Free Torn by Michelle Escamilla

later! ;)
     
Did I just send a wink?
     
So you owe me two beers AND some food? SOLD!
    Oh God. Was I flirting? I didn’t respond, I just set my phone down on the night stand and put Horrible
Bosses on. I was zoned in on watching the movie when the house phone rang. I glanced over at the
caller ID, it was Liam!
“Hey I was just thinking about you!” I said happily.
    “Hey. Sorry, things have been crazy here. The guys that are here from New York love the ideas that we
have, but their team back in New York is finding ways to try and change it up. Just means we have to
find some sort of compromise. It is getting to the point where everyone was just pissed off and we took
a dinner break and talked things over. That is why my phone was off.” He sounded annoyed.
“I’m sorry honey. Are they still going to have you go out to New York then?” I asked softly.
     
“YES!” He snapped at me.
     
“Geez, I am sorry, it was just a question. I thought with the dinner conversation, things may have been
cleared up then. You don’t have to snap at me.” I snapped back.
    “Well, Ryleigh, they were sending me out there before all of this, so why would this change anything?
Look, I just wanted to call you back. I need to head down and get some more coffee; I will just see you in
the morning.” He said coldly.
“Umm. Okay. Hey I love you.” I said hurt.
“Yeah, love you. Bye.” He was very short as he hung up.
    In my years married to Liam, we have had some fights. Most of them consisted of ‘that guy was in this
movie’ but one of us would disagree. The biggest fight we had ever really had was where to have our
honeymoon. The tone of his voice, the way he snapped at me; this was something completely foreign to
me. He was just so cold. Maybe my mom was right, again, that things will start to slow down and things
would get back to normal and we could take a nice vacation together.
After that call, I turned off the TV and laid in the dark. I knew it was only 9:30, but I was just done with
the day. I curled up in my bed and quickly fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
My phone startled me from deep sleep. I looked at the clock it was 1:45 in the morning. Who the HELL
was calling me at this time? I was going to have to kick some ass for waking me up.
     
“Hello?” I answered irritated.
    “Hey baby. I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you.” It was Liam. He was obviously drunk.
Why the hell was he out drinking at this time of night, granted he probably finished early and they
wanted him to go out for drinks.
“Liam? What are you doing? Where are you?” I asked concerned.
     
“The project finally got fixed and now we are out celebrating! What is my beautiful wife doing?” His
voice was slurred. I don’t know if I was more worried about him or utterly pissed off.
    “Well, your WIFE is asleep at HOME, apparently someplace that you should be as well! Liam, you
obviously have been out drinking for a while… why didn’t you want to come home early and spend that
time with me?”
    “Ugh! Nag, nag, nag.” He raised his pitch to obviously mock me. “Is that all you do? You work all the
time, you never come home and you have to go to New York so I can live comfortably.” I could hear him
start to talk to the guys in the background. “Hey guys I will do another shot with you in just a second, the
ole ball and chain is on the phone now.” He then brought the phone back to his mouth to talk to me.
“Well, I gotta go work more. I love you baby.” He hung up on me.
    In college, he drank. We all did. He had gone overboard a few times. He regretted it all in the morning
but a month or two later he would do it again, it wasn’t until he said some pretty hurtful things to me
during a party that he realized that he was a horrible drunk.
    I know that I shouldn’t take anything he had said personally, but this time he really got to me. I helped
with a lot of the living comfortable and I didn’t think I really ever nagged