by Joanna Wylde
Randi
My feet hurt, and I couldn’t remember where I was.
I could feel a man’s chest under my cheek, though. His heartbeat was strong and steady. Rome. Streaks of sun were shining through the cracks in his blinds, and I blinked. Had I gotten drunk at the reunion and made a booty call?
I tried to remember. There’d been lots of dancing, then Jenny acting all nasty in the bathroom. I’d taken off my shoes at some point. Then we’d gone out on the deck so Peaches could smoke. That’s when I’d gotten a call from Lexi, and—
Suddenly it all rushed back, hitting me like a brutal punch to the stomach.
My mother was dead.
She’d died in the hospital last night. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t anything because the wave of pain was so intense. I wanted my mom back and she was never coming back and this hurt too much it needed to stop—
“Randi.”
Rome’s arms tightened around me, and I started to sob. I couldn’t believe the agony. It was like some kind of awful, terrible dream, except it wasn’t. She was dead—really dead—and I’d had a fight with her yesterday morning. How could this be happening?
“Randi,” he said, again. He said something else, too, but I couldn’t understand the words. I was busy crying. Ugly crying, with snorting and streaks of black makeup across the backs of my hands. Crying like my whole world had ended, because in a way it had.
I’d been angry last night. Terrified.
But my mind had been sheltering me from the worst of it, I realized. Somehow, I’d dammed up all this pain and held it together for the rest of the family, but no dam could hold forever. Now it was all coming out, and the endless flood of agony wouldn’t end, no matter how much I wanted it to.
I don’t know how long it lasted.
Rome held me the entire time. Eventually he called someone, talking to them quietly. I didn’t pay attention to what he said. Probably telling Tinker that I’d fallen apart. Lexi and Kayden were still with her, so I knew they were safe. They’d want me to come back soon. I needed to pull myself together somehow, yet I had no clue how to do it.
After what felt like hours, Rome got up and walked into the bathroom. I heard the shower turn on. Then he came back out and picked me up. He carried me into the small room and set me down on the toilet, then dropped down to pull off my shoes. I heard his breath hiss when he saw my bloodied socks.
They’d dried to my feet, and now they were stuck.
Pulling my dress up and over my head, he lifted me again, and stepped into the shower. The water ran over both of us, washing away my tears and softening the dried blood. He’d taken off his clothes, too, but we didn’t kiss or anything like that.
He just held me and let me cry.
Eventually, the water started to cool. Rome brought me back to the bed, laying me down. That’s when I realized the crying had stopped. Not that the pain was gone… I could still feel it deep inside, throbbing and twisting, trying to break free. And it would at some point. I knew that.
But for now—this minute—I had it under control again.
Rome handed me a towel, then tugged gently on one of the socks.
“Thanks,” I said, then hissed as the fabric pulled free. Rome gave a low whistle.
“Your feet are shredded,” he said, the words blunt. “What happened?”
I tucked the towel around myself awkwardly.
“I didn’t have any shoes on when Lexi called me at the Eagles,” I told him. “I just ran out the door. Didn’t even notice. Not until I was back at the apartment. You guys took off, and we needed to get to the hospital, so I found some shoes and socks. Then we left. Totally forgot about them after that.”
Rome nodded, lifting my foot for a closer look.
“This is a mess.”
I laughed, struck by the absurdity of the whole situation. “My whole life is a mess, Rome. Why should my feet be any different?”
He glanced up at me, studying my face.
“You’re gonna get through this,” he said.
“You don’t know that,” I insisted. “We aren’t in control, remember? Sometimes people just die, and now it’s all fucked.”
“Look at the window.”
“What?”
He nodded toward his bedroom window. The blinds were still closed, although there were more little streaks of light gleaming through the cracks now. “What do you see?”
“Nothing? Light? They’re closed, Rome. I can’t see anything.”
“The morning after my brother died, I had the hangover from hell. Woke up because the sun was shining on my face,” he said, starting on my other sock. “Pissed me off. Damon was dead, and even the fucking sun was out to get me. Came up the day after, too. Didn’t matter how much I drank or fought or whatever—fuckin’ thing was there every morning.”
“What’s your point?”
Rome gave me a steady look.
“Damon’s gone, but I’m still here,” he said. “Sun still comes up every morning, too. Life goes on whether we want it to or not, which means you’re gonna get through this because that’s just what people do. So will Lexi and Kayden. And some day, you’ll all be hanging out together and playing Uno—or whatever the hell it is your family likes—and someone will tell a story about her and it won’t hurt so much.”
I blinked, then nodded, hoping he was right.
“So how do you get from here to there?” I asked. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Rome set my foot back down.
“You ask for help,” he said simply. “From your friends. Your community. For me, that was the Reapers. Me and Damon were both prospects when he died. They stepped up, gave me all the time I needed and kept me safe when I was out of control. Hell, they even mowed my parents’ lawn a couple of times.”
I thought about Tinker’s husband, Gage. He’d always kind of scared me, but he’d been gentle with Lexi and Kayden last night.
