Mess Me Up

by Vale, Lani Lynn

The driving thing still made me nervous, and anything over thirty set me on edge to the point where I was freaking out over every little thing.

  “Okay,” I sighed. “Then I guess I’ll go to the hotel I booked.”

  “You’re not staying in a hotel,” Bayou interjected. “You can stay at the clubhouse or my place. Whichever you prefer, but you’re not staying by yourself in a hotel when that piece of shit is still free to do whatever the hell he wants.”

  I cleared my throat.

  “Is Rome working today?”

  I’d love to go visit with my brother while I was here.

  It was visitation day, after all. I might as well use it to my advantage.

  “Yeah.” Wade paused. “Which is a good thing if you think about it.”

  I couldn’t see how.

  “How is it a good thing?” I finally asked.

  “Because if he’d been able to see you, he would have. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself,” Bayou was the one to answer.

  And I didn’t have a thing to say to that.

  I guess I wouldn’t be seeing my brother after all.

  I couldn’t handle seeing Rome.

  And that was that.

  ***

  The next day, my stomach was tied in knots.

  I hadn’t been able to read my letters from Rome, and I was thinking that I probably never would.

  Wade asked me to, but I didn’t think I could handle whatever words he’d written in them.

  What if he said that we were a mistake? What if he said that everything was a lie? What if he said that this baby should’ve never happened?

  I rubbed my hand over my distended belly, wishing that I could feel the life inside move already.

  The baby books that I’d read said I’d be able to feel the baby any day now, but it hadn’t happened quite yet.

  The prosecutor looked over the table at me and winced. “We’re not going to file any other charges against him. He’s agreed to fully cooperate with us in exchange for our plea deal. That’s better than we could hope for if we took it to trial.”

  My mouth fell open in outrage. “So, I came all the way here for nothing?”

  That was just plain outrageous to me.

  Rodrigo hadn’t killed Senator Antilles. His partner had…but he’d still forced sixteen and seventeen-year-old girls to do things that they didn’t want to—and even if they had ‘wanted’ to like he claimed they did, then he should’ve been the adult and not slept with them on general principle alone.

  He was a piece of crap and didn’t deserve to be on this planet sharing the same air as the girls that he’d abused.

  Wade moved, and I shifted my gaze to his just in time to see his eyes narrow. “Not for nothing. For Rome.”

  “Rome doesn’t want me!” I all but snarled.

  “Rome wants you.” He tapped the envelopes that he could see sticking out of my purse. “Read ‘em.”

  I looked away, right at the curious prosecutor who was now staring at me as if I were an interesting bug that he’d never seen before.

  “I, unfortunately, don’t get to choose who we prosecute. The DA—district attorney—is the one who decides that. I’m sorry,” he apologized. “He obviously thinks that whatever he got in return for this plea was good enough to make the deal. I apologize for your inconvenience in coming all the way here for nothing.”

  With that, he gathered his briefcase that he hadn’t even bothered to open and left the small briefing room in the middle of the police station without a backward glance.

  I was left staring at the empty seat where he’d been sitting before Wade broke the silence.

  “Read the letters, honey. I swear to God…please, just read them.”

  Chapter 24

  I often try to convince myself that I enjoy the company of others. Then I actually spend time with them and realize that I don’t.

  -Rome’s secret thoughts

  Rome

  After hearing the doorbell ring, I opened the door to my place with unease teasing my skin.

  I’d expected Tyler or Wade…hell even Linc or Bayou. Possibly even a few other brothers of the MC.

  What I hadn’t expected was my…grandmother.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked curtly.

  My grandmother pushed her way inside my home without so much as a hello.

  Instead, she came to a stop right inside the entrance, then turned with her arms crossed over her chest.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I blinked.

  “You’re…what?” I asked. “Why?”

  What was I supposed to say here?

  ‘It’s okay’ would never come out of my mouth.

  My grandmother had chosen my friend over me. Granted, Tyler had meant a great deal to all of us, even her, but Tyler wasn’t her grandson. I was.

  She’d…disappointed me.

  Seemed like I was always going to have disappointment to look forward to.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I wish I could tell you some pretty words, and make it all okay, but I can’t. I was wrong. I was so wrong that I will never be able to forgive myself. But…I don’t want you to be stubborn like me.”

  My brows rose.

  “How would you know if I’m being stubborn or not?” I asked stiffly.

  She gave me a look. “You’ve known that I have been in town since the funeral, hoping that you would give me a chance…so it’s not gone unnoticed that your woman friend who you fell in love with is no longer around…or she wasn’t until today.”

  My heart started to pound.

  I’d heard the same thing, that Izzy had arrived, yet none of my friends had confirmed it for me knowing it was probably something that should be left alone.

  But my grandmother had never been one to shy away from confrontation. Seeing as she’d booted my ass to the curb the moment she’d heard that I’d slept with Tyler’s woman.

  “What does this have to do with anything between you and me?” I questioned.

