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  Rowdy licks the side of Noah’s face. “No, it not. Rowdy do it.”

  “He’s a dog though. He licks his own ass and doesn’t know the difference.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said the last part?

  Undeterred by anything I’m saying, Noah points to his chest. “I Wolverine.”

  And we’re back to that. He’s four now but still hasn’t outgrown the Wolverine stage. He might be going to college someday and asking girls out by growling and telling them he’s Wolverine. And you know what, they’ll probably buy it and be all over him.

  Madison comes downstairs, her hands on my shoulders. “Do you want to take a shower before work?”

  I nod, standing up to drag my body against hers. She sighs, her lashes lowering as her lips part carefully. It’s a shame we didn’t get to finish because all I can think about is those lips wrapping around my dick. “You could join me.”

  She kisses me, once, and then pulls back. “I can’t. I have to get these kids fed and the boys to school.”

  Noah started pre-school and if we thought Callan’s tactics to display his annoyance for school were creative, Noah’s pretty simple. He bites everyone. We’re thinking of home schooling him until we can, you know, get him to stop. But let’s look on the bright side here, at least he never draws blood.

  Did you notice Madison didn’t mention needing to get to work herself?

  We both agreed, mostly me, she didn’t need to be massaging and waxing nut sacs anymore. And the new house was an hour drive from the salon, so that solved that problem. And you know, three kids are a handful, especially when one’s a baby. Don’t believe me, you can watch all three of mine for a night and I’ll take my wife out.

  And I know what you’re thinking, I had her quit her job because I didn’t want her cradling dicks all day. Well there’s that, but no, I didn’t have her quit her job. She did that one on her own.

  Judging by the look on your face, you’re also thinking, what did her quitting solve? She was upset you were never around.

  Well guess what? I work less these days.

  You don’t believe me, do you?

  Well, I do. We took on a few more employees and it helped me not have to be there as often and spend more time with Madison and the kids.

  Am I happy?

  Yes. I can honestly say I am. I miss having my hands on everything with the business, but I take pride in the fact that I still own the company and my hard work over the years built it.

  Wanna know what else I built?

  This family. It was literally made with my smooth balls.

  Take a look at all of them. Callan reading to his baby sister as she chews on the pages he’s turning. Noah and his pet dog. Yes, we got Rowdy for him. Or it was more along the lines of it showed up on our doorstep like Beethoven. We later found out it was Brantley’s doing, but how are you going to tell your kids you’re not keeping the dog?

  And after he peed on Noah once and he didn’t kill it, I figured we could keep the adorable drywall eating black lab.

  And then there’s Madison, my beautiful wife and mother of my children. She’s never looked more beautiful as she does now with pieces of Captain Crunch in her hair.

  I forgave her pretty easily after what she did. She gave me a blow job.

  I’m kidding. She really did give me a blow job that day but that wasn’t why I forgave her. Only a fraction of why. I forgave her because of all this around me right now. The house, the kids, her, I wouldn’t have this today if I hadn’t forgiven her, and it’s far better than the alternative.

  Sure, I was pissed about what happened but because of Madison filing for divorce, it woke me up to what was happening around us. I not only saw I was a bad husband for not doing my job and treating her the way she deserved to be treated, but I realized I was a bad dad. The relationship I have with Callan now is what I should have had all along.

  By the way, in case you’re wondering, we planned our trip to Ukraine. It’s not until he’s twelve, but still, we’re totally going with hopes of at least having the ability to turn green when we return home.

  And Noah, he hasn’t killed anymore animals since I’ve been around more. That’s gotta count for something.

  While everyone’s getting ready for the day, I sneak upstairs, take a quick shower and then I’m back in the kitchen kissing the kid’s good-bye.

  I may not have mentioned her much yet but do you see my daughter there in her high chair? The one who’s a spitting image of Madison in every way but has my green eyes?

  That’s Evie, a little six-month-old princess who has all the boys in her family wrapped around her finger. Even Wolverine, who’s handing her a banana as a peace offering for stealing her teddy.

  She also never stops crying at night. We love her anyways, her and her impressive fucking lungs. “How’s my princess?” I pick her up after she’s had a couple of slices of her banana and I should have paid more attention to the fact that she had a banana. Mostly because after smiling at me, she pukes all over the front of my shirt.

  She hates me. I’m sure of it.

  “Well shit,” I say, staring at the puke.

  “Yuck!” Noah gags again when he sees the puke. He has a weak stomach. And yet he drinks from the toilet. Just the smell of toilet water would make me gag.

  Did I mention Evie doesn’t like bananas? Why would she? They’re disgusting.