“Peaches told me about what you did Friday night. During the fight,” I said, thinking about his club. “She said you only went back into the fight to save that guy—I should’ve realized that. She said you’re a hero, and I think she’s right. Last night you were my hero. You’ve been really good to me this weekend.”
Rome raised a brow.
“What?”
“Peaches is full of shit,” he said. “I jumped back into that fight because I thought my brothers needed me. I didn’t even see that guy until I stepped on him, and I had no business taking you to a dive like that. Every time I see that black eye, I feel like a jackass.”
My jaw dropped. “Last night at the reunion, Peaches told Jenny Woelfel that you saved his life. She said you kept him from bleeding out all over the floor.”
“Let me guess—Jenny was saying something nasty about bikers. Bet she talked about the bruise, too. Treated you like trash?”
I nodded, stunned. “How did you know?”
“Because she’s a bitch, and her husband’s out playing grab ass at the Starkwood almost every weekend,” he said. “She’s jealous of Peaches, she hates the Reapers, she hates Brett, and she hates… Hell, she probably hates baby bunnies in the spring. You can’t listen to what people like that say, Randi. You gotta form your own opinions. About me, about my club. About the bunnies.”
Rome’s mouth quirked, and something inside me clenched. He was so beautiful. I really wanted to keep him, I realized. He’d asked me to give us a chance, and I wanted to. I really did. But I couldn’t start dating someone, not now. There was too much work ahead of me.
He deserved someone who actually had time for him.
My phone buzzed, and I leaned across the bed, grabbing it. It was Lexi, asking when I’d be at Tinker’s house. I texted her back, promising to come soon, then caught Rome’s eye.
“Do you have some socks I can borrow?” I asked, looking back down at my feet. “Lexi and Kayden need me.”
“No,” Rome said. “But I’ll bandage them up so they d
on’t get dirty while we find a real doctor.”
“It’s fine,” I insisted. “I have way too much to do. I can’t worry about it right now.”
He ignored me, leaving the room. I looked around, wondering where he kept his socks. Once I had those, I could leave for Tinker’s… Of course, he still had my car keys.
Maybe Tinker would give me a ride.
Rome came back in, carrying a big first aid box. Dropping down to a crouch, he started pulling out gauze. I frowned at him.
“Rome, it’s not that bad. I really need to go.”
“You can’t take care of business if you can’t walk. These are gonna get infected.”
“It’s not your problem, Rome,” I insisted. It didn’t matter how much I wanted him. The timing was wrong. “You’ve been a great friend, but—”
“I’m not your friend, Randi.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not your friend,” he repeated, his voice firm. “I’m the guy fucking you. Big difference. You can have lots of friends, but only one guy fucks you.”
“My mom died last night, Rome. I don’t have time for dating.”
He stilled, then sat back on his heels, catching and holding my gaze.
“I know she died, Randi,” he said quietly. “I was there.”
My eyes started to water. Without a word, Rome stood up and crossed the room, opening the blinds. Sunlight flooded us. Then he grabbed a box of tissues off the dresser and handed them to me as he came back.
“We’ll date later,” he told me, dropping back down in front of me. “Maybe next year. Until then, I’ll be the guy fucking you. And the guy who bandages up your feet. You can cry on me, too, but I’m not gonna let you dump me until we’ve had a real chance. Sooner or later, you’ll be ready to live again. I can wait.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again.
Rome was right. We weren’t friends. I hardly knew the man, yet on the worst night of my life, he’d been there for me.
Not only that, we had something in common. Something big.
“Okay,” I said, offering him an unsteady smile. A flash of movement caught the corner of my eye, and I turned to look out the window. A bird had landed on the ledge.
The sky was bright blue, and totally clear. Gorgeous.
Mom would’ve loved it.
I felt a tear roll down my face.
Rome had been right. The sun had still come up this morning, and it would tomorrow, too. I’d get through this. And then some day—once my head was clear—I’d be ready.
We’d finally have our chance.
Epilogue
One year later
Randi
I woke in the darkness, knowing exactly where I was.
My bed, my home. My family, all together under one roof, at least for the weekend.
Rome was already up and moving. He’d left a cup of coffee on the table next to me, God bless him. I reached for it. Still hot. I’d just taken a second sip when my alarm went off.
Three in the morning.
I slipped out of the covers, pulling on my clothes quietly. Aiden and Kelly had been up half the night with the new baby, and I didn’t want to wake them. Mom might be gone, but our family was alive and growing. She’d always been crazy about babies, and she would’ve loved playing grandma.
All the fun and none of the work.
I reached for my necklace, fingering the emerald pendant she’d given me the day she died. Then I opened the clasp and took it off, setting it on the bedside table. The diamonds sparkled under the lamp, reminding me that every morning, I got to make a choice. I could either get up and go to work, or I could sell the jewelry and run away to a beach in Mexico.
For the first six months, I’d seriously considered it.
My new life was stressful and exhausting.
Some days, I’d been so frustrated that I wanted her to come back to life just so I could kill her again for leaving us in this situation. Other days I cried for hours. Through all of it, Rome had been there for me.
And not just Rome—others had stepped up, too.
