Sixteen

I stretch out a hand, slap at the alarm clock on the table beside me to silence it. Yawning, I rub at my eyes, stumble from the couch to the kitchen in search of coffee, start the kids' breakfasts and begin everything all over again.

But despite falling into some semblance of a routine, despite going through the motions of work and chores and pretending like I can be anything close to the parent my kids need me to be, life doesn't get any easier. Not even as the days turn into weeks, weeks into months, on and on and on until somehow it's spring and almost four months have passed. Four months where we should've been getting ready for our family to grow to five, not fade away to this hollow half-life.

In the beginning, people used to tell me to give it time, that it'd get easier, if they could bring themselves to say anything about Leigh at all, until somehow barely anyone outside of my family ever even mentions her name. Like they think I want to forget her, or I somehow deserve to be happy again.

And yet, no matter how much booze I drink, or how many pills I swallow, the pain never stops, not for a second.

I take a deep breath, push open the door to the nursery, and plaster a smile onto my face. 'Come on, you two, time to wake up.'

'She's a real looker, ass like a peach. Great tits.' Gary waves his hands in a crude gesture meant to demonstrate the apparently perfect curves of his bit on the side to Vince as they loiter by the flatbed, doing as little as possible to help me unload the sheets of dry wall.

Vince leans on the tailgate. 'Ain't you worried the wife'll find out?'

Gary laughs, rests his elbows on a box. 'What's she gonna do? Leave me? Beth knows where she's well off, she ain't gonna go nowhere. And besides, it's her fault anyway. If she don't want me to stray then she should be a little bit more accommodating and—'

'Vince, any chance of a hand?' I bark, momentarily interrupting Gary's flow.

Vince nods. Sure, Shep.' He grabs the other end of the sheet, as I slide it off the truck. But Gary doesn't take the hint, follows us inside, and back out again as I stalk across the lawn to pick up the next load, still running his mouth.

Christ. Gary's always been an asshole, but cheating on his wife and bragging to the world about it? The guy ought to be thankful for what he's got, not taking it for fucking granted. I can't—won't—listen to another word of this bullshit.

'How about you shut the fuck up, Gar, and do some actual work for once?'

Gary glowers at me, steps forward, chest puffed out. 'The hell you say, Shep? Last time I checked, Curtis was the boss around here. Not you, not when you only been here five fucking minutes. So crawl back in your hole and keep your big mouth shut.'

'And if I don't?' My arms hang relaxed at my sides, but my fingers flex, balling into fists.

'Gar, just leave it,' Vince murmurs. 'Let's just get on with the job.'

'Why? Shepard's the one with the problem, not me.' Gary smirks at Vince.

'The hell's that s'posed to mean?' I ask, staring him down.

But Gary doesn't back down, carries on talking at Vince like I'm not even here. 'I mean, here's me with two girls on the go, and Shepard's such a loser that he can't even manage to hang onto one.'

'Shut up.' Blood thunders in my ears, my heart racing as I jab a hand against his chest. 'Don't you fucking dare talk about my wife in the same breath as some easy broad you're knocking off.'

But Gary just laughs in my face. 'Oh quit carrying on like you're so fucking perfect. You were hardly the ideal husband either, Shepard. Whole town knows it was only gonna be a matter of time until Leigh would have left you for good anyway, all the crap you were doing behind her back. Only she never got the chance, did she?'

I launch myself at him, go to pin him against the side of the truck. But he sidesteps, swings a punch and catches me square in the face.

Ignoring the blood pouring from my nose, I shove him to the ground, fists swinging, the pain in my knuckles a welcome respite as I focus on nothing but Gary, making him pay for saying that.

'Hey! Break it up!' Strong hands grab my shoulders, pull me off of him. 'Shepard! What the hell?'

I spit blood on the asphalt and shrug at Darrel, while Vince helps Gary sit up.