  I gag just thinking about the slimy dick-shaped fruit. No men actually eat bananas. At least I don’t. I don’t eat any dick-shaped food. Bananas, hot dogs… all no goes for me.

  How did we even get on this topic?

  Oh, right. Baby puke. All down the front of me. It’s disgusting. Banana baby puke?

  Even worse.

  But you know what, the smiling little girl in my arms whose tummy feels better is worth the baby puke. And I wouldn’t change it for the world. Just my shirt.

  Madison sets her head on my shoulder and then kisses my cheek. “Poor daddy. He’s having a rough morning.”

  Shifting Evie to my hip, I reach around to put my arm around Madison and pull her hair. “And mommy’s going to have a rough night.”

  She slaps my hand away, laughing. “You’re going to be late.”

  Right. I am. And my feelings on being late haven’t changed.

  Setting down Evie in her high chair, I run upstairs to change my shirt. Just as I’m pulling it over my shoulders, Madison comes in the bedroom, shuts the door and locks it. “Callan’s playing with Evie and Noah. We have five minutes.”

  I can totally be late for this.

  “Fuck yeah,” I say, unzipping my pants as she drops to her knees before me.

  You can look away now. We need our privacy. After the dog incident, I don’t want anyone else watching us.

  So that’s it. My story. Interesting, huh?

  Final thoughts?

  I’m not sure I have any, I mean, I’m kinda busy at the moment but I’ve got some advice for you.

  Saving a marriage doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of talking and mostly fighting.

  Fighting for what you want.

  I wasn’t sure if Madison and I would ever be what some would call a perfect couple, but we were perfectly happy annoying the shit out of each other and attempting to parent these three crazy kids and the dog I didn’t want.

  I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun writing a book since Happy Hour. Ridley was so easy to write. Everything flowed, and I loved every minute of writing him.

  Marriage is hard. And I don’t say that to make mine sound difficult, because it’s really not. I married my best friend and not a day goes by where we don’t laugh at something one of us has said or done. Most of the time it’s because of something funny our daughter has done, but still, we laugh and I think that’s important. As you probably noticed with Ridley and Madison, through it all, they still laughed with one another.

  I met my husband when I was fourteen and started dating him
when I was fifteen. We were high school sweethearts. You know, the kind of love they tell you doesn’t happen anymore. It does happen, it’s not easy, takes a lot of work, but it still happens.

  We got married at eighteen, just out of high school, though everyone told us it was a dumb decision, but we didn’t care. All we cared about was being together. And though we certainly had our ups and downs, it’s been the best eighteen years of my life. I wouldn’t change anything we went through because of what it taught us. It’s why I wrote, “Real love is taking two hearts, two bodies, two souls and creating one that can laugh and have fun together despite what’s going on around us.”

  I’m sure a lot of you can relate to this book in some way, and that was my intention here. With the help of some very special girls, I wanted to create something fun yet completely relatable if you’ve ever been in a committed relationship or married.

  This book also opened my eyes to a lot about what I’m sacrificing by working so much and in turn, I’m learning to take a day off every once in a while.

  So to my husband, thank you for showing me what love is and why it’s worth fighting for.

  And my little girl, thank you, baby, for allowing Mommy to work during the day.

  Thanks to Lauren, Ashley and Janet for working on this novel with me and the girls in the BETA group for all your suggestions and love for Ridley.

  To the Sheynanigans, thank you for being so excited for this one when you read the first chapter.

  Becky, thank you for letting me break every single rule you’ve taught me to write Bad Husband the way I wanted to. I enjoyed it so much!

  To my readers, thank you for allowing me to live my passion! Love you.

  Shey Stahl is a USA Today best-selling author, a wife, mother, daughter and friend to many. When she’s not writing, she’s spending time with her family in the Pacific Northwest where she was born, and raised around a dirt track. Visit her website for additional information and keep up to date on new releases: www.sheystahl.com.

  You can also find her on Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/SheyStahlAuthor

  Racing on the Edge

  Happy Hour

  Black Flag

  Trading Paint

  The Champion

  The Legend

  Hot Laps

  The Rookie

  Fast Time

  Open Wheel

  Pace Laps

  Dirt Driven (TBA)

  Behind the Wheel (TBA)

  The Redemption Series

  The Trainer

  The Fighter

  Stand Alones

  Waiting for You

  Everything Changes

  Deal

  Awakened

  Everlasting Light

  Bad Blood

  Heavy Soul

  Bad Husband

  Hostage (TBA)

  Pause (TBA)

  Crossing the Line

  Delayed Penalty

  Delayed Offsides

  Delayed Roughing (TBA)

  Unforgettable Series

  All I Have Left

  All We Need (TBA)

  The Torqued Trilogy

  Unsteady

  Unbearable

  Unbound (January 2017)