For the Love of a Lush (Lush No. 2) (32 page)

Walsh

I
COME
offstage, sweaty but happy, buzzing in the best way from the satisfaction of playing good music with my friends. Tammy’s waiting for me at a table up front near the stage, and I lean down and give her a juicy kiss, savoring the taste of her lips. No alcohol ever tasted as sweet as my wife’s lips, and these days, whenever I taste her, it takes me back to that moment four months ago when she said, "I do," and made my life complete.

"That was great you guys," Tammy gushes as she squeezes Jenny’s hand and smiles at Mike and Colin.

Colin gives her a lame attempt at a smile in return. He’s been off all week and won’t tell us what’s up. We all figure it’s got something to do with Marsha though since he refuses to so much as set foot in The Bronco when we’re in town. We all sit down, and the waitress brings big mugs of water, an O.J. and club soda for me, and a beer for Mike.

I look at Mike’s beer for a moment, and I stop, assess, consider whether I wish I could have one as well. Most days, the answer is, "No." That doesn’t mean I don’t still have cravings, but they’re much fewer and farther between. If I get one, all I have to do is remember the sound of my Little Dude’s heart beating in that exam room the first time I heard it and the craving vanishes. The idea of failing Tammy and our child is something I cannot even comprehend. For whatever reason, Tammy has chosen me—has always chosen me—and I’m determined to be the best possible me I can for the rest of our lives. I won’t fail her or our child as long as I have breath left in my body.

"So how’d repeating that last refrain feel to you, sunshine?" Mike asks Jenny as we all settle in and the after-performance adrenaline disperses a touch.

"You were right," she says, rolling her eyes and winking at Tam and me.

"See?" Mike says, grinning. "I’m getting her trained."

"Michael, so help me, I’ll get a new guitarist," Jenny threatens.

I lean over to Tammy and whisper, "Do you think if they finally did the deed they’d quit bitching at each other?"

She laughs, and I use the proximity as an excuse to plant another kiss on her lips while I rub her tummy under the table.

"Little Dude been kicking anymore tonight?" I ask.

She turns and gives me one of her looks that would slay most men but just makes me laugh. "How do you know its Little
Dude
and not Little
Dudette
?" She raises one eyebrow.

I shrug. "I just do," I say. "Father’s intuition or something."

She snorts. "And what, the woman whose body is actually doing all the work wouldn’t have a better sense of that than the sperm donor?"

"Sperm donor?" I rail. "Excuse me, Mrs. Clark, but I have been at every single doctor’s appointment, read the entire ‘What to Expect’ book, and spent hours singing to your belly. I have a relationship with Little Dude. We talk. We’ve got plans."

Tammy’s mouth opens up to give me a rejoinder, but Mike interrupts her. "Will the two of you puhleeze just log on to the damn portal and find out the sex already? You have this same fucking argument every night and it’s getting really old. If I have to listen to it one more time, I might hit something."

"Chill out, man," I tell him, amused like I always am when I manage to piss off Mike. "Not everyone is as impatient as you. And we don’t have the argument every day."

"Well," Jenny says, her cheeks turning pink, "I didn’t want to say anything but…" she trails off.

"Oh, God." Tammy drops her head onto her arms on the table. When she looks back up, she says, "Are we really that bad?"

Jenny bites her lip but nods as Mike and Colin both holler, "Hell yes!"

Tammy looks at me, embarrassment washing over her features.

I scratch my head. "Shit. Sorry, I guess."

"Just log on," Mike repeats.

Tammy looks at me questioningly. We’ve refused to log on to the portal with the baby’s ultrasound picture and gender listing, and I think—for me, anyway—it’s because I’ve needed time to adjust. As much as I love Tammy, as much as I love Little Dude already, this wasn’t planned. I wasn’t prepared, and sometimes in life, it takes a while to catch up. With the gender a mystery, this child has somehow been less real. Sort of a
virtual
baby. But once you know gender, once you can actually select the name, buy the right clothes, imagine what he’ll be like at two or five or ten years old—well, that’s a game changer. Am I ready to change this game?