'Christ. What is this? The fucking schoolyard? How about one of you tell me what the hell you're playing at?' Darrel looks to me, to Gary. Neither of us says a word. He sighs, drags a hand through his hair. 'Vince?'

'Sorry, boss.' Vince squirms under the full force of Curtis' glare, but at least he has the good grace not to open his mouth to drop me in it. 'Didn't see nothing.'

'No. Course you didn't. Get him out of here, clean him up.'

Vince nods, helps Gary limp off towards his car.

I turn away, wipe my bloody hands on my jeans and go to carry on with shifting the materials off of the truck but Darrel blocks my path. 'What the hell, Tim? Are you trying to put me out of business?'

'Guy's a dick. Doesn't know when to keep his big mouth shut.'

'What, so that's how you solve it? Jesus, Tim, I know things aren't easy, and I've tried to be understanding, but this is the third crew I've had to put you with in as many months. Every time it ends in arguing or worse. There's nobody else left who'll work with you and I sure as hell don't need my customers seeing crap like that, thinking all I've got on my payroll is some bunch of cowboys.'

'Yeah? Well how about I make easy for you then? You can screw your job, Curtis, I don't need your goddamn charity.'

I glance at my watch. Still more than an hour until I'm supposed to be picking the kids up from Angela. No way she'll let it slide if I turn up now. No way she won't see straight through my bullshit if I even attempt to suggest Mr-stick-to-the-rules-Curtis actually let us clock off early.

I drive out towards Brumly, buy more pills, swallow down a couple. But even as the numbness kicks in, Gary's taunts carry on running through my head, playing over and over like a stuck record. Same shit I've been torturing myself with these past months. Same thing everyone else has probably been thinking, only none of them have had the balls to say it to my face.

I need to make it stop.

I take a left, wind through the streets until I'm a block away.

Cops haven't done nothing useful, probably aren't even investigating no more. So it's time I stopped hiding behind having to look after Tony and Grace and get off my ass and do something. Honour the love of my life, no matter what the cost.

I slam the car door, stride across the street and step into the bar, a wall of heat hitting me as the door swings shut on my heels.

'Hey, stranger.' June smiles as she pops the cap on a beer, slides it across to me. 'Been a while.'

'Yeah. Chris around?'

'Out back. In his office.'

'Right.' I grab the beer bottle, knocking back about half the contents by the time I reach the little cubby stuffed with folders overflowing with beer invoices and teetering crates of bottles stacked one on the other that June charitably describes as Chris Lewis's office.

'Tim?' Lewis shuffles through the small gap, claps a hand down on my shoulder. 'How you doing?'

I shrug. 'Been better. You still doing any work with Brannigan?'

'No, man. Jesus, what d'you take me for? Like I told you last time we spoke—'

'Okay, okay,' I interrupt him, not wanting to go there. Sometime in those blurry first weeks, Chris'd shown up, in whatever bar I happened to be drinking in, full of platitudes and condolences, laced with a heavy dose of Catholic guilt, for his part in making my path cross with Brannigan's again. ' I need a favour.'

'Sure, name it. Anything.'

'Any chance I can get some work? Go back to the money collecting again?'

'Thought you had that gig with Curtis?'

'Yeah, only them sort of hours, ain't exactly conducive, what with everything else I'm juggling right now...the kids.' I pick at the label of the empty beer bottle and grin at him. 'And anyway, the pay was lousy.'

'Chris laughs. 'Sure, buddy. You always did have a knavk for making people pay. How about you come by again tomorrow and I'll have all the info ready for you.' He reaches for a bottle of bourbon, pours us a half inch each into a couple of tumblers. 'Welcome back, Shepard.'

'Cheers.' I take a sip, slip my real request in like it's no big deal and I'm not asking anything more unusual than for him to stand me a drink or lend me a couple of bucks. That the only reason I'm asking is 'cause carrying it'll help me play the part of the asshole debt collector more efficiently. 'Oh, and I'll need a gun.'

A/N: Thank you so much for reading :)