Chapter 14

One thing that sucks about being a grownup is not being able to use the excuse ‘my mom said no’ when you don’t want to do something.

-Bumper Sticker

Tyler

I frowned at the note that I saw on my door.

Pulling it off, I glared at the slanted, obviously angry writing.

You’re a little bitch.

I sighed.

Pushing open the door to my home, I wasn’t surprised to see Reagan at my stove, cooking something that smelled absolutely delicious.

“This note is kind of harsh, don’t ya think?” I asked, waving it in the air like a small cease and desist.

“Yes.” She paused. “It is, but it’s also deserved when you consider the fact that you told Theo—my freakin’ boss— that I was a trespasser!”

My lips twitched. “But you are.”

She shrugged. “I am…but it was in the name of science, so it’s okay.”

I rolled my eyes. “Did you know in Texas, if you trespass on someone’s property at night, that they can legally shoot you if they fear for their life?”

I knew that Reagan never meant to break any kind of law, but honestly, she needed to be more careful in what she was doing.

She could get seriously hurt.

“Whatever,” she murmured. “And I already told Theo that I would be more careful, so you can calm your tits.”

I snorted. “My tits are calm, Reagan. Are yours?”

She looked down at them in contemplation. “They were kind of rowdy earlier when I wrote that note, just sayin’, but you did piss me off. It sucks to be reprimanded by your boss. A little warning would’ve been nice.”

My reason for saying something to Theo in the first place was a complaint from one of my neighbors about a woman on his property hanging over the side of his dock for an hour studying the moss on his dock piling.

I didn’t need to know anything further about his trespasser to know that it’d been Reagan. And it just so happened to be that Theo was in my office again and heard the call come in.

It was kind of hard to hide that fact and when he saw me unconcerned about the call, he’d asked why.

I then had to tell him that Reagan liked to go wherever the moss led her—damn the consequences.

“You should probably stay away from Jayco’s property from now on. He calls it in if we put the trash cans out and we’re too loud. He won’t hesitate to call in again about you,” I pointed out.

Reagan snickered, then her face settled into a serious expression.

“I did something today,” she murmured.

My eye twitched.

“Did you break and enter, too?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.”

“Then what?” I asked, studying her face. She looked extremely nervous.

She looked down at her fingernails. “I had lunch with someone today.”

“Who?” I asked.

She cleared her throat. “His son has leukemia.”

My heart broke.

Leukemia was a bad deal.

“That sucks. Is he from here?” I questioned. “I thought you went to Kilgore today.”

She nodded. “I did…he’s actually from there…”

“Then who was it?” I pushed.

She was usually better at getting her words out than this.

“It was Rome.”

Roaring started inside my ears.

“You had lunch with Rome?” I asked, deceptively calm.

She nodded.

That’s about when I exploded.

“Why the fuck would you do something like that?!” I bellowed, raising my arms. “He’s…”

“He’s got a son who’s dying,” Reagan said softly.

She didn’t need to yell.

Not with those words.

“And he named his son Tyler. Well, technically, it’s Matias Tyler, but he’s still named after you.”

I gasped in a breath. “No.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“No,” I repeated, my mind lost in thought.

When we were younger, we made a pact that one day we’d name our children after each other.

He was to use Tyler as a middle name, and I was supposed to use Roman. That was the deal.

And he’d stuck to it, despite our falling out.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Bear Bottom,” she murmured. “I can take you to him…but he’s not hard to find. He’s not hiding.”

I looked away. “I’m really fucking mad at you, but…”

***

Three hours later, after getting out of my shift at work and making sure that I had everything covered, I made the drive to Bear Bottom.

I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I got there, but Rome throwing up on the side of the road wasn’t one of them.

There was a man in the same leather vest that Rome had on his own back standing next to him, glaring at me and telling me without words that I needed to get the fuck away.

I didn’t listen to his glare and instead kept my eyes trained on Rome.

He heard my motorcycle coming and still he didn’t get up off his knees.

And that was when I realized what I’d done.

I’d fucked up.

I’d left my best friend to fight something on his own and all because I’d been too butthurt over a woman—a woman that I knew first hand was just as devious as she was beautiful.

Goddammit.

Pulling my bike over to the side of the road, I ignored the man giving me the death glare and stopped my bike well behind the puke spray.

