Melody of the Heart (Runaway Train, #4)

I chuckled. “Not exactly.”


“We always wanted a big family, but no, Jude was a complete and total surprise. One of those birth control failure mysteries.” Lily made a face like she didn’t like her wording. “I mean, he was very wanted. It’s just it was a surprise.”

Patting her leg, I said, “At the time, I was only seeing her once or twice a month, so I guess you could say my stored up swimmers were really potent.”

Lily squealed, her hands once again covering her face. Giovanni and I both laughed at her reaction. “Hey, it’s what happened with the Baby Boomers after WWII. Kinda makes sense it would be the same way for us,” I rationalized.

“So you conceived when you weren’t actively trying?” Givoanni asked.

“That’s right,” Lily replied, fanning her reddened face with her hand.

“I like to call it, ‘That teeny, tiny .1% of birth control pills non-effectiveness’.”

Lily huffed at my side. “Yeah, well, I like to call it an unexpected miracle.”

I grinned at her. “Actually, we call him Jude, and even though he’s almost twelve and at that know-it-all preteen stage, we still love him.”





BRAYDEN


The Past



Rolling over in bed, I snuggled closer to Lily’s warmth. I lived for the weekends that she got to come along on tour with us. They seemed too few and far between lately. I was going to have to talk to her again about coming out every weekend, rather than every other one. More than anything, I wanted her to quit her teaching job, but she refused. I know it was because she loved what she did so much and had worked hard to earn her degree. But at the end of the day, I was a selfish bastard who wanted her with me twenty-four seven. And it wasn’t just my dick that needed her with me all the time either.

Even though we’d been together at least three times last night, I still wanted more of her. The old cliché that absence made the heart grow fonder was certainly true, especially when it came to my dick. Shifting her long, blonde hair off her shoulder, I then started kissing a wet trail along her neck. My hand slid around her ribcage to cup her breast. When I squeezed it, causing the nipple to harden, she moaned.

Her reaction caused me to buck my morning wood against her backside. Instead of warming up to me, she shifted away. Frowning at her back, I said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she murmured, drowsily.

“Was I too rough last night?”

She shook her head. “I’m just tired that’s all.”

In our seven years together, she’d never refused me. She was always just as game as I was, especially when I had been gone on the road. Drawing circles on her back with my finger, I said, “Talk to me, Lily.”

She glanced over her shoulder. When I saw the tears pooling in her eyes, I sat up straight in the bed. “Oh God, I was too rough last night, wasn’t I? If I hurt you, I’m so sorry.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“Please don’t hate me.”

Her words sent fear crashing from my head down to my toes. “No matter what it is, I could never hate you,” I replied honestly.

That statement caused her to burst into tears. Her body shook with the strength of her sobs. Unease prickled over me, and the worst thing I could ever imagine entered my mind. “Is there someone else?” I demanded.

Lily’s eyes widened. “NO! No, of course not. How could you think that?”

“You don’t want to have sex with me, then you ask me not to hate you, and then you burst out crying. What the fuck am I supposed to think?”

Lily opened her mouth to respond, but then she clamped a hand over it. Throwing back the sheets, she raced from the bed. “You can’t go out there naked!” I shouted after her. The last thing I needed on top of everything else was for my bandmates to see my wife naked.

At the slam of the bathroom door, I shot off the bed. When I got to the hallway, a bleary-eyed Jake and Rhys peered out of their roosts at me. Of course, I could still hear AJ snoring. He could sleep through an F-5 tornado. “Dude, what the fuck is going on?” Rhys demanded.

“I wish I knew,” I grumbled.

Motioning to the bathroom, Jake gave me a wicked grin. “I haven’t heard that much gagging since the last girl who thought she could deep throat me.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re a disgusting prick who has delusions of grandeur.”

Jake chuckled and then disappeared behind his roost curtain. I rapped my knuckles lightly on the door. “Lils, are you all right?”

Her response came in the form of the toilet flushing. A few seconds passed before the door opened. While her eyes and nose were red from the crying, her face was white as a sheet. She had managed to slip on one of the bathrobes that hung behind the door. Of course, I was still butt naked in the hallway with my junk hanging out. “Babe, are you all right?” I repeated.