Page 53 of CowSex
He bloody does. I need—no, Iwantto know. Everything.
“Met Lucy at an after-party for one of our shows we played in Georgia. She was cute, funny, and gorgeous. Convinced me that the whole relationship thing was worth giving a second chance.”
A different waitress, not Rebecca, comes over and clears our plates, and we remain silent as she works.
“We got married, and Lucy was pregnant three months later. I thought we were happy. I bought us a house in Aspen. I bought her a new car, clothes, jewellery. I bought her anything she wanted. I came home from a tour one time, and there was a lawyer at my house, waiting to serve me divorce papers. Turns out, all she was after was a paycheque for the next eighteen years.”
Didn’t know Lucy. Didn’t wanna, but I suddenly had the urge to slap the bitch.
“Please tell me you had a prenup in place. Everyone here has a prenup, don’t they?”
“Not everyone, but yeah, I did, but she still did well out of it. I wasn’t gonna fight her. If that was what she wanted, then that was what I’d give her. The only thing I did fight for was my little girl. She wanted full custody.”
Wow, I don’t have kids, but after going through what he has and losing one, I can only imagine how much that must’ve hurt.
“So, you don’t see her, your little girl?” My nose tingles as I ask.
“I do. I had to make some changes, but I fought and won joint custody. My daughter comes to me every other weekend, two weeknights and we share school holidays.”
My left hand is pressed against my chest in an attempt to slow my racing heart.
“So why, what were her reasons for wanting the divorce?”
He starts to put his jacket on, so I do the same.
“She didn’t love me. She married me for my money. Had a child with me to guarantee an income for the next eighteen years. She moved on with a record producer friend of mine just a few months after our divorce was settled, they got married, but that ended just a year later.”
“Wow.”
“Oh, it gets better. After the record producer dumped her ass for a younger model, she came begging and crying back to me.”
“Whaaaa?”
He chuckles, but it’s not the funny, haha kind. It’s the “I know, right?” kind. “Now she’s with the head of the real estate company that sold us the house I bought for her, someone I went to school with in fact.”
Rebecca appears with our bill, and I attempt to pull my card from my wristlet, but he’s faster and insists on paying.
We say our goodbyes to Martha and Rebecca and head outside.
“So carry on,” I insist. Obviously being female, I’m gagging to know the rest of this story.
The blue sky has gone, hidden behind a blanket of grey and white clouds, snow falling lightly from them.
We stand outside the diner facing each other, people jostling us as they pass by. He reaches out his hands and places them on my shoulders, pulling me closer to him and out of the way of an elderly couple, both with walking sticks, allowing them room to get by.
Once they move around us, his hands remain in place, and I look up at him.
“She fucked me over, Essex. She claimed I couldn’t take care of my daughter because of touring with the band. She tried to take my little girl from me, she attempted to take Kai’s baby sister from him. Fuck, she’d already gotten the house and a decent monthly payout, there was no way I was gonna let her have any more.”
He licks his lips and looks past me. When his eyes land back on mine, they’re different. The emotion that had been evident as he told his story last night and over breakfast were now gone. Replaced with something I couldn’t quite read.
“I gave up my music because of her. I abandoned the band, so I wouldn’t have to tour anymore. I went back to work for my dad’s construction company that I’d invested in, grown, and expanded. I bought a new house, I fixed it up, turned it into a home for Kai and Malia, and I went to court. I won joint custody, so when she came crying back to me, begging me to see her, to hear her out, I didn’t even take her calls. I had everything redirected to my lawyer and let them deal with it. My only concern was for my little girl. The impact all of this upheaval was having on my daughter. Once I threatened Lucy with court action and another custody hearing, she backed down.”
“But why, I don’t understand? Why would she divorce you, marry someone else, then try to come back to you?”
“Money. She’d met her match with Aaron Cohen, the producer. She had been his third wife, so he was an expert with the prenup, and she left with exactly what she came in with, and that was what she got from me. I heard a rumour they were both fucking around on each other from the very beginning. Tried to look into it in case I needed the evidence to gain full custody of Malia, but it wasn’t what I really wanted, the battle I mean, not my daughter.”
I let out a long breath through my nose and shake my head.