“Why is it you always throw up on the side of the road?” I asked, sounding a lot more laidback than I actually was.

Rome paused in his throwing up and he turned to stare at me.

He had puke running down his beard and his eyes were absolutely haunted.

“The last time you did this, we almost got hit by a bus,” I pointed out just as an eighteen-wheeler passed us, making sure to honk as he did.

I flinched at the sound, Rome and the guy beside him both flipped the trucker off.

I snorted.

Rome came to his feet and he stared at me warily as he got the leftover puke out of his beard by wiping the bottom of his shirt over it.

“So, I heard that you talked to my girl,” I murmured.

It took me an hour to get from Hostel to Bear Bottom. And thirty minutes to convince Reagan that she was better off studying her weeds than coming with me.

She hadn’t been happy about my weeds comment, but when she realized that I needed to do this on my own, she relented.

Then she’d told me that she was going to work on manners with her dog—who was still fucking nameless despite it being weeks—and told me that she did have a little work to do.

After giving her a quick, hard kiss on the mouth, I’d ridden out and had come straight here, but I hadn’t even made it fully into the town before I’d spotted him.

Now, he was staring at me like I was an apparition.

He swallowed. “My boy might die.”

That’s when I walked up to Rome and threw my arms around him, bringing his big body into mine.

Rome inhaled and it sounded like the breath was yanked straight from his soul. It was full of tears, anger, and heartache.

“I don’t know what I’m going to fucking do,” he whispered.

I closed my eyes and felt sick to my stomach.

“Where is he?”

“Home.”

“Let’s go see him.”

Rome squeezed me tighter. “He’d like that.”

I closed my eyes and didn’t once hesitate.

“Let’s go, Rome.”

Rome let me go and he took a step back.

The man that was behind him like a silent sentinel nodded his head at me.

“Tyler, this is Josiah.” Rome sounded like he’d gargled with gravel and then chased it down with a fifth of whiskey. “Better known as Liner.”

I offered him my hand. “Tyler.”

Josiah aka ‘Liner’ took my extended hand and gave me a nod. “Nice to finally fucking meet you.”

My lips twitched.

But I wasn’t laughing a goddamn bit ten minutes later when Rome made his way into a nice house on the outskirts of Bear Bottom.

At first it was because Tara was there, looking mad as hell. Then it was because on the couch, as far away from Tara as the boy could be while still being in the same fuckin’ room, was a little boy who already owned a piece of my heart just because of who his father was.

The little boy’s eyes moved up to meet mine and what I read in them instantly made tears spring to my eyes.

I was a grown man.

I dealt with hardened criminals on a daily basis.

I’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan and I’d seen some really fuckin’ awful things.

But seeing this little boy, this sick, drained and tired little boy, giving me Rome’s smile was enough to shatter my entire fuckin’ heart.

“Matias,” the boy, my little namesake, said. “I’ve been wondering when I would get to meet you.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

Rome’s son smiled at me. “It’s not too late.”

I had a feeling that not only did he understand the double entendre, but he meant to use it, too.

This little boy looked so much like Rome that it hurt and he was wise well beyond his few years.

“What is he doing here?” Tara asked. “Better yet, what are you doing here?”

I didn’t bother to look at or respond to her and neither did Rome.

Liner did, though.

“Why don’t you go get yourself a manicure and stop swinging your bitch around for everyone to hear?” Liner drawled. “Or are you waiting for Rome to offer you his credit card? Don’t you normally leave the moment he arrives?”

Rome had ignored Tara and instead went over to the couch where his son was.

I, on the other hand, had frozen right inside the door.

Memories slammed through me and I remembered exactly how she used to be.

Snarling at me. Hating my job. Disliking my sisters.

At the time, all of those hadn’t been a big deal. I’d remembered vividly that she’d immediately apologized for herself, saying that she was just cranky.

I’d been so caught up in my job, trying to integrate back into general society after being in the military and working my ass off to get onto the SWAT team that I hadn’t had it in me to look hard enough to see Tara for her true self.

One time in particular stood out—showing me just how blind I’d been.

It’d been a few days after New Year’s. I’d rushed home, late as hell thanks to an arrest that I’d made about ten minutes before my shift had ended and I’d been in a rush to get the game on.

