Page 22 of Something to Believe In
His gut tightened. While he didn't sleep with groupies all the time, there were times he had, and he now knew she knew about it, too. That was some baggage they'd have to wade through.
"I'm glad too. And I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I never intended for that to happen."
"I know." She attempted to smile; it was weak, but an attempt. He nodded and kissed her lips softly. Then he stood and picked up their dishes and carried them to the sink. He began rinsing them. Mads carried the empty salad bowl to the sink and set it inside.
"I can get this."
He shrugged. "We can do it together."
She chuckled. "Okay. I'll rinse, you put them in the dishwasher."
He stacked the dishes neatly in the dishwasher. The music from downstairs grew in volume. "Does she always play music this loud?"
"Yeah. I'm not home all that much, so it's only an annoyance sometimes, not all the time. But in the past two months, it’s gotten louder."
"Well, it's going to make it hard to have a conversation up here."
Mads turned to him. She slid her hands in the pockets of her jeans and shrugged. "I can go down and ask her to turn it down."
"Will she get pissy about it?"
"She might."
"I'll go with you."
Her eyebrows rose into her bangs. "That would be another person seeing us together."
His shoulders deflated. This would not work at all. He took a deep breath and nodded. "I know it's only been a day, but I'm already sick of hiding. We're not doing anything wrong, Mads."
"We kind of are. We're breaking the band's rule."
"I don't give a fuck about the band's rule. Tony and Livia broke the rules, and they'd only known each other for a few weeks. We've known each other for years."
"But..."
"Listen, let's have this conversation. You've known me for what, fifteen years? More? Twenty years? I think it's closer to twenty. In all that time, and be honest about this. In all those years, was there ever a time when you thought I was a jackass?"
She laughed. "Well, when you were married to Shauna, you bitched at her in front of all of us."
He cocked his head to the right. "What? When did I do that?"
"Don't you remember? You caught her kissing some guy by the bathroom at the bar where we were performing. In front of the entire band afterwards, you called her a slut and told her you wanted a divorce."
He closed his eyes for a moment. Nodding, he said, "I found out that night she'd been sleeping around quite a bit on me. So, she was a slut. I said nothing that wasn't true."
Maddyn's eyes grew round. "Oh, my gawd. That's sort of true, but super harsh."
It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. "Super harsh? You don't think sleeping around on me was super harsh?"
She shrugged, and her cheeks turned pink. "Well, yeah, that's super slutty, but I felt sort of sorry for her. In front of all of us, you aired your dirty laundry."
"Okay." He had to stifle a chuckle because he now remembered that night and how elated he felt finding her kissing some other jackass. Then, her admitting she'd been sleeping with other guys for a while, well, that sealed the deal for him. No way she could say no to a divorce, and no way she would get anything from him either. "But do you remember how happy I was when she left the room?"
Mads' lips curved up into a beautiful smile. "To be honest, we were all happy. She was rather annoying."
"That's an understatement."
Mads laughed and the sound sent a chill down his arms. He loved her laugh.
