Mess Me Up
Page 14

Hence the reason I was where I was when I was.
I’d gotten some inside info from Murry, my favorite guard, that said Rome took lunch—for an hour and fifteen minutes—during this particular time of the day.
Smiling at the little informant, I walked straight to him. “Is he eating?”
Murry nodded his head, looking smug. “He is. I’ll buzz you back. Once you’re back there, follow the corridor, and Yates will buzz you in from there. Okay?”
I grinned. “Your secrets are safe with me, promise!”
Murry winked. “I’m glad seeing as Rome is twice my freakin’ size and could probably snap me like a toothpick.”
Murry was small, and when I say small, he was about five-foot-five inches of nothing. My right arm was bigger around than his thigh.
“If I’m not out in an hour, come looking for me, because he probably locked me up,” I teased.
Murry rolled his eyes. “He wouldn’t hurt you.”
Murry had been at the funeral. Hell, almost the entire B and C shifts had been—which were the shifts, apparently, that Rome worked.
Which explained why I hadn’t known that he was there since only the A shift worked on the days that I came to visit Slate.
Luckily, Murry was one of the ones that switched in between all the shifts and worked his ass off. He liked to buy expensive stuff that he couldn’t afford if he didn’t, meaning he knew me well.
The buzzer sounded, and I took a deep breath before letting it out slowly.
Then I went down the long hallway and hoped I wasn’t making the worst decision of my life.
***
Rome
I took a bite of my food and looked at the upcoming schedule.
If I worked this Friday, and next Monday, then I would be able to pick up the C shift for Knox, and the A shift for Sharif…
The door to the breakroom opened, and I looked up, surprised.
Nobody normally took lunch with me due to the fact that all sectors had to be covered at all times. And when one of us took our lunch break, that meant nobody else in this particular part of the prison could take theirs.
Only, instead of one of my fellow guards or an administrator coming in, it was the woman I’d been avoiding like the plague.
The scowl that overtook my face was nothing short of ferocious.
I’d been avoiding her, along with quite a few other people, for a long fuckin’ time, and I didn’t intend to start talking to them now.
I stood up, sandwich forgotten, and crossed my arms over my chest.
There was no hiding the fact that I wasn’t receptive to her being there.
I should’ve expected it, though.
Goddamn Murry for being such a soft-hearted man.
I should’ve known when he asked about my lunch schedule that he was trying to scheme.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I’m at work.”
Izzy snorted. “I know you are, numbnuts. I’m here because I knew you would be here.”
I gritted my teeth to keep the growl out of my voice.
“I don’t want you here,” I countered. “Nor do I want to talk about my feelings.”
I wanted to shoot myself in the foot more than I wanted to do that particular thing.
Plus, I knew that if I gave in, I’d rely on her way too much just like I did when Matias was dying, and I couldn’t do that—be that weak person—all over again.
I just didn’t want to be that reliant on someone.
She walked to the table and set down two things. One was a bag of what looked like food, and the other was a bag of what looked like papers—but since I couldn’t see in it due to the sack’s color, I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure.
“I brought you some lunch,” she said, taking a seat. “I hope you like tamales.”
I looked down at the broccoli and grilled chicken I’d brought for my own lunch and shook my head. “I brought my own lunch.”
She looked at my food with disgust.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’re working your ass off.” She looked pointedly at where my ass was, and I narrowed my eyes. “This is real food. Not that shit.”
She gestured to my food with a look of revulsion on her face.
“I’m not sure that my ass is any of your business,” I admitted, trying not to allow my amusement to show. “In fact, I know it’s not.”
When I retired from the NFL, I’d put on quite a bit of weight. Sure, it wasn’t necessarily bad weight. While I’d been in, though, I’d had to be super strict with what I did and didn’t put in my body. It was only when I no longer needed to be as strict that I’d changed the way I ate. My workout routine had also become inconsistent.
I hadn’t been fat, but I sure as hell hadn’t been in tiptop shape, either.
Ever since Matias’ passing, I had nothing else better to do—meaning I’d been working my ass off to get back into shape—better shape—than I’d been in.
I wasn’t back to one hundred percent yet, but it was close.
I felt better—at least physically—and looked better, too. As long as you didn’t look at the frown lines on my face, or the deep bags under my eyes indicating that I barely managed to get five to six hours of sleep at night—and definitely not consecutively.
“Whether your ass is or isn’t any of my business doesn’t really matter,” she said lightly, opening the bag that contained the food. “I had my Abuela make us some food. I can cook—but I don’t necessarily have all that much time. In case you’re wondering.”
I wasn’t.
I was also a liar.
I wondered about her constantly.
There was never a point where she was ever far from my mind.
I’d seemed to shift my focus from my son to her.
I’d become obsessed, and I wasn’t sure that it was entirely healthy at this point.
Yet…I couldn’t help it.
She started pulling out foil packets, and I felt my gut tighten.
I could resist a lot of things. A lot.
In fact, had she pulled out any other thing than what she did, I would’ve curled my lip up at her and told her that I didn’t want it.
But…she knew my weakness.
How she knew my weakness, I didn’t know.
But she did…and I couldn’t stop myself.
I groaned.
Izzy’s smile was nothing short of beaming.
“Knew you couldn’t resist this,” she said, a small laugh tinging her words.
I frowned. “How?”
She blinked innocently at me. “How what?”
“How did you know that tamales were my weakness?” I asked.
She licked her lips nervously. “Uhhh, no idea.”
The little liar.
But since I didn’t want to talk to her, and I sure the fuck didn’t want her to think that I was interested in holding a conversation with her when I sure the fuck wasn’t, I held my tongue. And my accusations.
Instead, I tried to fight the temptation of reaching for one of the tamales that she unwrapped and shoved to sit directly in front of me.
I managed to make it through about four or five seconds of it wafting up into my nostrils, and then I caved.
“Fuck you,” I said, reaching for it.
Izzy didn’t give me a smug look. In fact, there was no smugness in her appearance at all.
She just smiled at me and reached for her own tamale.
I went through about eight of the little delicious bastards before I came to my senses.
It took everything I had to put the one down that I hadn’t finished yet, and I leveled Izzy with a glare to end all glares.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, sounding just as frustrated as I felt.
“Because you’re ignoring me,” she answered. “And I don’t like being ignored.”
I glared. “I’m not sure if you know this or not, but the world doesn’t revolve around you.”
Izzy laughed. “Oh, I know it.”
“Then why are you pushing when I don’t want to be pushed?” I crossed my arms.
“Because someone needs to,” she answered. “And, I’m tired of how you’re acting. You didn’t die, Rome. Yet, for all intents and purposes, you did. I realize that you’ve lost something great but ignoring everyone and everything isn’t going to make that heartache go away.”