Mess Me Up
Page 31

Vanessa’s car was brand new off the lot six years ago before she’d been murdered. She’d driven it all of three times before she’d been killed.
It would be a perfect car for me, but I didn’t want to take advantage of my brother just as much as I didn’t want to take advantage of Rome.
“Slate…”
“No.” He shook his head, and his eyes turned hard. “I need you to do it. You’ve taken care of me, and this is the only way I can help take care of you. Take the car. Drive it, use it—it’s yours. This will make me happy, sis.”
I looked down at my hands and swallowed. “Okay.”
I didn’t want to drive Vanessa’s car. Vanessa’s car was Slate’s pride and joy. One of the first of many fallouts with my parents.
It had taken just one time for Slate to show off the car to my mom and dad, showing them the shiny BMW that he’d bought her, for him to realize that they’d never accept her.
Vanessa was the turning point for our family.
Slate and I realized that we’d never make our parents happy with our decisions.
“Stop thinking about them,” Slate muttered, his sharp eyes on me. “They’re not worth it.”
I laughed a little at that.
“Funny,” I said. “You can say that all day long, and my head understands, but my heart on the other hand…”
“Did they meet Rome yet?” he asked.
 “Yes.” I paused. “Well, sort of. See, I quit my job with them when they wouldn’t give me time off to help Rome with his son.”
I then went on to explain the entire debacle.
“So, you claimed Abuela when you left, did you?” he teased.
I nodded. “I sure the hell did.”
He leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Tell me what else you’ve gotten up to lately, sister.”
But all the smiles on his beautiful face never met his eyes, and I knew that they never would again.
He’d lost his everything once, and he probably never would smile with true happiness again…well, at least not until he found his next Vanessa.
Chapter 18
When you finally find true love, hold onto it with both hands. Sometimes tacos can be hard to handle.
-Izzy to Rome
Rome
“You’re a natural,” I said. “You’ll ace the test…if you borrow my truck and just go take it and quit being stubborn.”
She sent me a quelling look. “I’m not stubborn.”
I opened my mouth to offer her the money to buy herself a car, then shut it again.
She wouldn’t take my money, just like she refused my rides.
I’d offered them to her time and time again, and each time she turned them down with a negative shake of her head.
I can walk, was always her answer.
Rather than getting in a fight about it, I only pulled out the big guns when she was spending time with me. Then she couldn’t argue.
“Why not use mine?” I suggested. “You know how it handles, and you’re driving the truck well.”
She bit her lip.
“I guess I could do that.” She paused. “You really don’t mind?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t drive the truck unless it’s raining.”
What was left unsaid was that I had no reason to drive the truck anymore was because my son was dead, and he didn’t need the safety of the cab and his booster seat any longer.
She sighed. “Slate offered me Vanessa’s car, but I don’t think I can drive it.”
I frowned. “Vanessa?”
“His fiancée—the one who was shot,” I murmured. “He’d just bought her a new car for her birthday. Vanessa was pregnant, and he wanted her in something safer.”
I made a sound in my throat.
“I asked him if he had a motorcycle,” I murmured, sounding just as upset as I felt at hearing that news. “He said you were supposed to sell it.”
She gave me a glare. “Yeah, thanks for that by the way. He yelled at me.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t know that he didn’t know.”
She gave me a teasing look. “I have my brother wrapped around my little finger.” She held it up for emphasis.
I was too far gone to tell her that I was wrapped around it right along with him.
“What do you want me to do next?” she asked, coming to a stop in the middle of the large parking lot.
“Well, you’ve aced pull in parking and parallel parking, and you’ve got backing up down. The next thing to do is to actually drive on the road. You up for that?” I suggested.
Izzy swallowed hard, looking around nervously.
“Sure!” she squeaked.
I started to chuckle.
“Alrighty, then.” I gestured to the open road. “Drive me somewhere, darlin’.”
So, she did.
A lot of somewheres.
She drove for so long that she even got her first gas pumping lesson, too.
And, an hour and a half later, I was dying of starvation and confident that she would definitely be able to pass her driver’s test with flying colors.
Just when I was about to suggest we go grab some dinner, we passed a cop car that was on the side of the road behind a white sign.
Automatically I looked at Izzy’s speed, rolling my eyes when I saw that she was going one under the speed limit.
Typical new driver.
My eyes went to the rearview mirror, and I winced when I saw the cop turn his lights on and pull a bitch, turning around to come up behind our truck.
“Shit,” I muttered.
“What?” Izzy asked, looking at me with a frantic glance back at the road.
“Cop,” I said, jabbing my finger over my shoulder. “He’s pulling you over.”
She gasped. “Oh, shit! I don’t have a license, Rome!”
“You still gotta pull over, honey,” I pointed out, feeling for her.
The first time I was pulled over, I’d been nervous as hell. I almost threw up on the cop’s shoes, too. I had a baggie of weed in my pocket, and I was so goddamn sure he’d know just from the look on my face.
Luckily, though, I just got a warning, and he let me go.
When I got home, I promptly threw the weed away, thankful that I’d been too scared to even try it. It was a good thing, too, because the following week, I was randomly drug tested for athletics. I was thanking God and that cop for pulling me over and scaring the shit out of me.
Tyler had looked at me wide-eyed once I got back, sure that I’d smoked the stuff he told me not to even get, but I set him straight by explaining what had happened. We took that as the sign it surely was that we should never go around that crap again.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she chanted over and over again as she pulled my truck to the side of the road. “Oh God, oh God.”
Once she had the truck pulled safely to the side of the road, she shut it off and put her hands up.
I would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been so distraught.
“Put your hands down, honey.” I controlled the laughter. “He’s not going to arrest you.”
She looked at me like she didn’t believe me, but she did as I’d ordered, putting her hands in her lap and chewing on her lip nervously.
I let the laughter I’d been holding back fly when I saw it was Wade getting out of the car.
She looked at me with wide eyes, not yet having seen who it was that was pulling her over.
“What’s wrong with you?” she hissed at me, staring at me like I’d grown a second head.
While her eyes were on me, Wade had made it to her window.
I rolled my eyes at him when he lifted one knuckle and knocked softly.
Izzy jumped and whipped her head around.
The second she realized that it was Wade her shoulders slumped and she dropped her forehead down on the steering wheel.
“Roll the window down.” I poked her.
She ignored me, so I reached over her and did it myself, or at least tried to. I couldn’t get around her, so I gestured for Wade to come to my side and rolled my own window down.
“You’re such a douchebag,” I chuckled.
Wade’s smile was unapologetic.