Mess Me Up

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “Or.” He paused. “You can go get one that’s already old. One that’s like a hundred, and we can put him in the backyard like a big dog. We can feed him entire heads of lettuce.”

  I’d do anything for you, even find a hundred-year-old box tortoise.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I promised him. “I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to find a hundred-year-old box tortoise…but I’ll do my best.”

  Matias’ face was serene after that, and what he said next, after a few long minutes of watching his show, shattered my heart.

  “That way you’re not alone when I’m gone,” he whispered. “I’m tired, Daddy.”

  I touched the palm of my hand to his soft, bald head. “I know, buddy. I know.”

  I felt like throwing up. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs.

  I could just break down and cry, like a child who wasn’t getting what he wanted—which in my case was my son to be healthy.

  I hated, absolutely loathed, seeing my son so sick.

  Hated it with so much passion that sometimes I felt consumed by it.

  It’d been so long since I’d laughed, since I’d even cracked a smile.

  And that was because the little boy resting his head on my thigh was being taken away from me, one smile and laugh at a time. How could I find joy in this world when something so innocent and beautiful was being taken away from it?

  If there was a way, I’d trade places with him. If there was a way, I’d give him every single cell in my body to make him healthy again.

  But I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was only a matter of time left.

  Matias wasn’t going to be on this earth much longer.

  I’d gotten a call from the doctor, who’d tried to get Tara to come in over a week ago, saying that he’d wanted to talk to me in person before Matias’ next treatment.

  And I knew what he was going to say.

  Doctors didn’t call at eight in the evening on a Sunday if they didn’t have something bad to say.

  What I didn’t know, and couldn’t figure out, was why they’d want me to wait until then to hear what they had to say.

  I knew without them saying it that it was going to be bad news.

  “Did you text Izzy to come over tomorrow and watch me?” Matias asked.

  I cleared my throat. “No. Uncle Tyler’s coming, remember?”

  “Oh.” He paused. “Can you call her and tell her to come, too?”

  I felt like I’d taken a sledgehammer to the sternum.

  He was forgetting lately. A lot.

  There were times that he’d say something, like just then, where I’d have to remind him of what we’d just talked about five minutes before.

  And this wasn’t just a kid being a kid, asking the same question over and over again. Matias hadn’t done that in so long. He was highly intelligent, and there were times when I felt like he was wiser than me.

  “I could ask her,” I finally said through a lump in my throat.

  “That way,” Matias continued. “You can ask Uncle Tyler to go with you, and then Izzy and Reagan can be friends. I don’t think that Izzy has many friends. She told me I was one of her only ones once.”

  I couldn’t even muster up the courage to care if Matias was one of Izzy’s only friends or not. I was just happy that she was there for my boy when he needed her, unlike a certain other woman.

  I hadn’t even bothered calling Tara.

  What would be the point?

  The first ten times I’d tried to get into contact with her, my calls went right to voicemail. After leaving messages after each call, the next time I tried to reach her, her phone had been disconnected entirely.

  It was at that point that I truly understood that Tara wasn’t coming back. At least not in time…and I’d never, ever forgive her for that.

  “I’ll try calling her,” I murmured.

  Then I did just that, remaining on the couch exactly where I was.

  She answered on the third ring, sounding breathless. “Hello?”

  I swallowed. “Hi. This is Rome Pierce. I’m…”

  “I know who you are,” Izzy interrupted me. “What’s wrong?”

  I’d already called her yesterday and explained what days I would need her again, and then reconfirmed with her that she’d be able to take them. After hearing that she could, I’d told her I’d call her the day before to remind her and then had hung up even though I’d longed to continue talking to her.

  I cleared my throat. “I have a few errands to run tomorrow. I had my best friend and his wife coming over, but Matias asked if you’d come too so that Tyler could come with me.”

  Matias likely didn’t know that he was inconveniencing anybody, but I’d rob a convenient store just to see him smile. Calling this cleaning lady that he loved, that gave him cookies and told him stories just to see him smile, was the easiest thing in the world for me to do.

