Mess Me Up
Page 13

The order of our deaths was reversed. The parent is always supposed to pass before the child. That’s just the way it was.
Didn’t God know that?
The big man upstairs had gotten a lot of things right over the years. He’d brought my son to me in the first place. At first, I hadn’t wanted him. He’d been a constant reminder of something stupid I’d done while I was drunk. He might’ve been a mistake, but I had warmed up to the idea of him over the course of his gestation.
I’d been given that little boy, and I hadn’t even known that I’d needed him.
But, the moment his little fingers wrapped around my one, I realized that I’d needed him from the beginning, and someone upstairs had known it.
They’d known that my life was meaningless. They’d known that I was on the fast track to caring about nothing and nobody.
Matias had forced me to slow down. Matias had taught me lesson after lesson in humility, kindness, and perseverance.
I’d only had him for four years, but his presence in my life altered me to my core.
I thought I had no more tears left to cry…but I did.
Four years after he’d been given to me, he’d been taken away.
Today was the day that we’d celebrate his short life, and today was the day that I finally realized that he wouldn’t be coming home ever again.
I sat alone in my pew.
At least at first.
I wasn’t left there like I’d asked to be.
The entire row behind me was filled with the members of my club, while my pew was filled by first Tyler, then Reagan, followed shortly by my grandmother whom I hadn’t spoken to in well over four years—when I fucked up and lashed out at the one blood relative I had who’d ever given a damn.
It was nice of her to come, even though I hadn’t called her.
I knew that she’d seen my son. She’d been a part of his life.
Tara had allowed that, even taking it a step farther by inviting her over to help with Matias when I wasn’t there, knowing that we’d had a falling out.
Which was why a part of me was convinced Tara wasn’t all that bad.
Tara was a good person, even though she did some bad things.
So that had been why I’d called her to explain what had happened, hoping that she would answer my call when she hadn’t answered Izzy’s.
She hadn’t called back, but I knew she’d listen to the voicemail.
I also knew that she’d be at the funeral.
Though she wouldn’t come up here.
Last night I’d had a lot of time to do some thinking over the matter of Tara since being awake was way better than what I faced in my dreams—reminders that I’d lost something great—and what I’d come up with was that Tara hadn’t wanted to leave.
I’d gone back through the signs, remembered the way her eyes had looked bloodshot, and her face and skin pale. Her mouth had been drawn, and every step she took looked like she’d been slogging through mud up to her knees.
Izzy had helped me figure out the rest.
Not that I’d been super kind to her or anything.
I’d tried my level best to get her to fight with me, mostly because she was the only one treating me like I was an adult and not some broken doll who would completely shatter if given half a chance.
Speaking of the devil.
I saw her walk in the church, and when she went to sit somewhere in the middle, I stood up and gestured her over with my head.
Izzy looked taken by surprise for a few moments. She swallowed and then nodded once before heading to me.
She went to sit down at the end of the pew, the farthest away from me, but I caught her before she could get past me, and deftly maneuvered her to where she was sitting on one side of me, with Tyler on the other.
Together we sat silently and stared ahead.
My gaze bounced back and forth between the picture of my beautiful baby boy to the coffin that was painted so beautifully to match Matias’ favorite movie. Hiccup and Toothless flew together in the black night sky, nothing around them but stars.
I was glad that I had Izzy there over the next hour.
An hour that I’d remember for the rest of my life.
The last hour with my son before he was laid to rest.
Where there would be no more pain.
Where he would no longer throw up.
No more needles jabbing into him to force poisons through his veins.
Where he was able to be the little boy he was always supposed to be.
Little did he know that by leaving, he’d taken the best part of me with him.
Part 2
Chapter 9
Sir, are you lost?
-Things not to say when men flirt with you
Isadora
I read the letter with a smile on my face.
I wasn’t sure how the hell I found myself in the situation that I was in, but I blamed it on my obsession—at least at first.
Then I blamed it on the fact that Rome was a really, really nice guy.
And just when I was about to tell him who I was, I learned that Rome had moved to town—my town—and joined the Bear Bottom Guardians MC.
It’d been six months since Ty-Ty’s death, and I finally realized that Rome wasn’t built in a day…nor was he going to fix himself.
So, this was my last-ditch effort.
I was going to fix the man that I had fallen in love with.
Rome was mine. I was sure of it.
But, he wouldn’t let himself heal. He was still mourning his son—and he was allowed to do that. But he also didn’t have to die for that to happen.
I was going to make sure that wasn’t going to happen.
We’d all—Tyler, his MC brothers, hell, even his grandmother—tried to fix him. To help him.
But he’d refused everyone’s help.
He didn’t want anyone anywhere near him.
When we’d tried to gather around and pull him in close, he only pushed further away.
Needless to say, I was pulling off the gloves, so to speak.
It was time for Rome to stop wasting the time he was given and stop fighting against Matias’ ghost.
Which was why I’d loaded up on Abuela’s tamales, and I was going to see Rome at work.
At. Work.
I’d tried his house, and he just didn’t answer the door.
Now I was literally going to try the next best thing—the place where he went and stayed for too many hours, trying to work and ignore the pain he was in.
Taking the last few steps, I opened the door of the prison and smiled at the front desk guard.
I hadn’t realized until just last week what area of the prison Rome actually worked in, but it worked out for me.
Why?
Because my brother was imprisoned at Bear Bottom Correctional Facility and had been for the past five years.
Over the last five years, I’d been a frequent visitor here of one of the favorite prisoners in the place. It was hard, after all, not to love a prisoner when he was in there for killing a cop killer. He was also an ex-cop himself and had been a cop for five years before the day he’d lost his shit after his partner had been killed.
When Slate’s partner had died, Slate had run down her killer. But instead of doing the right thing—which was taking him into custody and letting the justice system figure it out, Slate had done his own thing. His own thing included torturing the motherfucker and then killing him because he could.
Which led my brother to getting fifteen years in prison, with the possibility of parole at seven.
The only reason my brother hadn’t gotten more time was because his attorney claimed that he was suffering from PTSD due to being present at the time of his partner’s murder.
Which was the truth. After his partner was murdered, Slate kind of went off the deep end. To make matters worse, Slate had also been seeing her for over two years at the time of her death without anyone being the wiser.
Needless to say, it was understandable that he’d lose his shit when the person who was not only his partner but also his girlfriend, was murdered. The judges who had presided over his case had obviously agreed because they were very lenient, and it could’ve been a whole lot worse than it was.
Anyway, long story short, I knew the men and women who worked at this particular facility like they were my own family. All of them except for one very ornery man who refused to talk to me or open his freakin’ door.