I’d arrived, said hello to Tara who’d been on my couch watching some fashion show on the television in my living room. I reached for the remote and immediately changed the channel to put the game on and Tara flew completely off the fuckin’ handle.

She’d screamed at me for changing the channel, even though she knew that I was on my way home to watch the game—I always watched the games. I’d even told her an hour before that I was running late, that I wanted to watch the game and asked her to have it on for me, if she could get the television on that is, since she sometimes had trouble getting my complicated system on and tuned to the right channel.

I remembered vividly the meltdown she’d had and how her eyes had narrowed at me when I’d continued to ignore her because Rome’s face had popped up on the screen with news of a possible injury. Something that I’d heard a bit about on my way home but needed the whole story now that I was home.

When I continued to ignore her, she just yelled even louder.

It was after she stormed up to me, stole the remote and turned the television off, that I’d gotten angry.

After turning it back on and then raising my voice at her, she’d glared at me, glared at the screen where Rome’s smiling face had filled the fifty-two inches and then she stormed out.

It wasn’t until later after I’d calmed down, that she’d called with an apology.

I should’ve known then and there that she was a vindictive bitch.

Should’ve put all those two and twos together and made a whole lot of fours.

“Why are you here, Liner?” she hissed. “You especially I don’t need in my house.”

“This isn’t your house, this is Rome’s house, in case you forgot that little fact, too,” Liner continued with the one-liners.

I wondered if that was the meaning behind his road name, but now wasn’t the best time to ask him.

“What did I ever see in her?” I muttered mostly to myself.

Liner, who had been staring at Tara’s back, turned to me. “I ask Rome that every second of every day. He continues to reiterate that we all do stupid shit when we’re drunk…which I totally agree with. As long as she doesn’t open her mouth, she’s smokin’ hot. But the moment she starts talking, the nastiness she spews eclipses anything that was attractive about her.”

I felt my lips twitch.

I totally agreed with Liner…and I also now felt so completely and utterly stupid.

I’d essentially thrown away a lifelong friendship based on the lies that came out of this vicious bitch’s mouth.

The more I thought about it, the less angry I became at Rome and the angrier I became at myself. I’d wasted four fuckin’ years because I’d been a stubborn asshole with wounded pride.

It didn’t matter that I’d been seeing Tara for months. It didn’t matter that Tara had hidden her true self. What mattered was that, at the end of the day, I’d trusted a girl over my best friend and I hadn’t even given him the chance to explain himself.

Four fuckin’ years.

I felt so goddamn stupid.

“Yes, this is Tyler. My best friend,” Rome said to his son. “The man I named you after.”

Another shot right to the fuckin’ heart.

Fuck.

“Go fuck yourself,” Tara hissed.

“Tara,” Rome growled, sounding angry.

I came unstuck and made my way across the room, coming to a stop next to the couch where the little boy was laying.

His smile was warm and luckily, he didn’t hear his mother and Rome fighting because he was too busy focusing on me.

“Daddy loves you,” the little boy said.

I swallowed.

A four-year-old wasn’t supposed to be so intelligent, philosophical.

He also wasn’t supposed to look like this, either.

Where I’d never seen little kids his age sitting still, Matias was so small and frail that he literally couldn’t even lift his head off the pillow.

But, goddamn, his smile was beautiful.

“You’re a smart little boy, aren’t you?” I asked, sounding proud.

God, what had I done?

“Daddy says it’s because I don’t move around much. Since I don’t have energy to do anything, I can sit here and use my brain. He also says I take after you. That you were always smart,” Matias said.

I felt like I’d been hammered in the gut by Rome’s fist.

He’d done that more than once while he and I were fighting. I remembered it like it was yesterday, the fight we’d gotten into and the fist I’d taken to the stomach right before I’d landed a blow to Rome’s kidney.

It’d been brutal—and over a fuckin’ truck that we both wanted to buy.

The feeling in my stomach felt exactly like that.

All the breath had whooshed from my lungs and I couldn’t find the correct way to draw breath into my body.

“Your daddy was smarter than me and always has been,” I told him honestly. “Don’t let him fool you. That’s what gets everybody—the pretty face.”

Rome snorted and came to sit down next to his son.

Liner took the seat to my right and it was only then that I realized Tara was not only gone from the room, but she’d left the house entirely. I heard her car start up outside and peel out of the driveway.

