complained with a groan as I rolled over away from her and tried to get comfortable in my bed.
My eyes flew open when my hand smacked down in a puddle of vomit two inches from my face. I looked around and realized I was sprawled out on the kitchen floor wearing just my boxer briefs and the phone number of the stripper I was pretty sure I banged tonight written in black pen on my forearm.
“Where’s Emma?” I croaked, wincing at the raspy, worn-out sound of my own voice as I avoided the puke on the floor and pushed myself up to my feet, trying not to wobble but being unsuccessful.
Gwen quickly wrapped her arms around my torso, supporting my weight and helping me over to the sink to wash my hands and splash cold water on my face.
“She’s next door with Mrs. Nichols. I decided to come here first after my shift to check on you before I picked her up. Thank God I did. What a great way for your six-year-old niece to come home from the babysitter. Finding her uncle facedown in a pool of his own vomit, smelling like a hooker.”
Between the stale whiskey and the disgust in her voice, my stomach started to churn.
Still dripping with water, I squeezed my eyes shut as I turned the faucet off and flung my arm out to the side blindly as Gwen smacked a dry dishtowel in my hand.
“I don’t smell like hooker. Stripper maybe. Probably. But never hooker. That’s just gross,” I said with a laugh as I wiped the towel down the front of my face and chucked it into the sink.
“Don’t you dare,” she whispered, tears forming in her eyes. “Don’t you DARE make light of this. Do you honestly think it would have been fun for me to walk in here to find you dead? Do you think I like working my ass off at a job I HATE, spending too much time away from my baby who asks every day when she can see Daddy? Do you think it’s fun for me to worry all day, every day, if today is the day I’m going to have to plan your funeral?” She swiped angrily at the tears that poured down her cheeks. “You need to stop this, Brady. Right now. Nothing that happened was your fault. Not in the Dominican, not here in Nashville, and certainly not my marriage. None of it.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t stand to be in my own fucking skin half the time, and I honestly didn’t know if I COULD stop what I was doing to myself.
“You promised me, Brady. You promised you’d never leave me,” she whispered.
Those six little words from Gwen that night were all it took to end the self-destruction. I said goodbye to the booze, goodbye to the random hook-ups with all the nameless, faceless women, and I said goodbye to the worry I saw etched all over Gwen’s face every single day when she looked at me. Unfortunately, the guilt and the nightmares that ate away at me every night wouldn’t be dismissed as easily. But I cleaned up my act, opened my own business, and made sure I would never, ever break that promise to Gwen again.
Except now I may have to if I can't figure out a way to pay the bills.
“Please tell me there's a few checks I can deposit in that stack of mail so we don’t have to work like the cavemen did. I am not in the mood to chisel stone instead of use the computer,” Gwen states as she walks up to me and leafs through the mail, tucking a blue strand of hair behind her ear.
“Bill, bill, bill, meet interested singles in your area, bill, bill...” she turns the envelopes over one by one and places them face down on the desk “...increase your penis size in just five days.” She purses her lips and lets out a sigh. “Awww, Brady, did you send away for something to enhance your teeny tiny weenie?”
Gwen laughs at her own joke while I stand there staring at her with my arms crossed over my chest and one eyebrow raised.
“No, I’m pretty sure that came free when you signed up for the Itty Bitty Titty Club,” I deadpan.
“Oh, you’re such a riot. Now tell me, what are you going to do about getting this electric turned on? Because hey, I’ve