Tinker, Peaches. My new boss, Dr. Andrews. And then there was the Reapers MC.
They’d surprised me the most.
First it was Gage and Tinker. The day after Mom died, Gage had suggested that the kids and I stay with them until we found a new apartment. Rome offered his place, too, but I felt like our relationship was way too new for me to be moving in my family. Tinker had been my first boss, and sort of a mother figure. Staying with her felt more natural.
What I hadn’t realized until later was that it hardly mattered where we landed. Rome and Gage had decided we needed help, and they were members of the Reapers MC.
That meant we had the rest of the club behind us, too, because the Reapers were a package deal.
It started when Tinker organized a group of six women to scrub the blood out of the carpet in our old apartment. Then they packed stuff for the kids and cleared out the fridge. Within a week, Tinker found space for us in the building she owned—I decided not to ask how she pulled that off—and then a bunch of guys wearing Reapers colors showed up one Saturday morning to move us in.
Just like that, we had a home.
Rome didn’t spend the night with me at first.
For one thing, Kayden kept having nightmares. Half the time, I’d wake up to find him sprawled across the bottom of the bed. But Rome was true to his word—he gave me time. After a few months, he started sleeping over once or twice a week. Then I got tired of him borrowing my toothbrush, so I bought him one. He needed a drawer to keep it in, of course, then one day I realized we’d been living together for five months.
Things went well. Lexi and Kayden liked him, and while our schedule could get weird, somehow we made it all work.
Life was good.
Then one evening—early in May—Rome announced that we really needed to jump out of an airplane together.
This struck me as a bad idea.
I was allergic to gravity, and I felt strongly that if God wanted me to fly, he’d have given me wings. But Rome wasn’t the kind of guy to give up easy—and he didn’t mind playing dirty. The next evening, he’d opened a bottle of wine, pulled me onto his lap, and then showed me a video he’d made with his brother, Damon. It wasn’t anything fancy—just a GoPro that he’d attached to his helmet the last time they’d gone skydiving together.
I watched two of them laughing and joking while they double checked their equipment. Apparently, Damon had gotten laid the night before. Rome gave him shit, said the girl must’ve been drunk.
Damon flipped him off, and then a few minutes later, they jumped out of the airplane.
The free fall seemed to last forever, although it couldn’t have been more than a minute. Damon pulled his cord first, and his chute burst free. Rome’s did the same. The camera pointed down, and I saw the entire valley laid out beneath them. Then Rome turned it on Damon.
In the distance, his brother waved, then flipped him off again.
They seemed to float slowly for a while, then suddenly the ground was rushing up toward the camera. My breath caught as the video jolted during the landing. Rome gave a whoop and reached down to unstrap his harness. A minute later, Damon tackled him, exuberant and full of life. The camera broke loose, falling into the grass.
Damon shouted, “That was sick! Can’t wait for the next time!”
The video ended abruptly. We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I thought about how young he’d been. Finally, Rome spoke.
“He was dead two weeks later. When I downloaded this after the jump, I nearly deleted it. I thought it wasn’t good enough—I figured we could make a better one next time.”
His arms tightened around my body, and I blinked back tears. Damon should’ve gotten more jumps and more videos.
“I’d give anything to skydive with him one more time,” Rome told me. “It’s better than anything you’ve ever felt in your life. Except for sex with me, of co
urse.”
“Of course,” I agreed, realizing that he’d painted me into a corner. Sneaky bastard. “But your dick is magic. I don’t need to jump out of an airplane when I have you in my bed.”
Rome raised a brow, waiting.
“This is emotional manipulation, you know.”
“I fight to win,” he said without a hint of guilt. “So you gonna give it a chance, or what?”
“Do I have a choice?”
He gave me a smile, then nodded.
“Randi, you always have a choice,” he told me. “We can jump this week. We can jump in a year. Ten years from now. I’m here as long as you want me, but I’ll never force you to do anything.”
He was telling the truth, I knew that. He’d already given me a year. I thought about Damon, waving at his brother as they floated through the air.
“Was this really just two weeks before he died?”
“Thirteen days, fifteen hours and about forty-five minutes,” he replied. “Give or take.”
He’d looked so healthy in the video. So alive.
And he’d died playing Uno.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said. “But if I crash into the ground, you have to take care of Lexi and Kayden.”
Rome gave me a deep kiss, and I felt myself relaxing into his body. “We’ll be strapped together. If you crash, I’ll crash with you.”
“Way to commit,” I said, feeling slightly better about the whole thing. I wasn’t sure I could handle a parachute—I still lost my car keys at least twice a day.
Rome shrugged. “Beats getting stuck with Lexi. I’d miss Kayden, though.”
I looked at his face, seeing happiness there, but also grief. It would never go away entirely, I realized.
“I’m sorry you lost him,” I whispered.
“Yeah, baby. Me too.”
Now it was three o’clock in the morning, and soon I’d be jumping out of an airplane. I’d tried to reschedule when Aiden and Isaac announced out of nowhere that they were coming for the weekend. But Rome insisted that it had to be today.
Considering how much he’d given me over the past year, I decided to roll with it.
