Too Bad So Sad

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Should’ve put all those two and twos together and made a whole lot of fours.

  “Why are you here, Liner?” she hissed. “You especially I don’t need in my house.”

  “This isn’t your house, this is Rome’s house, in case you forgot that little fact, too,” Liner continued with the one-liners.

  I wondered if that was the meaning behind his road name, but now wasn’t the best time to ask him.

  “What did I ever see in her?” I muttered mostly to myself.

  Liner, who had been staring at Tara’s back, turned to me. “I ask Rome that every second of every day. He continues to reiterate that we all do stupid shit when we’re drunk…which I totally agree with. As long as she doesn’t open her mouth, she’s smokin’ hot. But the moment she starts talking, the nastiness she spews eclipses anything that was attractive about her.”

  I felt my lips twitch.

  I totally agreed with Liner…and I also now felt so completely and utterly stupid.

  I’d essentially thrown away a lifelong friendship based on the lies that came out of this vicious bitch’s mouth.

  The more I thought about it, the less angry I became at Rome and the angrier I became at myself. I’d wasted four fuckin’ years because I’d been a stubborn asshole with wounded pride.

  It didn’t matter that I’d been seeing Tara for months. It didn’t matter that Tara had hidden her true self. What mattered was that, at the end of the day, I’d trusted a girl over my best friend and I hadn’t even given him the chance to explain himself.

  Four fuckin’ years.

  I felt so goddamn stupid.

  “Yes, this is Tyler. My best friend,” Rome said to his son. “The man I named you after.”

  Another shot right to the fuckin’ heart.

  Fuck.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Tara hissed.

  “Tara,” Rome growled, sounding angry.

  I came unstuck and made my way across the room, coming to a stop next to the couch where the little boy was laying.

  His smile was warm and luckily, he didn’t hear his mother and Rome fighting because he was too busy focusing on me.

  “Daddy loves you,” the little boy said.

  I swallowed.

  A four-year-old wasn’t supposed to be so intelligent, philosophical.

  He also wasn’t supposed to look like this, either.

  Where I’d never seen little kids his age sitting still, Matias was so small and frail that he literally couldn’t even lift his head off the pillow.

  But, goddamn, his smile was beautiful.

  “You’re a smart little boy, aren’t you?” I asked, sounding proud.

  God, what had I done?

  “Daddy says it’s because I don’t move around much. Since I don’t have energy to do anything, I can sit here and use my brain. He also says I take after you. That you were always smart,” Matias said.

  I felt like I’d been hammered in the gut by Rome’s fist.

  He’d done that more than once while he and I were fighting. I remembered it like it was yesterday, the fight we’d gotten into and the fist I’d taken to the stomach right before I’d landed a blow to Rome’s kidney.

  It’d been brutal—and over a fuckin’ truck that we both wanted to buy.

  The feeling in my stomach felt exactly like that.

  All the breath had whooshed from my lungs and I couldn’t find the correct way to draw breath into my body.

  “Your daddy was smarter than me and always has been,” I told him honestly. “Don’t let him fool you. That’s what gets everybody—the pretty face.”

  Rome snorted and came to sit down next to his son.

  Liner took the seat to my right and it was only then that I realized Tara was not only gone from the room, but she’d left the house entirely. I heard her car start up outside and peel out of the driveway.

  Moments after that, I heard something crash.

  Liner stood up. “If she hit my bike, I’m going to stab her.”

  I winced, but the little boy didn’t seem to notice anyone’s bad words because he was still focused on me. “Daddy says you have a girlfriend.”

  I felt something inside my chest squeeze even tighter.

  While I was away, for four goddamn years of this little boy’s life, Rome never once stopped talking about me like I was still his best friend. He’d told his little boy everything there was to know about me, I had no doubt about it.

  “Her name is Reagan. She wanted to come today, but she plays in the dirt for a living and had to work,” I said through a lump in my throat.

  Matias’s smile lit his entire face. “I love playing in the dirt.”

  I looked at Rome, whose face was once again shut down. He looked just as haunted on the outside as I felt on the inside.

  He never was good at hiding his emotions.

  I turned back to Matias.

  “It was only the trash can…I’ll go get the shit off the street,” Liner muttered somewhere behind me.

  I didn’t look away from the little boy. “I live by the lake. When you’re feeling up to it, your daddy can bring you out and you can play in the dirt and mud with Reagan.”

  Matias’s eyes drooped, then closed. “I’d like that, Uncle Tyler.”

  I felt tears hit my eyes.

  “Rome…God.”

  Rome lifted his hand and placed it on top of the boy’s bald head. “I should’ve tried harder.”

  I knew what he meant.

  Between us, he should’ve made more of an effort.

  “I didn’t make that easy for you,” I disagreed, giving him my eyes. “And you know it.”

  Rome shrugged. “I would’ve…but whether you think so or not, I did betray you. All the little details were there. I mean, how many fuckin’ Taras would know where I lived and would be invited into one of my parties? God damn, I was so stupid. But…then she got pregnant and I didn’t think about anything but my betrayal to you anymore.” He leaned forward and pressed his closed fists to his eyes. “I had grand plans of apologizing. Of making it right…but those plans crashed and burned.”

