With Laney the bond was genuine. It felt more natural. But as much as I hated Tiffany and tried to keep her out of Jack’s life, she was his mother and she was always going to be around at one time or another. She had visitations once a month for a weekend. I didn’t really want her to have more contact with him than that and I’d fought even that much in court. In addition to cheating on me, I had become aware that Tiffany had close associates who sold drugs and though I had no proof that she did the same or even used drugs more than occasionally, I suspected that world was pulling her further into it.
This was especially damaging to her reputation since I brought it up in court because she was a dispatcher for the local police department. She had become comically enraged when I brought that up and an investigation ensued that turned up nothing, but I knew it had a hand in her only getting the one visitation a month which I determined. And I thought I was being rather generous.
I thought about all of this as I pulled into my garage. It had been a long day. It was dark as pitch now, after eight o’clock in the evening, and the house was quiet and dark looking. I knew Jack would be showered and in bed. I hated that I didn’t get to say goodnight to him, but I would check on him later and tell him I loved him. It didn’t matter if he could hear me or not.
I closed the garage door behind me as I shut off the car engine, grabbed my stuff, and headed inside. I found Laney sitting on the couch reading a book. She looked so beautiful sitting there just relaxing in a t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants. She tended to favor those. They must have been extremely comfortable because I’d seen a lot of women wearing them lately. They looked ravishing on her. It really just showcased how amazing her sexy legs were. I found it hard not to stare.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s everything?” I sat my stuff down beside the other couch in the sitting area just off from the kitchen. Then I went over to the mini bar and began to pour myself a drink. A gin and tonic always hit the spot after a long day.
“Good,” she replied. “Everything was just fine. How was the day in the corporate world?”
I smiled. “It was fine. Did I detect a little bit of sarcasm? Do you have something against the corporate world?”
“Isn’t it full of money hungry wolves who prey on all the innocent sheep of the world?”
I thought a moment. “No, it’s full of guys like me who make it possible for those sheep to have jobs.” I nodded at her and she smiled. She loved to tease me about what I did for a living. Laney was very antiestablishment, which went well with her punk rock ethos. But sometimes it was a bit too much and it made her sound like a teenage poser who thought they had it all figured out.
I sat down across from her with my drink in hand. “How’s the band coming along? You finally get all the pieces in place?”
Laney had casually mentioned that now that she wasn’t bartending and could actually use her evenings to play gigs with her band that she was actually getting some things going with some friends of hers. But I hadn’t heard anything else from it since then.
“Eh, those guys won’t commit properly. It’s like they expect to get good enough to play gigs without rehearsing. We’ve only got like ten songs nailed, and even those need some work. We can barely play through them three times without screwing up. It is going to take us a few months before we are ready to gig. That’s just a fact. And these morons think we can just hop up there and go for it. That’s ridiculous.”
“Wow, I never thought about how hard it might be to do something like that. No wonder so many great bands break up after just an album or two.”
“Right? Yeah, it’s becoming a big job. I’m tempted to say screw it and just pursue other avenues.”
“Like what?” I asked. I was very curious. Bands played gigs. What else did they really do? Do albums really exist anymore?
She looked at me like I was stupid. “Really? You need to get out of your little bubble more often. I’m telling you. Today it’s so much easier to get your music out there, to get your music heard. Putting everything online has made it pretty simple, but of course there is still insane amounts of competition so you have to do some things to stand out. One way is to do great cover songs, to give lessons, etc.”