Mess Me Up
Page 38

She’d…disappointed me.
Seemed like I was always going to have disappointment to look forward to.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I wish I could tell you some pretty words, and make it all okay, but I can’t. I was wrong. I was so wrong that I will never be able to forgive myself. But…I don’t want you to be stubborn like me.”
My brows rose.
“How would you know if I’m being stubborn or not?” I asked stiffly.
She gave me a look. “You’ve known that I have been in town since the funeral, hoping that you would give me a chance…so it’s not gone unnoticed that your woman friend who you fell in love with is no longer around…or she wasn’t until today.”
My heart started to pound.
I’d heard the same thing, that Izzy had arrived, yet none of my friends had confirmed it for me knowing it was probably something that should be left alone.
But my grandmother had never been one to shy away from confrontation. Seeing as she’d booted my ass to the curb the moment she’d heard that I’d slept with Tyler’s woman.
“What does this have to do with anything between you and me?” I questioned.
She studied me with those eyes that had once meant the world to me. “One day, you’re going to be old and gray like me, only years away from dying, and you’re going to look back on the important things in your life. Things that you had the power to change, but didn’t.” She looked down, and for the first time, I saw how truly old she looked. “You’re my thing. I’ve lived a good life. Had a child. A husband that I adored. Grandchildren. But…I didn’t treat one of those precious gifts right. Just like you’re not doing.”
I would’ve laughed had she not been telling me something I hadn’t told myself time and time again since Izzy had disappeared from my life.
I didn’t know what to say.
Even worse, I didn’t know that I could say anything to make this right.
There were a hundred other things I could’ve done differently, and I’d done the one thing that had sent her running.
Now she was back…but would she even listen to what I had to say?
I still wasn’t a hundred percent on board with the baby.
The baby scared the absolute crap out of me.
We’re talking, on a scale of one to ten, a fifty-seven.
The idea of losing another child was terror-inducing to me. I’d lived through one. I didn’t think I could live through another.
“Don’t be me, baby,” my grandmother said. “Don’t be me.”
With that, she walked to the door and closed it softly behind her, leaving me reeling.
I’d never be her.
I’d never give up.
Now I just had to prove it.
***
I found her in the first place I looked—Bayou’s house.
Luckily, Bayou wasn’t home.
Unluckily, Bayou’s place was right in the middle of town. He owned the very first house built in Bear Bottom over twenty years ago. It just so happened that the house, although beautiful, was on the corner of a very popular street that everybody and their brother drove down to get anywhere in Bear Bottom.
Meaning, the moment I pulled my bike over in front of Bayou’s house, Bayou would know.
The question was, would Bayou do anything about it?
My bet was no.
Stepping onto the curb I’d parked my bike next to, I started up the porch steps, coming to a sudden halt with one foot on the top step, and one foot on the porch when I saw Izzy sitting on the swing. A light blanket covering her lap and a pile of letters—my letters to her—in her lap, all but one unread.
We sat staring at each other for long moments.
In my case, it was because I hadn’t seen her in so long. I hadn’t seen those beautiful eyes, or that hair that looked just as wild and unruly as the day she’d left.
It’d been three months, but nothing had changed. At least not my feelings when it came to the woman sitting in front of me.
“Rome,” she whispered, the letter in her hands dropping to reveal the small bump that it’d been previously concealing.
Something inside my chest tightened, and not in a bad way.
“Isadora,” I murmured.
I drew a deep breath, ready to plead my case, to tell her I was a complete and utter fool, but I never got the chance.
Why?
Because she was launching herself up and off the porch swing, and I was forced to catch her or fall backward down the stairs.
I didn’t care.
I held onto her.
I didn’t miss a thing.
Not the way she trembled in my arms. Not the way she held on for dear life as if she was too afraid I’d disappear if she let go. Not the way the hardness of her stomach pushed into the flat plain of mine.
I smelled the familiar fragrance of her hair, and I felt the softness of her skin.
I breathed, truly breathed, for the first time since she walked out my door.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”
She held on tight. “I know.”
I didn’t move from where I was holding her. Not until my phone rang.
“Answer it,” she ordered without letting go of my neck.
I didn’t want to answer it.
“Answer it,” she repeated.
I grumbled, letting go of her with one hand long enough to dig my phone out of my pocket.
I put the phone to my ear and said, “Hello?”
“Wade’s been shot. We’re at the hospital.”
Izzy must’ve heard what was said, because she finally let go, sinking to her feet and taking a step away.
I looked down at her, feeling my heart in my throat, and said, “Let’s go.”
With the letter I wrote her still clutched in her hand, she ran down the porch steps with me and hopped on the bike without a second of protest.
It wasn’t until we were halfway to the hospital that I realized she was pregnant, and likely shouldn’t be on a motorcycle at all.
I slowed down and took every precaution I could.
And realized something very critical.
This baby was important to me.
I wanted this baby just as much as I wanted Izzy in my life, and it took a brother being shot to make me realize it.
***
Isadora,
This is my fourth letter that I didn’t send to you.
Not because I don’t want to, but because I fear that you’re not going to be able to forgive me for what I did.
I should’ve never let you go.
My mind was screaming at me not to let you walk out that door, but I couldn’t make my body move. I couldn’t force my feet to lift up off the floor.
I’m scared to death.
Every time I allow myself to think about a child with you, I think about all the things that could go wrong.
I think about all the ways I could screw up—all the ways I did screw up with Matias.
But how will I survive if this baby, someone I will grow to love as much as you and his brother, leaves me, too?
I can’t.
I don’t want to experience that ever again.
But…I want you more.
I want you, and I’m willing to fight to have you.
If that makes me have to face my fears when it comes to this child, then I’ll gladly do it.
I’ll do anything to have you.
Even face my biggest fears.
I love you,
Rome.
Chapter 25
Some days I don’t give a fuck. Then there are the days that I don’t give a motherfucking fuck.
-Coffee Cup
Izzy
Wade had been shot in the leg, up high near his femoral artery.
The details were still sketchy as to how.
Nobody knew what had happened, other than it had been in front of his squad car, and nobody had been around at the time of the shooting other than Wade and the shooter.
Which meant that Wade would have to wake up to shine light on the details, because otherwise there was absolutely nothing to go on.
Everybody was in that small hospital waiting room as we waited for news on Wade. Hell, even Wade’s ex-wife was there.
She looked distraught, and it was honestly eerie how worried she looked. As if she cared what happened to Wade.
Which was in total contradiction to what I’d been told about her since finding my way into Rome’s arms in the very beginning of our journey.