  He didn’t have to tell me what crashed and burned. I knew what.

  “I’m such an asshole,” I told him. “Tara made me crazy and we were already in a bad place. I should’ve seen past my anger, should’ve given you a chance to explain—and honestly? None of it was really aimed at you—or at least it shouldn’t have been. It should’ve been all on her. She knew what she was doing and knew damn well and good who you were to me. She used to stare at your face whenever it came on during every single game night, listening to me tell stories about you.”

  Rome groaned and looked up. “I don’t know what to do.”

  The change of subject had me staring at him with a deep understanding.

  “You fight. For him,” I told him. “You keep fighting until that’s all you can think about doing. You have it in you, Rome.”

  The moment was lost, but not forgotten.

  This was the first step of many.

  The last four years wasn’t going to be erased in one day or one conversation, but what would be erased was the distance we kept from each other, and I only had Reagan to blame.

  Smart, kind, pain in the ass girl that she was.

  Rome leaned back in his seat and placed his hand on the boy’s calf, his large palm engulfing the thin bones of his son’s leg.

  “Tell me about your girl,” he said, eyes never lifting from his son’s sleeping form. “And, please God, please let me hear that there’s at least one girl in this godforsaken world who isn’t a total bitch.”

  I snorted as did Liner, who took the seat he’d previously been occupying.

  “Alana and Henley aren’t bitches and you know it.” I shot him a look. “But Reagan? I don’t even know how to explain her. She’s everything I never knew I needed…and she’s such a pain in the ass that I don’t know how to handle her.”
>
  Rome’s lips twitched. “You need a girl like that to shake your shit up.”

  She did indeed do that—shake my shit up.

  “Before we were dating, she planted a flower garden…in my yard.” I gave Rome a look. “You know how much flowers annoy me.”

  Rome burst out laughing.

  “What’s so bad about flowers?” Liner questioned, sounding lost.

  Rome wiped at his eyes. “Tyler’s mom used to have a flower garden. Every day he had to go pull the weeds for fifteen minutes. He absolutely hated it…and this girl just gave him one of his own so he gets to do it all over again.”

  “It gets better,” I muttered. “She found this dog…”

  Rome threw his head back and laughed, big, heavy guffaws. “Oh, God. Did you tell her that you’re allergic?”

  I shook my head.

  “You’re allergic to dogs?” Liner asked. “And you let her keep it, didn’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not severely allergic, their hair makes me itch. Luckily, he stays off of my recliner…and yes, he is living with me. She lives in a one-bedroom rental cabin on the lake just down the road from me. That’s why she planted the flower garden at my place and also why I’m currently housing a dog that makes me itch the moment that he touches me.”

  The front door banged open and then slammed shut, causing Rome to release a weary sigh.

  “This isn’t my day to be here,” Rome murmured, watching Tara stomp through the house and make her way through the living room to a long hallway that was just beyond it. Moments later, she disappeared into a side room. “Normally she makes plans with her friends. Me being here today means that she didn’t get to make plans and has nothing to do in this ‘godforsaken town.’”

  My lips twitched. “Well, that just breaks my heart.”

  Rome snorted.

  “Rome did you a favor, man.” Liner stepped around the elephant that was still in the room. “He may not have done it on purpose or anything, but my God. Just living next to her for the last six months has given me a lesson in restraint. She’s the biggest bitch I ever met and treats Rome like absolute shit.”

  I looked over at Liner. “You live next door?”

  He gestured to the house that was directly to the side. “That one over there.”

  I nodded.

  I’d thought it odd that he would park on the part of the driveway that was allocated for the other house as we’d pulled in, but I hadn’t given it a second thought after I’d walked through the door.

  “If I’d have known the way she was, I wouldn’t have told Rome about this place coming up for sale,” Liner muttered. “When she’s not taking up most of the driveway with her flashy assed car and her trashcans, she’s making my life hell.”

  The two houses shared one large driveway and I could see Tara being a bitch and doing whatever she could to piss the man off.

  It was obvious that the two of them got along like oil and water.

  But, then again, Tara got along with everybody like oil and water, apparently.

  Rome gave the boy laying on the couch one more loving caress on his bald little head and then stood.

  “If I don’t leave, she’s going to get all bitchy and call her lawyer,” Rome murmured, looking at his kid. “And since I made a promise when he got sick not to put him through all the crap that Tara doesn’t give a shit if she puts him through, I gotta be the bigger person and leave.”

  I winced.

  There was so much that I hadn’t known and I felt like utter shit that I didn’t see past the lies and betrayal to what was really going on beneath the surface.

  “We’re leaving, Tara.”

  Rome’s call down the hall had Liner and me standing, heading toward the front door.

  The moment that we made it out of the door and onto the porch, Tara had come out of her room to glare at Rome.

  But, what she did do, was go to the back of the couch and look over it to peer at the sleeping boy.

  I frowned at seeing the relief there.

  Tara, despite her faults, cared about her son.

