Page 27 of Everything After (Everything Trilogy)

ALFIE

“I can try to do better,” Lily said. I felt encouraged the moment I’d heard a plea of desperation in her tone, but I held her direct, sad gaze longer than I should have. “I can tell you mean that,” I murmured. “But another few days visitation here and there in a year won’t cut it for me anymore.”

“So you do want me to leave the band,” she insisted.

“Lily, hear me when I tell you, I don’t want you to leave your fucking band. The point is that I want to matter. No, I need to matter.”

“You do matter! More than anything. Help me out here because I don’t know what you want me to do,” she hurled out in frustration.

I cast her what I believed was a cynical look with one brow raised, and she huffed in frustration.

“I don’t feel complete until we’re together.

But the band is my career. If I worked in an office, I don’t think we’d be having this fight,” she argued.

“Damn straight we wouldn’t because you’d be home in my bed more often.”

“Is that what this is about. Sex? You want to have more sex… or an open marriage?”

“If this was solely about sex, I might have been tempted to fuck other women already,” I snapped. “I get pussy thrown at me every day, Lily. I’m not interested in one-night stands. I did that all back in the day and it got old damn quick. You were the one girl that changed me.”

“Yeah? So, what was Zoe? I know you said neither of you were invested, but you kept her around for some time.”

During one of our breakups while Lily was still in college, Zoe came into my life. She never could have replaced Lily, but she made me hurt less for a while. It was the same friends-with-benefits relationship that Lily and I had started out with, until ours turned into something more.

“I kept her around because she was fun and supportive, and she wasn’t dramatic. Plus, I was tired of women hitting on me. I’ll admit the sex was a bonus, but I never caught feelings for her.”

I watched her wince like the idea of me having sex with someone else wounded her.

“And Sienna? Why are you in contact with her after all this time now? Is that to hurt me because you think it will scare me into doing what you want?”

“Scare you? Oh, my, you have a low opinion of me. Fuck, Lily, I could screw every woman I met, and you’d never find out if I had a mind to be deceitful.

I wouldn’t because I’d never disrespect you like that, and I’d never risk ruining us.

Have I felt tempted, yes. Plenty of times, but for human contact more than anything else.

I’m flesh and blood after all. That’s why as soon as there’s been an opening, I’ve flown to wherever you are. ”

“For sex?” she suggested again.

I shook my head in disbelief. “So, I’ve endured two eighteen-hour flights at times to grab forty-eight hours with you, with the sole intention of staying faithful to you?

Fuck you, Lily. I’ve made those journeys because I missed and loved you.

I always came for you because you wouldn’t come for me. ”

Lily’s face fell and when I saw her lips pout my heart sank to my stomach. It was the moment I saw she knew she’d fucked up, by taking our marriage for granted.

“Why are we married?” I asked, gauging her reaction to my question.

“Because no one else could come close to the love we share and we wanted to be together for the rest of our lives,” she replied without hesitation.

“And are we—together? Sixty-six days says we’re not really. It says to me, that if I hadn’t made all that effort to see you, you wouldn’t have seen me at all. With the exception of the two week break we had in Cancun at the end of your tour last summer.”

“It’s been hard…” she began and stopped talking again.

“I didn’t leave because I’ve fallen out of love with you, Lily. I left because of your indifference about us.”

“I am not indifferent. You’re my world—”

“No, XrAid is your world,” I argued.

“How do you know what I feel in here?” she countered, poking a finger between her breasts. Her beautiful green eyes haunted me with the hurt held in them.

“I fucking don’t. You never show me you care,” I countered.

Lily’s eyes immediately shone with tears, and she chewed at the inside of her cheek, like she was trying not to cry. Suddenly I felt cruel, but I needed her to understand how affected I was by her inaction.

“Look, I’m going to bed, it’s been a long day. These conversations are exhausting. I’ll take one of the spare suites and we’ll pick this up in the morning,” I said, sounding flat. Standing, I wandered over and plucked my jacket from the back of a chair.

“You’re not coming to our bed?” she whispered. The disbelief in her tone made me look at her again.

