“Your…Ms. Tara isn’t coming?” he hesitated.
I shook my head. “Tara decided that being with her son in his condition is too emotionally draining for her.”
I didn’t elaborate, but there was no hiding the derision in my voice or the fact that I was pissed off all over again by Tara’s selfish actions.
Tyler tensed beside me.
I hadn’t really had a chance to tell him over the last three days that she’d left for good…and when I did have a moment, I’d purposefully not broached the subject.
See, I still wasn’t all that confident when it came to everything that happened between Tara, Tyler, and me. I knew that he was trying to get over it, but that didn’t mean I needed to rub salt in that wound or reopen it if it was healed over.
I didn’t want to hurt him anymore. Hell, I didn’t intend to hurt him back then either.
And I needed him now.
Sure, I had the men in my club, and although they knew me well, they didn’t know me quite like Tyler did.
Tyler was like a brother to me and had been for the majority of my life.
Which was why I was so fuckin’ relieved to have him here with me.
Although I did have the distinct feeling that my club was outside, or would be momentarily seeing as the doctor’s receptionist was also Liner’s on-again-off-again girl.
Liner was the one who found me reeling and alone. At any other time, I don’t think that Liner would’ve given that first fuck about a man who looked like his dog had just died.
But, the more he saw me at Tara’s house—he was Tara’s neighbor, and she had hated him—the more he got to know me.
And since I didn’t like Tara any more than he did, a bond had formed between us that slowly grew into something much more. When I started prospecting with the Bear Bottom Guardians MC, I never expected to finally find a home where it just felt like a perfect fit.
It’d been perfect…or well, almost perfect.
I still missed Tyler.
We always said we were going to join a motorcycle club together.
However, with him being the chief of police, I didn’t see him joining one now, despite the fact that we had plenty of police officers in the local chapter that I was in—as well as the sister branches of the Dixie Wardens MC all over the South.
“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Dr. Zappata sighed. “I won’t keep you hanging, Mr. Pierce. I’ll just begin.”
I nodded at him in thanks.
Dr. Zappata bent forward and laid a few papers down in front of me on his desk. I glanced at them, but the numbers on them meant nothing to me.
“You don’t know what any of that means,” he said softly. “But, all of it indicates that the treatments are no longer working.”
I swallowed.
“What does that mean?” Tyler asked carefully, noticing that I couldn’t breathe…let alone speak.
“It means that treatment is no longer an option, and now, all we can do is make him comfortable for the last few weeks of his life.”
And just like that, the bomb was dropped, and my soul was obliterated just like I knew it would be.
A couple of weeks ago, I’d come to a very similar meeting with Tara and Dr. Zappata. He’d told me then that this treatment, depending on how Matias responded to it, might very well be his last.
I’d had hope, though.
I’d hoped and prayed and cried and raged.
Yet, the end had always been resolute.
I’d known, deep in my most secret of hearts, that this was the end for my son.
That Matias wasn’t going to make it.
His disease was just too advanced, too aggressive. He never responded to the treatments as we’d hoped. He’d always taken longer to bounce back after them, and we’d have to wait longer to start the next round.
If I were being honest, this had always been what we’d been moving toward.
I just didn’t want to admit it.
Not until right then.
“What now?” I questioned, voice rough, sounding like I’d swallowed razor wire.
Dr. Zappata pulled out another paper, this one a list of different hospice agencies.
“Now, we get him into hospice to handle end of life care,” he explained. “We make him comfortable. We do everything we can to keep him at home, where he’s the happiest.”
And when we walked out of the doctor’s office twenty minutes later, a single piece of paper the only thing in my hand, a list of the people who would help my son die in peace, I could no longer deal.
I looked up at the eight members of the Bear Bottom Guardians who were lined up on the bottom step. All of them looking like they were hoping for the best.
But they saw my face and the truth hit them just like it did me.
Matias Tyler Pierce wasn’t going to make it.
Dropping down to my knees right there in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk outside the doctor’s office, I lost what little hope I’d been clinging to since that dreadful day when we first were told of our son’s diagnosis.
I couldn’t fuckin’ breathe.
All I could do was fuckin’ sob, but that still didn’t take away the ache in my chest.
I knew going in what I was going to hear today. I’d honestly have been more surprised if I’d heard something else, but still, there is no preparing for this kind of news. The confirmation that my son was going to die—and soon—was a tough pill to swallow.
I drew in a shaky breath. One. Two. Three. Four.
