Page 33 of Everything After (Everything Trilogy)

ALFIE

“I asked you to leave last night,” Lily mumbled when she walked into the kitchen and saw I was still there. She headed straight for a glass and filled it with water. Placing the water in front of me, she then moved away like her ass was on fire.

I must have looked a pitiful sight, slumped over the table with a whiskey tumbler in my hand, and three quarters of a bottle of alcohol gone.

“I’ve been thinking,” I admitted. In fact, I’d been thinking so hard about what a fool I’d been, that I drank so much just to blur my thoughts out. Like getting drunk would save my marriage.

“And drinking,” she added before she began making coffee.

“Caffeine is bad for you and the baby,” I blurted, skipping past her comment to inform her about something I’d read years ago.

Lily dropped a porta-filter full of coffee she had been about to add to the coffee machine and glared at me. “Oh, now you’re an expert about what I can put in my body. You don’t know if you want me, but you want to control me?”

“I’ve never controlled you, I was looking out for you,” I offered.

“The coffee isn’t for me. It’s for you. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re still drunk and you smell like a distillery,” she snapped before she continued to make coffee.

“Can we start again?” I pleaded.

When she turned to look at me there were tears in her eyes.

My heart squeezed for the hurt that I’d caused her, and that I’d done it at such a vulnerable time for her.

In that moment she looked younger than her years while she stood makeup free.

She looked so appealing with her wild, unkempt bed hair, dressed in her silk shorts and tank top pajamas.

“What exactly is it, you want to start again? This is where we are today because you were unhappy. Has that changed?”

“Baby, we need to talk,” I sounded whiney even to my own ears.

“I know we do but I’m hurt and scared—no I feel blindsided by what’s happened. I never suspected for a minute you’d leave the way you did, and I feel as if everyone is looking to me to fix what’s gone wrong between us,” she admitted.

I sighed. “Look, after our conversation last night, I understand better now why you never showed up for me. I love you, Lily. You’re the only girl I’ve ever wanted, still want.” I shook my head. “I dunno, maybe I’m having a mid-life crisis or something.”

“You’ve certainly made me think about us, about the band, about our lives as a couple,” Lily mumbled.

“It just appeared to me as if I loved you more… that I was willing to go that extra mile for us,” I explained.

“And I saw you showing up for me as you being supportive and understanding of the demands on a growing band like XrAid. There were times when I missed you so much. Times when I’ve cried myself to sleep, but kept on going because I didn’t want to let you down,” she said.

A sob caught in her throat and the noise that came out sounded pathetic.

“Fuck,” I breathed because everything she’d said made sense now.

“Go take a nap and a shower. Perhaps when you’ve sobered up, we can try to have a rational conversation,” she quietly suggested.

She sounded tired and the drained look that had been there the night before was back. Seeing how destroyed she looked reminded me that the conflict between us had been down to me in the first place.

I was the one who had walked, and with everything she had just said, along with our talk the previous night, I reckoned that I had the responsibility to make amends.

Taking her advice, I slid the whisky tumbler away from me, drank the glass of water she’d given me, then I stood up from the table.

Forgetting the separation, I stepped forward and took her in my arms, kissed her temple and cradled her head on my chest. Lily stayed there for a few beats, then broke out of my hold.

“Maybe you could make me a couple of expressos to take with me,” I suggested once she’d turned back to making coffee.

“Already on it,” she muttered. Without looking up at me, she placed a small cup on the countertop and pushed it in my direction. Turning she filled a second, did the same with that and headed for the kitchen door. “I’ll talk to you later.”

After showering and crashing into bed for three hours, I woke with a small hangover and an exceptionally furry tongue. Guilt washed over me that I’d gotten trashed at a time when Lily couldn’t even drink and I should have been fighting to put things right between us.

During the night I came to realize that Lily was stronger and had much more emotional intelligence than I had.

With hindsight, although she’d appeared uncaring and selfish, I knew deep down that she couldn’t control when she could take time out. That decision was driven by market forces in the music industry as well as promoting and touring to compete with whoever else was releasing albums at the same time.

Crakt Soundzz had released twelve hit albums, and we had a diehard fanbase with nothing to prove. Whereas, XrAid had three under their belt and had just signed a new three album deal with the record company.

From her perspective I had blown her world to smithereens at a moment’s notice because I wanted more from us, without stopping to catch a breath and consider that if her circumstances were different, she’d likely want that too.

Although I’d already showered, I had another, and once I’d grabbed some fresh clothing from my closet in the master suite, I went downstairs to face the music.

I searched through the house and eventually found Lily in the music studio, talking on her cell phone. She was freshly showered with her hair still wet, bare-footed, but dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a simple light-blue T-shirt.

When she glanced up, I guessed she’d heard me coming, and the smile she’d had on her face for the caller, froze then fell. “Okay, I need to go,” she said quietly. “Yes, yes… I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Usually if someone had called and I hadn’t been present Lily made a point of telling me who the caller was.

When she didn’t, it made me even more curious as to who she’d been talking to. However, I believed I’d given up the right to ask by leaving her the way I had.

“Did you sleep?” I asked, making casual conversation, when she made no attempt to speak.

“A little. No need to ask if you did. I heard you snore all the way down the hall.” Lily’s voice lacked the usual playful tone she would have had saying something like that.

A text came in on my cell phone that I had in my hand. When I checked the name and saw that it was Rick, I wondered if the caller had been him.

“It’s Rick,” I told her without hesitation.

“Yeah. He said he’d be contacting you.”

“Contacting me? Why?”

Lily scoffed. “I contacted Lennie to ask if I could take a few weeks off. Rick instantly took his cell off him and asked me what was wrong.”

“And you said what?” I questioned, immediately wondering if we could catch a break from these guys to figure our lives out alone.

“I told him that I needed a couple of weeks off.”

“Did he ask why?”

“No, just said he’d move things around.”

“Good then we’ll—”

“I’m flying to London,” she announced, cutting dead the sentence about reconciliation forming in my head.

“London?”

“Yeah, I’m going to spend time with my parents.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said. My mind began to race that a break away from everyone connected with the bands was exactly what Lily and I needed to reconnect.

“No. I’m going alone. My head feels as if it’s going to explode and if I don’t deal with the pressure, I might end up having a breakdown.”

“You really don’t want me with you?” I asked, crushed by her rejection.

“I wanted you to be here since the moment I got off that plane weeks ago. You chose to leave. So you’ll excuse me if I decide the same courtesy applies to me.”

A streak of panic coursed through my veins that Lily was running back to a place that was safe, which told me she no longer felt safe with me. I’d broken the trust that we had between us by not talking about how discontented I was and allowing my misplaced resentment to boil over.

Now I was being forced to face the consequences of my impulsive action which may have jeopardized not only mine and Lily’s futures but perhaps our unborn baby’s as well.