrats’. I told her that I was happy for her. But then I said I had to get back to work, dealing with whatever problem was going on with the bar at that moment.And then I never texted her back.
Despite the hole in my heart, I’m so incredibly proud of her. But the truth is, I couldn’t keep the conversation going.
I don’t want to talk to Inez over text. I want to talk to her face to face, skin to skin. With her, lying in my arms. Me, whispering in her ear. Anything less than that isn’t enough. It hurts too much.
If there was any hope of her coming back home immediately after the audition, all of that is crushed to smithereens now. She’ll be gone for who knows how long, shooting an entire television series.
And fuck, now that I’m home alone and there’s all these reminders of her… I’ve never felt this void more. I miss her. I miss everything about her.
As I stand here in the shower, I mindlessly suds up and let my hand trail down. Down. Down. I grip my cock, letting out a pained sigh. Then my eyes shutter closed, and I picture Inez as I slowly jerk myself off.
My fist shifts up and down, sending me further into fantasy land. I think back to our last night together. Her eyes. Her lips. Her long caramel hair fanned across my pillow. Her curvy thighs wrapped around my back.
I’d do anything to be falling inside her right now.
I’m in an absolute daze, just a few pumps from exploding, when the shower curtain slips open. My head swivels, half-expecting, half-hoping to see Inez here to join me, even if deep down I know that’s logically impossible.
“Whoa! What the f—?!” I jump backward and nearly crack my head open on the wet tile. I’m stunned and utterly dismayed when I realize that it’s my naked ex-wife—not the woman in my fantasies—who’s standing in front of me.
“Hey there, stud,” Lilian purrs, coming into the shower and stepping up to me. “Oh, what do we have here?” She cackles in delight, her hands reaching forward, going straight for my now-deflating cock.
I throw my forearm out in front of me like a shield. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“I’m just here to make you feel good,” she coos. “You’re always so stressed after a long day of work.”
“What would you know?” I scoff. She knows nothing of my schedule. Of my work. Or how I feel.“What are you even doing here, Lilian? How did you get in?” I yell.
“I was in bed, taking a nap, waiting for you. I got a headache from listening to Stella banging around on that piano all day. What a fucking racket.” She groans.
“She’s practicing for her piano recital.” The piano recital Stella already told her about, but knowing Lilian, that information most likely went in one ear and out the next.
It’s fucking heartbreaking that Stella is still holding out hope for a relationship with her mother when all Lilian has done time and again is prove herself to be a deadbeat.
Anyway, if my ex-wife picks up on my annoyance right now, she doesn’t let it show. I have to physically pry her hands off of me.
I scramble to get out of the shower. I don’t even bother with a towel, just yanking my dirty jeans back on over my wet body. Anything to get out of here quicker.
“Things are over between us. I’m sick of the mind games, Lilian. Whatever you seem to think you can do…coming in and out of our lives. That’s over. We’re over.”
“Oh, sweetie. Things will never be over between us. We weren’t just some fling. We were married. We have a child. We’re linked for life, and our souls are forever intertwined,” she adds, spewing that hippie nonsense of hers.
“That’s where you’re seriously mistaken,” I spit out.
I throw a towel at Lilian, who’s still standing there in my goddamn shower, not even trying to cover herself up. If she thinks being naked is going to get me to cave to her whims tonight, she’s not half as bright as she thinks she is.
“But I am Stella’s mother!” She stomps and huffs and finally starts to dry herself off.
“Come the fuck on. You may have carried her for nine months, but we both know you are not her mother.”
Lilian’s jaw hits the floor. She’s not used to this version of me. She’s used to a man who lets her get her way.
Well, that version of Nolan is gone.
“Why are you being like this? Why are you talking like this? Is it because of Inez? Is that why you don’t want me anymore?” She’s crying crocodile tears now as she gets dressed. “Well, newsflash—Inez left town. She’s gone. Such a pretty girl. Obviously, she would never stay in this shitty town for a backwoods loser like you.”
Oh, now my ex-wife’s true colors show.
I laugh. I throw my head back and laugh like the maniac I’m becoming. This woman is driving me certifiably insane.
“You know what? It is because of Inez. Because of Inez, I now know what true love is. And she may be gone, but now that I’ve had a taste of the real thing, I could never settle for you again. I’d rather be alone than feeding on the scraps you throw out. Now get your ass dressed and get the hell out of my fucking house!”
I stalk down the hallway and pull the front door open.
“Nolan, please,” Lilian begs. “Let’s talk. Let’s work things out.”
“Look—your old playbook doesn’t work on me anymore. Just go.” I hold the door open for her.
She gives me a resentful glare as she drags her feet down the hallway. She’s like a drowned rat, trudging out in her wet clothes and her hair plastered to her face.
“You’re a bad man, Nolan. A bad, bad man. Stella won’t forgive you for picking some bitch over us, our family.”
I clench the doorknob tighter when she calls Inez out of her name. “You are the one who ruined our family. Now, get out and don’t come back here. If you want to make arrangements to see Stella from now on, we’ll be going through my lawyer.”
I slam the door hard enough that the windows shake, and then I flip the door lock.