I needed to get home.
“You want to go get a drink?” Tyler asked, looking at me like I was about to lose it.
Hell, maybe I was.
I got up off my knees, not bothering to dust myself off, and shook my head. “No. I want to go home to my kid.”
***
“Daddy?” Matias, my little boy, asked.
I looked down at him, unsure how to deal with what I was feeling.
“Yeah, bud?” I rumbled, feeling the choking sensation of tears once again in my throat.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I felt like a fraud.
Here was my dying son, and he was asking me if I was okay.
“Yeah, Ty-Ty,” I croaked. “I’m okay…are you in any pain?”
Matias’ eyes closed. “A little.”
Remembering the doctor’s earlier words about how he was likely in extreme pain, but probably trying to hide it, made me want to vomit.
“Are you sure?” I asked carefully. “You know you don’t ever have to be brave for me, don’t you? I’m your dad. If you need to tell me something, anything, I’m here to listen. Whatever you want to tell me.”
Matias smiled, his eyes returning to the television.
While he watched Hiccup, I watched him, wondering how I could ever go on with my life without him.
“It hurts a lot, Daddy,” came Matias’ whispered reply a few minutes later.
I heard someone suck in their breath, and realized it was me.
“It does?” I licked my dry lips. “Ty-Ty,” I said, waiting for him to look up at me. “I know that you wanted to fight…but I think it’s time for me to do the fighting for you, okay?”
The relief on my kid’s face made me feel like an utter failure.
Six months ago, when this had all started, I’d told him he had to fight for me.
And he had. My little boy had fought so hard. So. Fucking. Hard.
But now his time to fight was up.
“I don’t want you to be sad,” he murmured softly, sounding lost and alone.
I pulled him up so that he rested in the cradle of my arms.
“Do you know that four years ago when you were born, you fit so perfectly in my arms that I knew that you were made for me to hold? To love? To protect?” I asked.
He smiled, and I felt his breathing hitch against my neck as he said what he said next. “I want you to have another little boy who can run and play…who you can teach to catch a football.”
I didn’t realize that I was crying until the tears met my lips and I tasted them on my tongue.
“Yeah?” I barely contained the moan.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I want you to.”
I’d never have another kid for the rest of my life. Matias was it for me.
I shook my head. “Tara decided that being with her son in his condition is too emotionally draining for her.”
I didn’t elaborate, but there was no hiding the derision in my voice or the fact that I was pissed off all over again by Tara’s selfish actions.
Tyler tensed beside me.
I hadn’t really had a chance to tell him over the last three days that she’d left for good…and when I did have a moment, I’d purposefully not broached the subject.
See, I still wasn’t all that confident when it came to everything that happened between Tara, Tyler, and me. I knew that he was trying to get over it, but that didn’t mean I needed to rub salt in that wound or reopen it if it was healed over.
I didn’t want to hurt him anymore. Hell, I didn’t intend to hurt him back then either.
And I needed him now.
Sure, I had the men in my club, and although they knew me well, they didn’t know me quite like Tyler did.
Tyler was like a brother to me and had been for the majority of my life.
Which was why I was so fuckin’ relieved to have him here with me.
Although I did have the distinct feeling that my club was outside, or would be momentarily seeing as the doctor’s receptionist was also Liner’s on-again-off-again girl.
Liner was the one who found me reeling and alone. At any other time, I don’t think that Liner would’ve given that first fuck about a man who looked like his dog had just died.
But, the more he saw me at Tara’s house—he was Tara’s neighbor, and she had hated him—the more he got to know me.
And since I didn’t like Tara any more than he did, a bond had formed between us that slowly grew into something much more. When I started prospecting with the Bear Bottom Guardians MC, I never expected to finally find a home where it just felt like a perfect fit.
It’d been perfect…or well, almost perfect.
I still missed Tyler.
We always said we were going to join a motorcycle club together.
However, with him being the chief of police, I didn’t see him joining one now, despite the fact that we had plenty of police officers in the local chapter that I was in—as well as the sister branches of the Dixie Wardens MC all over the South.
“Well, that’s unfortunate.” Dr. Zappata sighed. “I won’t keep you hanging, Mr. Pierce. I’ll just begin.”
I nodded at him in thanks.
Dr. Zappata bent forward and laid a few papers down in front of me on his desk. I glanced at them, but the numbers on them meant nothing to me.
“You don’t know what any of that means,” he said softly. “But, all of it indicates that the treatments are no longer working.”