  She studied me with those eyes that had once meant the world to me. “One day, you’re going to be old and gray like me, only years away from dying, and you’re going to look back on the important things in your life. Things that you had the power to change, but didn’t.” She looked down, and for the first time, I saw how truly old she looked. “You’re my thing. I’ve lived a good life. Had a child. A husband that I adored. Grandchildren. But…I didn’t treat one of those precious gifts right. Just like you’re not doing.”

  I would’ve laughed had she not been telling me something I hadn’t told myself time and time again since Izzy had disappeared from my life.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Even worse, I didn’t know that I could say anything to make this right.

  There were a hundred other things I could’ve done differently, and I’d done the one thing that had sent her running.

  Now she was back…but would she even listen to what I had to say?

  I still wasn’t a hundred percent on board with the baby.

  The baby scared the absolute crap out of me.

  We’re talking, on a scale of one to ten, a fifty-seven.

  The idea of losing another child was terror-inducing to me. I’d lived through one. I didn’t think I could live through another.

  “Don’t be me, baby,” my grandmother said. “Don’t be me.”

  With that, she walked to the door and closed it softly behind her, leaving me reeling.

  I’d never be her.

  I’d never give up.

  Now I just had to prove it.

  ***

  I found her in the first place I looked—Bayou’s house.

  Luckily, Bayou wasn’t home.

  Unluckily, Bayou’s place was right in the middle of town. He owned the very first house built in Bear Bottom over twenty years ago. It just so happened that the house, although beautiful, was on the corner
of a very popular street that everybody and their brother drove down to get anywhere in Bear Bottom.

  Meaning, the moment I pulled my bike over in front of Bayou’s house, Bayou would know.

  The question was, would Bayou do anything about it?

  My bet was no.

  Stepping onto the curb I’d parked my bike next to, I started up the porch steps, coming to a sudden halt with one foot on the top step, and one foot on the porch when I saw Izzy sitting on the swing. A light blanket covering her lap and a pile of letters—my letters to her—in her lap, all but one unread.

  We sat staring at each other for long moments.

  In my case, it was because I hadn’t seen her in so long. I hadn’t seen those beautiful eyes, or that hair that looked just as wild and unruly as the day she’d left.

  It’d been three months, but nothing had changed. At least not my feelings when it came to the woman sitting in front of me.

  “Rome,” she whispered, the letter in her hands dropping to reveal the small bump that it’d been previously concealing.

  Something inside my chest tightened, and not in a bad way.

  “Isadora,” I murmured.

  I drew a deep breath, ready to plead my case, to tell her I was a complete and utter fool, but I never got the chance.

  Why?

  Because she was launching herself up and off the porch swing, and I was forced to catch her or fall backward down the stairs.

  I didn’t care.

  I held onto her.

  I didn’t miss a thing.

  Not the way she trembled in my arms. Not the way she held on for dear life as if she was too afraid I’d disappear if she let go. Not the way the hardness of her stomach pushed into the flat plain of mine.

  I smelled the familiar fragrance of her hair, and I felt the softness of her skin.

  I breathed, truly breathed, for the first time since she walked out my door.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

  She held on tight. “I know.”

  I didn’t move from where I was holding her. Not until my phone rang.

  “Answer it,” she ordered without letting go of my neck.

  I didn’t want to answer it.

  “Answer it,” she repeated.

  I grumbled, letting go of her with one hand long enough to dig my phone out of my pocket.

  I put the phone to my ear and said, “Hello?”

  “Wade’s been shot. We’re at the hospital.”

  Izzy must’ve heard what was said, because she finally let go, sinking to her feet and taking a step away.

  I looked down at her, feeling my heart in my throat, and said, “Let’s go.”

  With the letter I wrote her still clutched in her hand, she ran down the porch steps with me and hopped on the bike without a second of protest.

  It wasn’t until we were halfway to the hospital that I realized she was pregnant, and likely shouldn’t be on a motorcycle at all.

  I slowed down and took every precaution I could.

  And realized something very critical.

  This baby was important to me.

  I wanted this baby just as much as I wanted Izzy in my life, and it took a brother being shot to make me realize it.

  ***

  Isadora,

  This is my fourth letter that I didn’t send to you.

  Not because I don’t want to, but because I fear that you’re not going to be able to forgive me for what I did.

  I should’ve never let you go.

  My mind was screaming at me not to let you walk out that door, but I couldn’t make my body move. I couldn’t force my feet to lift up off the floor.

  I’m scared to death.

  Every time I allow myself to think about a child with you, I think about all the things that could go wrong.

  I think about all the ways I could screw up—all the ways I did screw up with Matias.

  But how will I survive if this baby, someone I will grow to love as much as you and his brother, leaves me, too?

  I can’t.

  I don’t want to experience that ever again.

  But…I want you more.

  I want you, and I’m willing to fight to have you.

  If that makes me have to face my fears when it comes to this child, then I’ll gladly do it.