Moments after that, I heard something crash.

Liner stood up. “If she hit my bike, I’m going to stab her.”

I winced, but the little boy didn’t seem to notice anyone’s bad words because he was still focused on me. “Daddy says you have a girlfriend.”

I felt something inside my chest squeeze even tighter.

While I was away, for four goddamn years of this little boy’s life, Rome never once stopped talking about me like I was still his best friend. He’d told his little boy everything there was to know about me, I had no doubt about it.

“Her name is Reagan. She wanted to come today, but she plays in the dirt for a living and had to work,” I said through a lump in my throat.

Matias’s smile lit his entire face. “I love playing in the dirt.”

I looked at Rome, whose face was once again shut down. He looked just as haunted on the outside as I felt on the inside.

He never was good at hiding his emotions.

I turned back to Matias.

“It was only the trash can…I’ll go get the shit off the street,” Liner muttered somewhere behind me.

I didn’t look away from the little boy. “I live by the lake. When you’re feeling up to it, your daddy can bring you out and you can play in the dirt and mud with Reagan.”

Matias’s eyes drooped, then closed. “I’d like that, Uncle Tyler.”

I felt tears hit my eyes.

“Rome…God.”

Rome lifted his hand and placed it on top of the boy’s bald head. “I should’ve tried harder.”

I knew what he meant.

Between us, he should’ve made more of an effort.

“I didn’t make that easy for you,” I disagreed, giving him my eyes. “And you know it.”

Rome shrugged. “I would’ve…but whether you think so or not, I did betray you. All the little details were there. I mean, how many fuckin’ Taras would know where I lived and would be invited into one of my parties? God damn, I was so stupid. But…then she got pregnant and I didn’t think about anything but my betrayal to you anymore.” He leaned forward and pressed his closed fists to his eyes. “I had grand plans of apologizing. Of making it right…but those plans crashed and burned.”

He didn’t have to tell me what crashed and burned. I knew what.

“I’m such an asshole,” I told him. “Tara made me crazy and we were already in a bad place. I should’ve seen past my anger, should’ve given you a chance to explain—and honestly? None of it was really aimed at you—or at least it shouldn’t have been. It should’ve been all on her. She knew what she was doing and knew damn well and good who you were to me. She used to stare at your face whenever it came on during every single game night, listening to me tell stories about you.”

Rome groaned and looked up. “I don’t know what to do.”

The change of subject had me staring at him with a deep understanding.

“You fight. For him,” I told him. “You keep fighting until that’s all you can think about doing. You have it in you, Rome.”

The moment was lost, but not forgotten.

This was the first step of many.

The last four years wasn’t going to be erased in one day or one conversation, but what would be erased was the distance we kept from each other, and I only had Reagan to blame.

Smart, kind, pain in the ass girl that she was.

Rome leaned back in his seat and placed his hand on the boy’s calf, his large palm engulfing the thin bones of his son’s leg.

“Tell me about your girl,” he said, eyes never lifting from his son’s sleeping form. “And, please God, please let me hear that there’s at least one girl in this godforsaken world who isn’t a total bitch.”

I snorted as did Liner, who took the seat he’d previously been occupying.

“Alana and Henley aren’t bitches and you know it.” I shot him a look. “But Reagan? I don’t even know how to explain her. She’s everything I never knew I needed…and she’s such a pain in the ass that I don’t know how to handle her.”

Rome’s lips twitched. “You need a girl like that to shake your shit up.”

She did indeed do that—shake my shit up.

“Before we were dating, she planted a flower garden…in my yard.” I gave Rome a look. “You know how much flowers annoy me.”

Rome burst out laughing.

“What’s so bad about flowers?” Liner questioned, sounding lost.

Rome wiped at his eyes. “Tyler’s mom used to have a flower garden. Every day he had to go pull the weeds for fifteen minutes. He absolutely hated it…and this girl just gave him one of his own so he gets to do it all over again.”

“It gets better,” I muttered. “She found this dog…”

Rome threw his head back and laughed, big, heavy guffaws. “Oh, God. Did you tell her that you’re allergic?”

I shook my head.

“You’re allergic to dogs?” Liner asked. “And you let her keep it, didn’t you?”

