URGENT (Book 2 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 75: Nice Guys Have An Identity Crisis

I think the song sums up Adam's state of mind, but here's the chapter that does along with it...

Adam, about six hours ago

After I leave Mac, I don't go down the main stairs. The house is so damn big, I know it has to have a back stair. I find it and ease down into the empty kitchen. I don't see what I'm looking for on any of the counters. My hands are shaking as I open the freezer.

Thank fuck. I can always count on Trace to keep his liquor in the freezer.

I take the bottle half-way back up those hidden back stairs, sit and drink until my hands stop shaking.

I can't get the image of our baby girl out of my mind. So tiny, so fragile, so helpless. At the mercy of a tear in her mama's womb that I'm sure I caused. Happened in the early pregnancy, the doc said. Causes not well understood, he said.

How many fights did we have in those early weeks? How many times did I lose my mind and fight with Mac, pushing her to admit her feelings when she wasn't ready? How many times did I push her to the limit of leaving me for good and then, terrified she would, fall right over the brink of insanity and push her down on a bed and fuck her senseless—like an animal—so she would remember she belonged to me? So that she would feel "the truth"— that no one else could claim her and own her body like I can?

After every time I loved her too roughly—when I came down in the dark, when the fight fury and the lust craze was over—I felt terrible. I worried that I had hurt her or the baby. I lay awake, watching Mac's face in her sated sleep, searching for the slightest twinge of discomfort. Every morning after, when she drew back the covers, a black dread twisted my gut, a fear that the blood from my nightmares would stain the sheets.

Dreaded it. Expected it. Was in no way prepared for it.

Every time, I was too rough with her. I denied it then, but I'm sure of it now.

The hell of it is, I'm sure she knows it, too. She just loves me too fucking much to blame me for it. What the fuck kind of twisted situation is that? Where I am the worst kind of sick bastard, and I put her and our baby in danger, and she looks at me like I'm her savior?

I am not the man she thinks I am. I am not my father. I am not a Preacher.

I can't get the image of our unborn daughter out of my mind. I think back on all the sketch things I've done. I've abused girls' trusts. Ainsley wasn't the only girl at college that I took from, who ended up wanting more than I was willing to give. Those girls were someone's daughter. I never want anyone to treat my daughter the way I've treated other girls.

The way I treated her mother.

I took Mac to bed the first time I met her, without any thought to the consequences, and drove her relentlessly down a path of insecurity that almost her got her killed. A path that led her here, traumatized and accidentally pregnant and coping with the possibility of losing the baby she has come to love.

I don't know what will happen to Mac if she loses the baby. It will rip a hole through her, one I don't know how to repair.

Good god, if our daughter survives in spite of the damage I've done, what the hell kind of father can I be to her?

I look back through the years—all the girls I've soiled. I've made innocent girls into fangirls. I've introduced inexperienced girls to drugs. I can hear myself—the same kind of speech, over and over, every time I hoteled one of the shy, sweet ones that always gravitate to me.

What's wrong baby? You nervous about being up next to the band? Don't be. Stick with me and nobody else will bother you. We don't even have to mess around, if you don't want to. You can just hang and party with us. If you want, you can smoke a little of my weed with me, but you don't have to. Oh, the candy dish on the table? Well, not really my thing, but if you wanna taste...the white ones aren't that strong, but maybe only take a half, okay? Don't go crazy, but whatever you want to do is good. I'll call the car to take you home whenever you want. You're in control, baby.