“I was told by your man.” He paused. “And before you get all mad and shit, you shouldn’t. He was just trying to get me to like him.”
I snorted loudly. “Did it work?”
His eyes went hard. “If he protects you, I’ll love him.”
I felt something inside of my chest soften at knowing that my brother would make an effort to get along with him.
“And since you owe me now, you need to do me a favor,” he ordered.
My brows rose. “What’s that?”
“Drive Vanessa’s car,” he demanded. “I bought it for her, and it’s paid in full. So, use it. Drive it. It’s just sitting there. In fact, you can have it. I loved that car and wanted Vanessa to drive it, but no one is using it now. It may not have the newest technology anymore and probably will need a tune-up because it hasn’t been driven, or even started, since I’ve been in here, but it’s a good, solid car. It’ll be perfect for you.”
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.
“We got an anonymous call that there was an erratic driver in a vehicle with a similar description as this one.” Wade paused, eyes glancing over at the woman on the opposite side of me. “You weren’t driving erratically, were you?”
Izzy’s eyes were big on her face as she stared wide-eyed at Wade.
She blinked at him in confusion. “I haven’t even gone over forty yet!”
As if there were some magic number that meant she couldn’t possibly have been driving erratically since she hadn’t gone over that speed.
This girl.
Wade started to laugh.
“You do have a taillight out, though,” Wade pointed out.
“Bullshit,” I said. “This is a brand-new truck.”
He gestured to the back. “Come and see. There’s a crack in the tail light, too.”
We all climbed out of the truck and went to the back, Izzy stopping closest to the side of the road as all three of us crowded around the cracked tail light.
“It looks like someone took a bat to it,” Wade said, looking down at Izzy. “You didn’t do that did you, Izzy?”
She flipped him off.
Grinning, I gave Wade a look. “Don’t tease my girl. She’s scared. This is her first official pull over while driving, and you damn well know the only reason you did it was because it’s her.”
“You didn’t.” She turned accusing eyes on Wade. “You wouldn’t do that, would you Wade?”
Wade’s eyes were full of mischief. “Being a cop is so much fun.”
“Being a cop is not so much fun!” Izzy stomped her foot in anger. “Cops are dumb!”
My lips twitched. “Your brother’s not dumb.”
Izzy paused. “My brother did dumb stuff like this to me all the time, too. One time he came up behind me while I was running and did that loud siren thing right on my ass. I didn’t hear him pull up because I had my headphones in. Scared eight years off my life, and I fell down. That’s how I got this scar.” She held up her wrist and showed us both. “So, he’s included in that blanket statement.”
Her stubbornness and anger combined to make me want to wrap her up in my arms and fuck the attitude right out of her.
But, before I could think much more on the subject at hand, a loud whooshing growl had me reacting before I could think.
Seconds later, both Wade and I had taken Izzy down to the ground as a black truck passed by so fast and close that the vehicle nearly took Izzy out.
Hearts pounding, I stared down at Izzy who was wincing.
“Owwww,” she cried. “Did both of y’all have to do it?”
Wade got up and reached for the mic at his shoulder, calling in the truck’s description in case someone happened to be in the area.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to almost kill me.” Izzy sat up with her hand on her head. She had little asphalt pieces stuck to her skin where we’d both pressed her down, but luckily none of them had actually torn her skin. “Jesus Christ, y’all are fast. I kind of always wondered what it’d feel like to be taken down by you, Rome.”
I hadn’t.
I never wanted to experience that again.
My heart was in my goddamn throat, and I was finding it hard to breathe.
“Jesus,” I growled.
“It’s against the law to ride that close to a police officer’s vehicle when it is pulled over on the side of the road for a traffic stop,” Wade explained. “Either you change lanes or you slow down fifteen miles per hour below the posted speed limit. Fucker broke the law.”
Wade’s grumbled words had Izzy smiling. “You kind of like me, don’t you, Wade?”
Wade rolled his eyes. “Only because you make my brother happy, honey. Don’t allow your head to get too big now.”