  Which made me feel at least a little bit better knowing she wasn’t a completely unfeeling cyborg.

  She at least had some capacity for love.

  “Fuckin’ makes me sick,” Liner said, glancing over his shoulder.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Her,” he murmured. “I hate that she does this to him when their boy is slowly declining. Rome found out today that they’d have to switch to a more aggressive type of therapy for him because his body wasn’t responding well to the other. Then she makes him fuckin’ leave because it’s ‘not his day.’”

  I looked over at Liner, who was looking at Rome and Tara talking softly in the middle of the living room.

  I glanced there, too.

  There was definitely no love lost between the two of them, that was for sure.

  I looked back at Liner. “You know our history?”

  He nodded.

  “Then why don’t you hate me?”

  Liner blinked. “Because.” He paused. “Rome doesn’t hate you.”

  Simple as that.

  Rome doesn’t hate you.

  That was all that mattered.

  “Fuck.”

  Liner’s lips twitched. “Not to mention I’ve had my own share of cheating girlfriends. It seems I only attract the ones without the fidelity bone.”

  I snorted. “I would’ve said that, too, but…”

  My phone rang before I could get the rest of my response to his admission out.

  Reaching into my pocket, I placed the phone to my ear.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Ummm, Tyler?” Katy, my office chick, said quickly, sounding worried. “I think you better get back here.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  Katy blew out a breath. “Because Reagan was just brought in for trespassing…and she looks like someone walked over her grave.”

  I didn’t stop to think. Didn’t stop to say goodbye. Only got on my bike and left.

  Vaguely I was aware of Rome and Liner getting on their bikes and following after me, but I didn’t once slow down to allow them to catch up.

  I had a girl to bail out of jail. Plus, something more would’ve had to happen for one of my officers to bring her in.

  Chapter 15

  What do I like most about my job? Lunch breaks and leaving.

  Reagan

  With little else to do but cool my jets, I decided to follow up on a tip that came in from a few locals about a new bed of hydrilla taking over a man’s property, making it hard for him to get in and out of his dock with his boat.

  The only problem with that was that it was the part of the lake where people who weren’t exactly nice lived.

  The reason I knew that they weren’t nice was due to the fact that I’d already tried to get a sample once, but everywhere I tried to go, I was very obviously rebuffed.

  This time, I wouldn’t ask, I’d just go.

  I’d get in and out really quick and it would be fine…right?

  Wrong.

  I found that out the hard way half an hour later.

  I was in my little, ten-foot, flat bottom boat with its tiny seven and a half horsepower motor when I gently glided up onto the bank next to a tree that was covered in the beautiful moss that I would’ve loved to get a sample of.

  Instead of giving in to the urge, I leaned over and studied the area where the boat was gently rocking.

  No hydrilla.

  I frowned.

  My eyes automatically roamed over the area and I felt my heart skip a beat when I saw a man standing on the edge of the bank two lots down staring directly at me.

  The same man that I’d tattled on about having hydrilla on his boat trailer—the passenger.

  He saw me and his eyes narrowed.

  I swallowed and put my hand down on the side of the boat, momen
ts away from pushing back off the bank when a hand grabbed the wrist that was about to reach for the paddle.

  I didn’t even have to look up at the body that belonged to that hand to know who it was.

  Dusty.

  He had a tattoo on his thumb of a key. There was no mistaking who it belonged to.

  Not to mention, Dusty had very delicate, unmanly hands. Pairing them with the old skeleton key tattoo and I knew without needing any further confirmation that it was him.

  “Let me go,” I ordered, yanking at my hand.

  The hand only tightened.

  I looked up to find Dusty standing in the water up to his ankles, getting his pretty Oxford shoes muddy.

  He didn’t seem to care, however.

  His eyes were focused solely on me and he was not happy.

  “You’ve been avoiding me,” he growled.

  My puppy who was in the boat behind me growled.

  Dusty didn’t react other than tightening his grip on my wrist.

  “Let. Me. Go,” I repeated, trying to haul my hand away.

  Luckily, I did manage to get my wrist away from him. Unluckily, to do that I had to get out of the boat and my means of escape.

  Once I hit the lake’s bank, the boat shifted off without the weight of my body in it and started to slowly drift away.

  I spared it a glance and felt my heart hitch up into the vicinity of my throat.

  I did not want it to float away, especially with my puppy in it, but with Dusty advancing on me, I knew that I couldn’t go after it without first taking my eyes off of him.

  I pressed a button on my iWatch and held it down, hoping that it would work for what I’d intended it to.

  I glanced down at my watch for one short second, swiped my finger across my screen and looked up in time to see Dusty almost directly in front of me.

  I had enough time to get my hands up before Dusty was taking me to the ground.

  In broad daylight.

  He laughed at my miniscule struggles.

  Well, miniscule to him. I was wiggling, kicking, scratching and hitting with everything I had, but Dusty was a big man. He’d always been big and strong, the only problem was that to get that way he did a lot of gym work and no real work.

  But, it was good enough to hold me down and keep me where he wanted me.