I shrugged. “I’m not severely allergic, their hair makes me itch. Luckily, he stays off of my recliner…and yes, he is living with me. She lives in a one-bedroom rental cabin on the lake just down the road from me. That’s why she planted the flower garden at my place and also why I’m currently housing a dog that makes me itch the moment that he touches me.”

The front door banged open and then slammed shut, causing Rome to release a weary sigh.

“This isn’t my day to be here,” Rome murmured, watching Tara stomp through the house and make her way through the living room to a long hallway that was just beyond it. Moments later, she disappeared into a side room. “Normally she makes plans with her friends. Me being here today means that she didn’t get to make plans and has nothing to do in this ‘godforsaken town.’”

My lips twitched. “Well, that just breaks my heart.”

Rome snorted.

“Rome did you a favor, man.” Liner stepped around the elephant that was still in the room. “He may not have done it on purpose or anything, but my God. Just living next to her for the last six months has given me a lesson in restraint. She’s the biggest bitch I ever met and treats Rome like absolute shit.”

I looked over at Liner. “You live next door?”

He gestured to the house that was directly to the side. “That one over there.”

I nodded.

I’d thought it odd that he would park on the part of the driveway that was allocated for the other house as we’d pulled in, but I hadn’t given it a second thought after I’d walked through the door.

“If I’d have known the way she was, I wouldn’t have told Rome about this place coming up for sale,” Liner muttered. “When she’s not taking up most of the driveway with her flashy assed car and her trashcans, she’s making my life hell.”

The two houses shared one large driveway and I could see Tara being a bitch and doing whatever she could to piss the man off.

It was obvious that the two of them got along like oil and water.

But, then again, Tara got along with everybody like oil and water, apparently.

Rome gave the boy laying on the couch one more loving caress on his bald little head and then stood.

“If I don’t leave, she’s going to get all bitchy and call her lawyer,” Rome murmured, looking at his kid. “And since I made a promise when he got sick not to put him through all the crap that Tara doesn’t give a shit if she puts him through, I gotta be the bigger person and leave.”

I winced.

There was so much that I hadn’t known and I felt like utter shit that I didn’t see past the lies and betrayal to what was really going on beneath the surface.

“We’re leaving, Tara.”

Rome’s call down the hall had Liner and me standing, heading toward the front door.

The moment that we made it out of the door and onto the porch, Tara had come out of her room to glare at Rome.

But, what she did do, was go to the back of the couch and look over it to peer at the sleeping boy.

I frowned at seeing the relief there.

Tara, despite her faults, cared about her son.

Which made me feel at least a little bit better knowing she wasn’t a completely unfeeling cyborg.

She at least had some capacity for love.

“Fuckin’ makes me sick,” Liner said, glancing over his shoulder.

“What?” I asked.

“Her,” he murmured. “I hate that she does this to him when their boy is slowly declining. Rome found out today that they’d have to switch to a more aggressive type of therapy for him because his body wasn’t responding well to the other. Then she makes him fuckin’ leave because it’s ‘not his day.’”

I looked over at Liner, who was looking at Rome and Tara talking softly in the middle of the living room.

I glanced there, too.

There was definitely no love lost between the two of them, that was for sure.

I looked back at Liner. “You know our history?”

He nodded.

“Then why don’t you hate me?”

Liner blinked. “Because.” He paused. “Rome doesn’t hate you.”

Simple as that.

Rome doesn’t hate you.

That was all that mattered.

“Fuck.”

Liner’s lips twitched. “Not to mention I’ve had my own share of cheating girlfriends. It seems I only attract the ones without the fidelity bone.”

I snorted. “I would’ve said that, too, but…”

My phone rang before I could get the rest of my response to his admission out.

Reaching into my pocket, I placed the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Ummm, Tyler?” Katy, my office chick, said quickly, sounding worried. “I think you better get back here.”

I frowned. “Why?”

Katy blew out a breath. “Because Reagan was just brought in for trespassing…and she looks like someone walked over her grave.”

I didn’t stop to think. Didn’t stop to say goodbye. Only got on my bike and left.

Vaguely I was aware of Rome and Liner getting on their bikes and following after me, but I didn’t once slow down to allow them to catch up.

I had a girl to bail out of jail. Plus, something more would’ve had to happen for one of my officers to bring her in.