Izzy giggled. “Let’s go eat. I’m starved. I need caffeine to make my head feel better. And a cookie. Possibly a slice of cake, too.”
Wade and I both snorted.
“I’m down,” Wade said. “It’s my lunch break anyhow.”
And that was how we ended up back on the road, but this time we were traveling at a much faster rate of speed than the road we’d been on when Wade pulled us over because the posted speed on this road was sixty miles per hour.
“There.” I pointed. “Let’s go there.”
I gestured to a restaurant across the street, and she looked at it with dismay. “I’ll never be able to pull out in that traffic. They’re going sixty-five, Rome!”
I chuckled.
“Pull in there, and we’ll grab something to eat,” I suggested. “When we’re done, I’ll drive home if you’re not comfortable pulling out into fast-moving traffic like this.”
She sighed and put on her turn signal, then eased over into the turn lane.
“The key to this is to go fast enough to get you into the parking lot without anyone hitting you, but also with enough control that you don’t ram into the building,” I teased.
She flipped me off, but I could tell that she was nervous.
She didn’t like traffic, especially when it was moving at a higher rate of speed, but it was also something she’d have to learn to get used to.
“The driver at the DMV will take you out on the interstate.” I paused. “And the speed limit there is seventy-five. You’re going to have to get used to this, honey.”
She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Maybe. But it won’t be where I drive every day.”
That was true.
“There’s an opening coming up, get ready to go. Ease your foot off the brake…good. Ready…go!” I ordered.
Zero hesitation, and the perfect amount of speed on her end.
“Perfect!” I said as she pulled across traffic. “Now, back into that spot.”
She looked at the spot warily and then did as she was instructed. It only took her three tries to get it in there perfectly.
“See!” I squeezed her still shaking hands. “You’re a natural!”
Before I could so much as prepare myself for her, she launched herself over the center console and started peppering my face with kisses.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She pronounced each statement with a kiss. “God, I love you.”
Chapter 19
The most dangerous drinking game is seeing how long I can go without coffee.
-Coffee Cup
Izzy
Slate’s comment from our previous visit stuck with me throughout the following weeks.
The last time you freaked out over nothing, you were pregnant.
Every time I overreacted about something—like yesterday when someone asked me if I was pregnant when I really just had a few extra pounds in my tummy area—I went back to that statement.
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It wasn’t until a few weeks had passed that I realized that I might actually be pregnant.
At first, it started out with my clothes not fitting as well as they once had before I had started spending so much time with Rome and not walking as much.
Then it started out with me not being able to run more than a mile before I felt like I was going to die—something that I’d been able to do since before I could remember.
Then, it was the way my brother looked at me after having not seen me from the week before. He didn’t flat out say anything, but I could tell he wanted to.
His eyes had dropped to my stomach, and he’d stared so long that I’d gotten uncomfortable.
It wasn’t until he told me to go to the doctor that I figured…what could it hurt?
And now, as I exited my doctor’s office parking lot, I wondered what I was going to do.
Rome made it no secret that he didn’t want any more kids.
I was scared out of my mind.
There were two things in this world I knew that I couldn’t live without.
Air in my lungs, and Rome.
And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that there was a very good possibility that, by telling him my news, he’d break free and run.
Knew it with every fiber of my being.
Yet, I couldn’t keep it from him any longer…I’d already managed to delude myself for weeks.
He deserved to know, and I was getting to the point where I’d start showing any day now—possibly was showing if my brother could see it after only a week and a half of not seeing me.
I’d hidden it for weeks, danced around the subject…but then this morning, I’d had an epiphany.
I couldn’t keep living like this, dancing around Rome’s feelings.
Rome deserved to be treated like an adult, not a broken person who couldn’t handle the hard stuff.
Though this hard stuff might very well break him.
He’d been adamant that he didn’t want any more children. The possibility of them dying before him was something that he couldn’t handle.
I knew he had it in him, had the power to break free of the chains that Matias’ death left on him. At least, I hoped that he could.
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