  “I can’t,” she sounded stricken. “I have a big cleaning job that I’ve had scheduled for a month at a department store downtown.”

  I felt my stomach drop.

  Shit.

  “It’s okay,” I immediately assured her. “I know that you’re busy. He knows that you’re busy. It was just an idea.”

  She breathed out a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry.”

  I smiled, letting my fingers trail along the line of Matias’ jaw. “I promise it’s okay.”

  She groaned in frustration. “If I can get it moved, I will…but it probably won’t happen. Tell Matias hi for me, though, okay?”

  After we hung up, I looked down at Matias, who looked resigned. “Izzy’s a busy woman. Did you know that she works three jobs?”

  I blinked. “She does?”

  He nodded. “She works for her parents doing cleaning and owns her own cleaning business, too. And she also works at her grandma’s bakery three times a week, too. With her watching me, that’ll make four jobs!”

  Now I felt like shit for even asking her.

  Goddammit.

  “Hmmm,” I murmured. “Well, we’ll have to make it worth her while, now won’t we?”

  Matias’ eyes lit up. “Can we order something off of Amazon?”

  I grinned. “Of course,” I agreed easily. “But I think it’ll mean more to her if you make her something.”

  Other than the fat paycheck I’d be giving her, I really did want her to know what it meant to me that she was doing this, even though it was more than obvious that she did what she wanted to do when she wanted to do it.

  Hell, it’d probably take an act of God for her to accept anything we bought for her…but I knew a little boy who was damn good at getting anyone to do anything.

  Chapter 4

  Do twins ever think about the fact that one of them was unplanned?

  -Rome’s secret thoughts

  Rome

  I opened the door to find Izzy standing there looking frazzled.

  “Hey.” I paused, feeling a sense of excitement pour through me at knowing that she’d gotten here. “I thought you were working?”

  She shrugged and pushed inside. “I was…but I finished early.”

  I frowned. “How did you accomplish that?”

  I heard her answer as she pushed through me and then started walking into my house like she owned the place.

  “I got up at three and did it, making me available to get here now.” She looked at me over her shoulder. “Where’s Matias at?”

  I gestured in the direction of the living room with a jut of my chin. “Couch. Watching his favorite show again with Reagan.”

  Izzy stepped through the door, pulling out a bag of cookies as she moved, and I found myself smiling despite feeling like I wanted to cry.

  “You ready to go, man?” Tyler asked.

  I looked over at my best friend.

  It was still a start to see him anywhere in the vicinity of me without him wearing a “go fuck y
ourself” expression aimed toward me. Honestly, our reconciliation couldn’t have come at a better time than now.

  I knew without a doubt that I’d need him after this meeting that we were about to walk into.

  Thirty minutes later, we arrived at Matias’ doctor’s office where there was no wait.

  Instead, we were ushered straight back to his office and showed inside.

  It wasn’t the sad looks from the office staff that gave away what we were walking into, nor was it the expression on the doctor’s face. They were all trained professionals, and they gave nothing away.

  Thankfully, the doctor didn’t beat around the bush when we entered his office. He made no attempts at small talk nor did he ask how I was doing.

  He got right to the point—that is, after he asked where Tara was.

  “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’ll see what I can do, buddy,” I lied. “I have to find myself a woman to have one with, first.”

  “Izzy,” he whispered. “Izzy will have one with you.”

  I made a sound in my throat. “I don’t know, bud. Izzy already has four jobs…there’s no way that she’d have time for me.”

  “She’d make time for you,” he murmured sleepily. “She promised.”

  When Matias finally fell asleep, I felt what was left of my heart shatter into a million pieces.

  He was wrong.

  Even if Izzy did make time for me, I was broken and would be for the rest of my life.

  Chapter 5

  Why do I bother putting a potato masher in the drawer? Is it just because I enjoy torturing myself as I try in vain to open the drawer?

  -Izzy’s secret thoughts?

  Isadora

  I’d been crying for hours.

  I’d intended to leave right along with Tyler, Rome’s best friend, and Reagan but once I’d gotten all the way to the end of Rome’s street, I’d turned around and walked back.