“As much as it pains me to say it, no, I’m not. We’d have sex… and I figure the least we muddy the waters between us, the sooner we’ll iron this situation out.”

I swear I died a little inside when my eyes met with the desolation in hers.

My first instinct was to reach out and hold her, tell her I was sorry, and that I’d make everything right between us.

But I’d come so far and I couldn’t fall back on my word, because I still believed I was fighting for our survival.

So, we both went upstairs, said our goodnights and went into our separate rooms.

Once in bed, I realized that that too was a pointless exercise because my only thoughts were about Lily, how sad I was making her and how difficult life felt for myself. She was only feet away and knowing I could take her pain away by showing up only made the path I had chosen much harder.

After a restless four or five hours where I’d lain awake, wondering how the action I’d taken would end, I finally fell into a fitful sleep.

A low groan woke me with a start. It was still dark and at first, I’d thought it had been me, making a noise in my sleep. However, once I heard it again, I threw back the comforter and padded out into the hallway.

Hearing the sound come from our bedroom, I strode naked along the landing and after some hesitation, I knocked on our bedroom door.

“Are you okay.” My tone had been anxious when I’d asked from the door, my eyes searching our big bed for Lily.

“Yeah, just a sore stomach,” she muttered from the bathroom.

Stepping into the room, I wandered to the open bathroom door and saw her kneeling in the dark over the toilet bowl with her head in her hands. “Do you want me to get you some Tylenol or something?

“No, I’m fine now. Sorry if I woke you,” she croaked, climbing to her feet.

My instinct to protect the woman I loved overrode any principled opinion I’d had, and I second-guessed myself again, as to why I was putting us through this. “Come on, let’s get you back to bed.”

I strode forward, scooped her up into my arms and immediately regretted my action when her soft body melted into mine.

A wave of love for her swelled up to my throat. The feeling was so overwhelming it almost choked me as I walked with her back to our bed and gently laid her down.

“Will you stay with me?” she quietly pleaded.

There wasn’t the slightest hesitation that it was the wrong thing to do when I lifted the comforter and slid in beside her.

Sliding one arm under her neck and the other around her stomach, I pulled her back against me, like she was sitting on a chair I had made with my body.

It felt as if I was punishing both of us, when I dipped my head to her hair and inhaled deeply, breathing her in.

Holding her like that should have brought peace to my heart, but it didn’t.

Instead, I’d lain there, reflecting on the previous weeks where I’d been experiencing my self-inflicted separation, from missing her and being angry with both her and me, for how our relationship hadn’t felt perfect anymore.

It wasn’t a straight-forward case of ‘it’s not me, it’s you’, like I’d gone off Lily and she was still in love with me. I didn’t doubt she did love me. I just wasn’t convinced that I was enough for her anymore.

I’d once told her what we had was enough, back when I’d believed I had no more to offer her than our simple hook up arrangement.

At that time Lily had wanted more, and I’d believed she’d deserved everything a man could offer.

Now it appeared it was me who knew the feeling that what we had together wasn’t enough… that it was my turn to want it all.

For most of the night my blood had rushed between my legs and the last thing I’d wanted was to cave and have sex with Lily.

My dick had other ideas and constantly twitched and nudged to get nearer.

Eventually I slipped my arm from under her neck, eased back from her and climbed out of bed without disturbing her.

One night of holding her and guilty feelings had begun to mount. Once I had recognized that, I figured it wouldn’t have taken much for me to stay.

Thankfully, I had a session with Delilah to get back to at the college and had a valid reason to put some distance between Lily and I again. Going back to the guest room, I dressed, went downstairs, and called for a water taxi to pick Oscar and I up.

Watching my house get smaller as we sailed away from the dock, I reminded myself, if I’d stayed now after all the effort I had made, I would have been resigning myself to a half-life in which I’d continue to chase stolen moments of feeling I was alive.

I had to believe that I was fighting for my happiness. The tough choice I’d taken now would determine whether Lily had what it took to fight for us. Once I had the answer to that, her actions would shape how we moved forward and in turn, everything after that.