"What do you say, sweetheart?" I ask, watching her face for clues to her thoughts.

She nibbles on her lip for a moment then gives me a sweet smile. One of those smiles that only I ever see because it’s not Tammy the rock star manager or Tammy the warrior. It’s Tammy my wife.

"I think I’m ready," she says quietly.

"Me too," I answer.

Jenny bounces up and down in her seat. "Oh my God! This is so exciting! You’re going to do it now, right? I mean, can we see too?" she asks hopefully.

"Oh, what the hell," Tammy says, reaching into her purse and extracting her phone. In a minute, she’s got the browser opened up and she’s logging in to our doctor’s office’s patient portal.

I see Mike and Colin whispering then shaking hands on the far side of the table. "Are you two dicks betting on my kid?" I ask, shaking my head.

Colin looks chagrined.

Mike just grins at me. "A thousand big ones, dude. Watch me take his ass."

"Fuck off," Colin bitches as he elbows Mike.

Just then, Tammy gasps, and I look over to see her covering her mouth with her hand, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. I lean down and look at her phone.

There, before my eyes, is the most beautiful sight I’ve ever witnessed. It’s an image in black and white and shades of gray, but it’s still very obviously a baby. I can see his whole form—his big, round head and his tiny arms and legs. His nose, his fingers, his—

"Tam? Is that what I think it is?" I ask, a smile beginning to work its way across the entire width of my face.

Her eyes snap up to mine. "You’re such an ass, Walsh Clark," she huffs at me.

I laugh as I gather her in my arms and kiss her temple.

Mike hoots from across the table. "It’s Little
Dude
? A boy? Hah! I knew it!"

Colin grumbles and starts pulling out his wallet. Jenny reaches across the table and pats his hand then gives Mike a dirty look.

"Oh, baby," I whisper in Tammy’s ear. "He’s beautiful. Just look at him. He’s absolutely perfect."

She nods her head, a few of those tears finally falling down her soft cheeks. "He is, isn’t he? Just kind of perfect."

"Now we have to think of a name."

"I have an idea for one already," she says. "If you like it, of course."

"What is it?"

"Pax," she says quietly. "It means peace, and I thought, after everything we’ve been through, this peace we’ve found, well… It doesn’t hurt to remind ourselves of how lucky we are to have it."

I roll the name over in my mind for a moment. "Pax Clark. I like it, sweetheart. I like it a lot."

"You pick the middle name," she instructs me, gazing at the picture on her phone again, love beaming from her face.

It doesn’t take me but a moment before it flashes into my mind, the name I want. It represents selflessness and steadfastness—the kind of man I’d like my son to become someday, the kind of man I’m striving to become myself.

"How about Silva? Pax Silva Clark?"

She looks at me then, understanding in her face. She knows what Ronny and his guidance have meant to me all these months. "I love it," she tells me. "And thank you for not picking Ronald."

I laugh, and we pass the phone around for everyone to look at the picture of little Pax. Mike makes crude remarks about Pax’s penis size. Jenny smiles and tells us how beautiful he is. Colin smiles sadly as he hands the phone back to Tammy, leading me to wonder again what’s happened to my happy, peaceful brother.

"By the way," Tammy says going into business mode as she stows the phone in her purse. "Mel finally downloaded those photos from Vegas. You have to make sure to get them to your mom. She’s been calling me every two days asking about it." She shakes her head. "I don’t know why we ever thought it would be a good idea to get married without our parents there."

"I’m going to head to the hotel," Colin says, standing up and stretching. "I want to get an early start in the morning."

"You in a hurry to get back to Mrs. Stallworth’s?" I ask, smirking.

"Hey, since you and Tam left town, I’m all she’s got. The lawn needs to be cut, and that asshole son of hers won’t come clean out the gutters, so I’m going to have to do that too."

