AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Right now it is.” She covered the whorl of red hair that never seemed to sit right at the back of her son’s head and breathed him in. Fruit punch and baby shampoo. A damn fine combo as far as she was concerned.
Axl wiggled away. “Did you see the chopter mama?”
“Chopper,” she corrected.
“Chopter,” Axl said again.
She laughed and dragged him back in for a hug. She buried her face in her son’s sweet smelling neck. “I did see it.”
“Can I have one?”
Chloe slung her purse back over her shoulder and hauled him up, to perch on her hip. “Not today, pal. We can go home and play with your Legos though.”
“Deal. Home!”
“Home,” she agreed. This was what mattered. Not her stupid marriage to some man. That would have to work itself out. Right now she had to worry about this little monster.
Chapter 15
A plan. Right. That was all he needed. Once he was conscious again.
After the mess with his failure to extract Chloe’s number from Nick, he’d conceded the field. Given up. Temporarily, of course, but a smart guy knew when to pull back and regroup.
Of course the treads on his face from Chloe’s dismissal had sped up the retreating process, but he wasn’t one to point fingers.
He dozed fitfully on the plane ride home, then went to his apartment and crawled into bed after taking a short, hot shower. He slept all day Monday, minus a few trips to piss and contemplate his shitty lot in life.
All in all, it was easier to sleep.
Tuesday, he woke up to discover the internet had exploded.
Apparently, the lead guitarist of Warning Sign getting unexpectedly married the same weekend as his band’s triumphant concert was a big fucking deal.
The Vegas part was icing.
The fact that he’d married the fiancée of “a washed-up rocker who’d sued Oblivion before he’d either committed suicide or died by misadventure” made up the sugary roses.
He wondered how long it would take them to realize his wife had ghosted on him without leaving a forwarding address. Forget address. He couldn’t even get her digits.
The one thing in their favor was they’d been in the same circles for years. Someone might ostensibly believe they’d had some kind of meaningful interaction that could lead to marriage. Instead of, oh, not having any kind of contact other than his hiring a PI to take photos she’d inadvertently been a part of and possibly eating from the same bowl of peas at Thanksgiving.
No, scratch that. He was almost positive she didn’t like peas, because there’d been a big brouhaha with her kid smearing them on the wall during the meal. See, there was one thing he knew about his wife.
Strangers, pfft.
He rolled out of bed and into the shower. Hard to see how he’d gotten dirty from sleeping, but his body was sheened in perspiration. Christ, the dreams he’d had. More like nightmares. Ones about his mother’s wedding, where he’d given her away and turned around to see the audience was laughing at him. Pointing too.
No wonder he’d sweated through his sheets. He hated weddings as a whole, and his mother’s were a special kind of hell.
No wonder he’d blocked out the memory of his own ceremony. Who could blame him?
He showered and was about to shave when he dropped his razor. He still had the cut on his hand from the other day, when he’d talked to Ryan after awakening to Tabitha in his bed. He’d thought his life was so difficult then.
Right. His life had been a candy apple forest compared to the bullshit of being accidentally married, yet having no contact information for his wife.
Fuck shaving. Fuck everything.
He rubbed a hand over his scruffy chin and went back into the bedroom to grab his phone. Enough of this holding his ass crap. He’d just contact Jerzee, his old PI friend, and have him find out where Chloe lived—
