Page 100 of Lady Sings the Blues

“Yeah, you got a wife…” Silence hangs between us for a minute while we both let it soak in. “Just a piece of paper, brother.” He offers. “Nothing different than you already been doing. She was already your family.”

“Know you’re right, but somethin’ about havin’ that paper feels weightier.” I sigh and slump back against the bar. “Can’t believe you had the balls to do this when we were twenty-one.”

“My balls have always been bigger than yours.” He laughs and punches my shoulder. “But no doubt, she’d been here, you’d ‘a done it, too. Seriously, she’s already been sleeping in your bed every night. Who you turn to first when you’ve had a shitty day?”

“Elise.”

“When you’ve had a fucking fantastic day?”

“Elise.” I repeat.

“What I’d be shitting my pants about is that in seven months you’re gonna be responsible for a baby. A fragile human life. Small—”

“Shut it, Tommy.”

“Delicate.”

“Shut it, Tommy.”

“Completely vulnerable.”

“Shut it, Tommy!”

The bastard laughs at me. And he keeps laughing until Elise makes her way from the dancefloor back over to us.

She kisses my cheek while I tuck her under my arm, skimming my hand across her dress to rest on her belly. The second my hand makes contact, all those nerves vanish.

Tommy can laugh all he wants because right here, right now, I know without a hint of doubt that I’m holdin’ all I’ll ever need in my arms.

My wife and kid.

Whose balls are bigger now?

“You good, baby?” She snuggles closer into me. “Because you look about ready to puke.”

“Nope. Good now.”

“You happy?” she asks.

“Never been happier, darlin’. Tommy here was just tellin’ me how he and Maryanne wanna start tryin’ for a family now, too.” I tell her, watchin’ my oldest friend take a drink of his beer.

He chokes, coughing up and spitting out beer all over the floor.

That’ll teach him.

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