I swallowed.
“What does that mean?” Tyler asked carefully, noticing that I couldn’t breathe…let alone speak.
“It means that treatment is no longer an option, and now, all we can do is make him comfortable for the last few weeks of his life.”
And just like that, the bomb was dropped, and my soul was obliterated just like I knew it would be.
A couple of weeks ago, I’d come to a very similar meeting with Tara and Dr. Zappata. He’d told me then that this treatment, depending on how Matias responded to it, might very well be his last.
I’d had hope, though.
I’d hoped and prayed and cried and raged.
Yet, the end had always been resolute.
I’d known, deep in my most secret of hearts, that this was the end for my son.
That Matias wasn’t going to make it.
His disease was just too advanced, too aggressive. He never responded to the treatments as we’d hoped. He’d always taken longer to bounce back after them, and we’d have to wait longer to start the next round.
If I were being honest, this had always been what we’d been moving toward.
I just didn’t want to admit it.
Not until right then.
“What now?” I questioned, voice rough, sounding like I’d swallowed razor wire.
Dr. Zappata pulled out another paper, this one a list of different hospice agencies.
“Now, we get him into hospice to handle end of life care,” he explained. “We make him comfortable. We do everything we can to keep him at home, where he’s the happiest.”
And when we walked out of the doctor’s office twenty minutes later, a single piece of paper the only thing in my hand, a list of the people who would help my son die in peace, I could no longer deal.
I looked up at the eight members of the Bear Bottom Guardians who were lined up on the bottom step. All of them looking like they were hoping for the best.
But they saw my face and the truth hit them just like it did me.
Matias Tyler Pierce wasn’t going to make it.
Dropping down to my knees right there in the middle of the goddamn sidewalk outside the doctor’s office, I lost what little hope I’d been clinging to since that dreadful day when we first were told of our son’s diagnosis.
I couldn’t fuckin’ breathe.
All I could do was fuckin’ sob, but that still didn’t take away the ache in my chest.
I knew going in what I was going to hear today. I’d honestly have been more surprised if I’d heard something else, but still, there is no preparing for this kind of news. The confirmation that my son was going to die—and soon—was a tough pill to swallow.
I drew in a shaky breath. One. Two. Three. Four.
I needed to get home.
“You want to go get a drink?” Tyler asked, looking at me like I was about to lose it.
Hell, maybe I was.
I got up off my knees, not bothering to dust myself off, and shook my head. “No. I want to go home to my kid.”
***
“Daddy?” Matias, my little boy, asked.
I looked down at him, unsure how to deal with what I was feeling.
“Yeah, bud?” I rumbled, feeling the choking sensation of tears once again in my throat.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I felt like a fraud.
Here was my dying son, and he was asking me if I was okay.
“Yeah, Ty-Ty,” I croaked. “I’m okay…are you in any pain?”
Matias’ eyes closed. “A little.”
Remembering the doctor’s earlier words about how he was likely in extreme pain, but probably trying to hide it, made me want to vomit.
“Are you sure?” I asked carefully. “You know you don’t ever have to be brave for me, don’t you? I’m your dad. If you need to tell me something, anything, I’m here to listen. Whatever you want to tell me.”
Matias smiled, his eyes returning to the television.
While he watched Hiccup, I watched him, wondering how I could ever go on with my life without him.
“It hurts a lot, Daddy,” came Matias’ whispered reply a few minutes later.
I heard someone suck in their breath, and realized it was me.
“It does?” I licked my dry lips. “Ty-Ty,” I said, waiting for him to look up at me. “I know that you wanted to fight…but I think it’s time for me to do the fighting for you, okay?”
The relief on my kid’s face made me feel like an utter failure.
Six months ago, when this had all started, I’d told him he had to fight for me.
And he had. My little boy had fought so hard. So. Fucking. Hard.
But now his time to fight was up.
“I don’t want you to be sad,” he murmured softly, sounding lost and alone.
I pulled him up so that he rested in the cradle of my arms.
“Do you know that four years ago when you were born, you fit so perfectly in my arms that I knew that you were made for me to hold? To love? To protect?” I asked.
He smiled, and I felt his breathing hitch against my neck as he said what he said next. “I want you to have another little boy who can run and play…who you can teach to catch a football.”
I didn’t realize that I was crying until the tears met my lips and I tasted them on my tongue.
“Yeah?” I barely contained the moan.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I want you to.”
I’d never have another kid for the rest of my life. Matias was it for me.
