Page 17 of Everything After (Everything Trilogy)

ALFIE

I jogged down the stairs, knowing if I slowed, I’d turn back, take Lily in my arms and beg her forgiveness for making her cry. Then as I left the house for the second time that night, I could almost feel my heart cracking in two.

It had never been my intention to leave again when I had gone back. And I had no clue where to go. But once I’d made my decision, I believed I’d had no choice but to follow through on it.

As I sped away for the second time that night, I wondered how we had come to this. No matter what my head told me that I needed to do, my heart violently argued that Lily Parnell was the one and only love of my life.

If I was honest, I’d known that she was it for me from the beginning, even when I had tried my darndest not to fall for her. Back then, she was like an irresistible drug I’d gotten hooked on, and I’d been high on her ever since.

But now, the balance of the love we share appeared weighted in my direction, and I wondered how my taking a stand would all play out.

Do I have the will to hold out until she recognizes how one-sided our relationship had become?

How I’d been the one to sacrifice all my spare time to go wherever she went?

If this is a test, how will I cope if it backfires? Can I live with a decision that might tear the most important contract of my life, if I lost her?

Pushing the throttle fully open on the boat as I sped away from our home, I wondered if I lost Lily by my action, would it be because she could live without me.

Either way, I believed that I couldn’t allow our lives to coast in parallel lines any longer, not now that I felt as if I was slowly drowning.

The last thing I’d wanted was to be one of those burned-out, aging, childless rock stars, living life out of a bottle, on the road with a wife I barely saw, and an empty home to return to.

Lily needed to realize and understand that there were two lives at stake here—two tender hearts, not just hers. The fact that I was leaving for now didn’t mean that mine didn’t still yearn for her, or pump with love with every beat.

As I pulled alongside my berth at the dock, my heart jolted in shock when I considered whether my love for Lily was on a deeper level than hers was for me. And whether her heart had ever been completely synchronized with mine.

Perhaps time away from each other without being forced apart by our schedules would give us both time to figure things out.

After tying off my vessel on the cleat, I stepped ashore and wandered toward the familiar, stocky, weather-beaten sailor I knew, who was busy spraying salt water off the bow of his boat.

“Ronnie, can you do me a favor?” Ronnie and his cousin Grant were two guys we’d used regularly, like a water taxi mostly when we needed to leave or return to Star Island.

He stopped spraying and glanced up in the fading daylight. “Sure, what do you need?”

“Can you call Grant so someone can take the boat back to the island… in case Lily needs it?”

“She’s home and you’re leaving? Damn, is that how you two survive married life?” he joked.

I nodded even though my heart sank at how true his joke sounded in that moment.

“Something like that,” I mumbled, and wondered how near to the truth his flippant statement might be.

Instead of checking in to some swanky hotel where all my needs would have been met, I went back to the one place I figured I’d get time to think—my childhood home.

I’d never once thought of selling the place. Even though it had undergone major renovations since I’d moved out, the place still felt like home to me. These days my house was kept stocked and managed by a part-time housekeeper for whenever I felt the need to check back for a day or so.

Once I’d stepped inside, I texted Oscar the address and told him to meet me at 11:00 a.m. the next morning. Then, the moment I eyed the unopened bottle of McClennan, I headed for my drink cart.

I poured myself a two fingers deep measure into a wide crystal tumbler. Taking off my leather jacket, I slung it over the back of the couch, grabbed the bottle and tumbler, and slumped heavily into an armchair.

Inhaling deeply, I closed my eyes when an image of Lily’s distraught face played through my mind, and a pang of regret rolled through me. A heavy boulder weighed heavily on my chest when I considered what I’d done.

Shaking that thought away, I lifted the tumbler to my lips and tossed the amber liquid to the back of my throat.

Grimacing, I regarded the patterned glass and threw it full force, clean across the room.

It smashed on the brickwork of the small fireplace.

“Fuck,” I bellowed, not caring whether my neighbors heard me.

My cell phone buzzed in my jacket pocket, and thinking it was Lily, I sprung out of the chair and grabbed it. When I saw who it was, I fumed again.

“What?” I snapped, sounding aggressive.

“What? That’s all you’ve got to say to me? What the fuck’s gotten into you?” Jack, Lily’s close childhood friend barked down the line.

“Butt out. It’s none of your business,” I warned, pissed that she’d called him for support.

“Oh, no. You don’t get to throw a hissy fit and leave our girl in pieces,” he argued.

“Our girl? She’s mine,” I ground out, enraged that he’d take an opportunity like now to yank my chain.

“You left her, right? So—not yours. And if you don’t get your arse back to that house and make things right, she’ll never be yours again,” he threatened in his posh London accent.

When I’d first met Jack, I’d hated him with a passion.

I was convinced that their touchy-feely relationship was more than the weirdly close friendship Lily insisted they had.

But, as the years passed, we found we had more in common than our protective stance and love of Lily, and in time we became weirdly close friends.

Jack marrying Mya and having kids with her helped me to understand that what he had with my wife was a special, intuitive bond that they’d shared since they’d been babies. That knowledge didn’t stop me from feeling envious of their connection at times.

“This has nothing to do with you, Jack. I suggest you go play happy family with Mya and leave us to it.”

“Lily called me.”

“I should have known she would,” I muttered.

“Which makes it my business too,” he suggested

“No way. This is for Lily to figure out. Do you know how often my bandmates have given me shit for the effort I put in to us? I’m tired of coming last,” I snapped and cut the call.

Less than a minute later a text came in.

Jack: I’m landing in Miami tomorrow with the brood. You and I need to talk.

“No! No, Jack, we fucking don’t. Keep your sticky beak out of my business,” I raged aloud.