  I’ll do anything to have you.

  Even face my biggest fears.

  I love you,

  Rome.

  Chapter 25

  Some days I don’t give a fuck. Then there are the days that I don’t give a motherfucking fuck.

  -Coffee Cup

  Izzy

  Wade had been shot in the leg, up high near his femoral artery.

  The details were still sketchy as to how.

  Nobody knew what had happened, other than it had been in front of his squad car, and nobody had been around at the time of the shooting other than Wade and the shooter.

  Which meant that Wade would have to wake up to shine light on the details, because otherwise there was absolutely nothing to go on.

  Everybody was in that small hospital waiting room as we waited for news on Wade. Hell, even Wade’s ex-wife was there.

  She looked distraught, and it was honestly eerie how worried she looked. As if she cared what happened to Wade.

  Which was in total contradiction to what I’d been told about her since finding my way into Rome’s arms in the very beginning of our journey.

  From what I’d been told, Landry was a selfish person who’d chosen her old life before Wade over her new life with Wade. That included returning to the man who she’d been with before Wade, leaving him and ensuring that they would be together again.

  Looking at Landry, there was no doubt in my mind that she loved Wade. None.

  She looked gutted.

  Then there was Linc, who’d been sitting off by himself for the last two hours, on the phone.

  He looked like he was about to jump right out of his skin.

  The moment he dropped the phone from his ear and tossed it on the plastic waiting room seat beside him, I stood up…or tried to.

  The moment my thighs tensed as if to move, Rome’s arm tightened around my waist to hold me in place.

  His big hand splayed over my belly and pressed down, and that’s when I felt it.

  Our baby. Moving around inside me and kicking. So hard that I could feel that little foot or elbow.

  Everything froze in that second.

  I’d been waiting for this second for a very long time, and to experience it while I was in Rome’s arms was better than anything I could ever imagine.

  Rome felt it, too.

  Another tap-tap against his right ring finger had me holding my breath, hoping for more.

  And it came. One after the other. Tap-tap. Nudge-tap.

  Rome and I stayed that way for so long that I began to have a cramp in my left leg.

  When the taps slowly subsided, likely indicating that our baby had found sleep after all that energetic exercise, only then did either of us move.

  “Shit,” he breathed against my shoulder blades.

  His breathing was choppy, and I felt tears prickle my eyes.

  I’d been dry-eyed for barely an hour, but the waterworks were about to start up again—this time because of the beauty we’d just shared, and not because of the ugliness that had brought us to the hospital.

  I turned in Rome’s arms, but Rome didn’t move his head, so when I turned slightly, his forehead rested on the side of my now ample breasts.

  “Rome?” I whispered.

  He rocked his forehead back and forth, silently saying something that I assumed was ‘please don’t talk.’

  I bit my lip, torn between wanting to talk to him, and letting him process whatever it was he was trying to process on his own.

  In the end, I pressed my hand to his head and let him do it on his own, which
turned out better than I ever expected.

  When he finally looked up and made eye contact with me, I felt every bit of need, pain, love, desire, and contentedness that was shining in his.

  “I love you, Isadora.” He paused. “Will you marry me? Will you be mine forever?”

  I blinked.

  “You…what?” I asked on a gasp.

  “Mine. Will you be mine,” he repeated. “Will you marry me.”

  I swallowed hard, and then replied the only way in the world I possibly could have.

  “God, yes.”

  Then my whole world was changed.

  But not for the reason I would’ve thought.

  Because the next second the entire waiting room exploded in activity.

  ***

  Rome

  One second, I was sharing something monumental with Izzy, and the next the waiting room was in a panic. There were bullets flying everywhere.

  Gunfire. In the hospital.

  I moved before I could blink, shoving Izzy down onto the ground and covering her with my body.

  My heart was pounding in my chest, and I couldn’t breathe.

  People were shouting, chairs were screeching across the white tiled floor, and I kept feeling sprays of plaster dust hit the walls and floors around me.

  “Rome!” Izzy cried out, trying to move.

  I flattened myself down farther, ordering her to stay put.

  Her struggles ceased, but I could practically taste her panic.

  Then, as suddenly as it’d begun, it ended.

  I chanced looking up, and that’s when I felt the line of liquid fire trailed down my back.

  I ignored the pain and picked up my head, seeing the chaos with my own eyes.

  The chairs were all knocked over in everybody’s panic to move to the ground. People were lying on the floor, some, like me, looking up. While others were quite clearly too hurt to do so.

  There was blood on the white floor—some of it in a spray pattern, while some seemed to spread into an ever-widening pool underneath the obviously injured people.

  But nobody looked dead from what I could tell.

  Bayou was on the ground, his hand on his waist, grimacing.

  He’d obviously taken a bullet to the side.

  Liner, who was across the room, was still sitting up in the chair he’d been occupying earlier, but he had what looked to be a bullet graze along his neck. He was pale and covering the wound with his hand, but the blood was still seeping out from between his fingers.