"Wait until next weekend and I’ll come help out with the gutters," I tell him. "We’re spending this week in Portland, but we’ll stay here in Dallas over the weekend, after the shows."

"Okay. Sounds good, man," he replies, waving goodnight to everyone.

"So…" I turn to my gorgeous wife. "You ready to head home?"

"Yes," she says as she stands up and adjusts her ever-expanding tummy. She’s midway in the pregnancy and has a cute but noticeable bump. With her height, she’ll never look like a roly poly, but babies in my family are big, so I know she’s not getting away with some little six-and-a-half pounder. Pax is going to be a brute.

"You two good?" I ask Mike and Jenny.

"Yeah, man. They loaded up the equipment in the trailer already, so we’ll just haul it back to the hotel in a few. I’m getting sick of staying at the Hilton every weekend though. Maybe I ought to get a place in Dallas like you two," he adds.

"Do it, man. The price of real estate here is so cheap you can buy yourself a fucking castle with a moat and a recording studio in the basement for what you’d pay for a one-bedroom in downtown Portland."

Mike looks over at Jenny, who’s trying very hard not to participate in the conversation. "I’m liking Texas a lot, you know? I might just do that." He nudges her in the arm. "You want to go look at real estate with me tomorrow?"

Before I can hear her answer, my phone rings and I see Joss’s name flash on the screen. I show it to Tammy before I click ‘answer’ and we wave at Mike and Jenny then start walking to the back door of the bar. Tammy holds one of my hands while the phone’s in my other.

"Hey, man, what’s up?" I ask my best friend.

"You gotta help me out," he says, panic infusing his voice.

"All right. What’s the problem?"

"It’s Mrs. DiLorenzo—
our
mother-in-law. She likes you better than me and I know she’ll listen if you explain it to her."

"Explain what?"

"About the pie."

I laugh, and Tammy raises an eyebrow at me as I let go of her hand to unlock the car doors. I help her in and shut her door before walking up and leaning against the front bumper of her new Volvo SUV. It’s got the highest safety rating of any SUV on the road. So I got her one in each city—Dallas and Portland. I want Tammy and Pax to be safe.

"So she won’t let you have pie?"

"No," Joss growls in frustration. "She’s insisting that cake is traditional and that I can have lemon cake if I have to—as a side cake, mind you. Not even the main cake, which has to be white. Plain old white cake, dude. Who the hell wants to eat that shit?"

Joss Jamison loves lemon meringue pie more than anything in this world with the possible—note I say
possible
—exception of his fiancée.

"What do you expect me to do about it? Call up Darlene and tell her she has to let you have lemon meringue pie at your own wedding? Because why? Maybe because you’re nearly thirty years old, you’re paying for the wedding, and if you want to have lemon meringue pie your small Italian-American mother-in-law can’t stop you?"

If we were Facetiming this call, I know I’d be able to see the great Joss Jamison pouting.

"I
do
expect you to call up Mrs. D. and tell her to let me have the pie because this is all
your
fault. If you and Tammy hadn’t run off to Vegas, Mel’s wedding wouldn’t be the only one Mrs. D. ever gets to have and then there wouldn’t be all this pressure on
me
to conform to her every wish and whim."

I roll my eyes though he can’t see me. "Fine, I’ll talk to her about the pie. Now, before we hang up, are you coming to the show next weekend?"

"Yep. We got our flight scheduled. We’ll be there at two on Friday."

"Good. I want you to see what you can find out from Colin. Something’s going on with him and he won’t fess up."

"Okay. To do with Marsha, I assume?"

"I’m sure."

"All right. It’s a deal. Pie for the scoop on Marsha."

"Deal, man. I’ll see you next week."

"Take care, brotha’."

We hang up the phone, and I hop in the car with Tammy. I lean over and nuzzle her neck.

"Mmm. What did Joss want?"

"Something about lemon pie, wedding cake, and your mother."