Mess Me Up
Page 12

There was zero hesitation in Ezekiel’s voice when he answered. “Absolutely. If they have the coffin, I can start it tonight.”
I looked over at Jubilee, the funeral director, and asked her, “Do you have one available right now?”
She nodded. “Yes. He can pick it up any time.”
“Yes,” I said. “You can come pick it up any time.”
“I’m on my way,” he said.
Then the line was dead.
“What’s the next item on the list?”
And on it went. Detail after detail was hammered out until nothing remained but one thing—payment.
I handed her Rome’s credit card that he’d thrust at me as I’d walked out the door and said, “I don’t know what kind of limit this thing has…but let’s try it.”
Seventeen thousand two hundred dollars and three cents later, I realized that there was probably no limit at all.
***
My next stop was my Abuela’s.
“I need food enough to feed like two hundred people,” I told her. “It needs to be comfort food. There needs to be all different kinds, too. Do you think you can handle that in four days?”
My grandmother gave me a look that clearly said she wanted to laugh in my face.
“For anybody else? No. For you? Yes.” She paused. “I’m sorry to hear of the little boy.”
I was, too.
In fact, sorry didn’t even begin to cover it. Devastated was more like it.
What made it worse was Rome’s reaction.
If I could ever take a look off of someone’s face, it’d have been Rome’s face when he realized he’d been holding his dead son in his arms for hours while his lifeless body grew cold.
“The look on your face makes me want to shove some of my tamales down your throat, then wrap you up in a blanket like a little pig and cover your face in kisses while I rock you to sleep,” Abuela said.
I smiled sadly. “Honestly? I could get behind that right now.”
Admitting that was akin to spilling my guts, and her eyes widened in shock.
“I don’t like this,” she muttered. “I’m eighty years old. I should die first because I’m the next in line. The young should always outlive the old.”
I agreed.
Unfortunately, life didn’t freakin’ work like that. It wasn’t always fair or kind. Shit got real, and miracles didn’t always happen for the ones who deserved them the most.
“I’ll get the food ready. You come with the man’s truck and pick it up.” She paused. “You okay to walk home? You look tired.”
I smiled. I wasn’t going to go home, but she didn’t need to know that I was walking another three miles back to Rome’s place.
All she needed to know was that I was going to go home…eventually.
“Yes, Abuela,” I murmured. “I’m headed home. Can I have a hug?”
She didn’t miss a beat.
And I carried the warmth of that hug with me as I walked down the street with the nippy air biting at my ears, nose, and cheeks.
By the time that I arrived back at Rome’s place, it was to find it just as busy as it was when I’d left.
Only everyone was outside and none of them were inside.
I frowned as I walked up the driveway and came to a stop next to the closest man—Liner.
“What’s going on?” I asked carefully.
Liner’s dark brown eyes looked down at me with not even a hint of emotion showing.
“Rome’s calling people,” he said. “Telling them what happened.”
I scrunched my brows up in confusion. “And y’all didn’t offer to help?”
Liner raised a brow at them. “We don’t know any of them.”
I shrugged, then without another word, walked into the house that was uncomfortably quiet except for Rome’s deep voice from somewhere that sounded like the kitchen area.
I followed the sound of his voice and didn’t stop out of respect right outside of hearing range. Nope, not me. I walked right up to him, gestured at him to give me the phone, and said, “Go get a shower. Do you have a list of people that you want called?”
Rome looked at me blankly. “That’s my mom. My dad’s next. Then my brothers.”
With that, he walked away and didn’t come back for so long that I began to get worried about him.
After making the calls, searching in his contact list for the rest of his family, I realized that Rome’s family were a bunch of assholes.
None of them seemed overly upset that a little boy had lost his life. Rome’s mother, after her fake sobbing finished up, said that she’d be there if she could make it.
The same went for Rome’s father, and three brothers. All of whom were apparently too busy at work to make it down.
The final person I called was someone that said ‘grandmother’ in his phone.
She answered in a matter of moments, exclaiming with so much hope in her voice that it was almost really hard to tell her that I wasn’t Rome.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “But Rome isn’t able to come to the phone right now. I just wanted to call you with some news.”
It wasn’t until I’d hung up on the sobbing old woman that I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have called that particular person seeing as Rome hadn’t expressly told me to.
Worried that I’d overstepped, I went to find the man himself, stopping when I saw him still completely dressed in the same clothes I’d sent him up here an hour ago to change.
He was standing in the room that had been Matias’ for only a short period of time.
“Rome?” I called hesitantly.
Rome looked at me, his expression blank.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want me to help you wash your hair?”
I wouldn’t get in the shower with him, but it was more than obvious that he needed some direction.
Otherwise he wouldn’t be looking so freakin’ lost.
“No,” he admitted, sounding just as lost as he looked. “I’m okay.”
With that, he walked into his room and shut the door, and I waited right outside of it for what felt like two hours before he appeared again. This time freshly showered.
Deciding to count my blessings, I held my hands out for the clothes. “I’ll take those.”
He gave them to me without protest.
“You need to take a nap,” I told him.
He laughed. “I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead.”
With that ominous comment, he walked back down the stairs and started doing other useless things that he didn’t need to do.
This time, I left him to it.
It was only later that I approached him and asked him if he’d called Tara.
His answer had been an instant hard no.
But, my Abuela didn’t call me hardheaded for nothing.
“Would you want to know?” I asked softly, waiting for the anger that I knew that wasn’t far in coming.
His answer was vicious and felt like a whip against my sensitive skin.
“I would have never left my child in the first place.”
His snapped words made me brace myself for the next words that would follow once I said the next thing that was on the tip of my tongue.
And I knew it had to be said.
“Have you looked past the anger and the hurt of her leaving to question why she left in the first place?” I asked. “Everyone deals with grief differently, Rome Pierce.”
Rome opened his mouth to reply, to slap me with his words, taking his anger and helplessness of the situation out on me.
But, he didn’t get a chance to.
Mostly because I left before he could hurl any more words in my direction. But not before I said a few more words over my shoulder as I was leaving.
“Tomorrow we celebrate your little boy’s life.” I paused. “And your son asked you to forgive Tara. Maybe you should question why.”
Chapter 8
Nod and smile. Plot your escape.
-What to do during small talk
Rome
Funerals were depressing.
What was even more depressing was when that funeral was for someone you loved.
What was far more depressing than that was when that funeral was for a little boy who should’ve died well after you.