Rome

CHAPTER 14

Rome

The digital jukebox I just paid a mint for was playing the Eagles and my brother was acting more twitchy and irritable than normal. He had an untouched beer in front of him, and every time I asked him if he was all right, he just glared at me. I don’t know why he was down here when the bar he usually hit up with the guys was right outside the shop on the Hill, but I could see that he wanted to talk about something; he just needed to get there in his own time.

Asa was busy chatting up a really pretty coed at the other end of the bar, and Dixie, the very sexy redhead he had convinced me to hire not just to help him out, but to cocktail the floor because it was getting that busy, was taking care of the rest of the customers. I poured myself a soda, checked to make sure Darcy was doing okay in the kitchen with the dinnertime rush, and went to plop down next to my little brother. His pale eyes flashed up to me and his mouth pulled down in a frown.

“You and Tink have any luck finding a place you both like?”

“No.” I wanted to stay on the Hill and she wanted to stay in Wash Park. We both agreed we needed to find a house to rent with a backyard and a garage, but that was about all we agreed on.

“Aren’t you worried about taking such a big step with someone you haven’t really known that long?”

I snorted and looked at him out of the corner of my eye.

“I think having a kid is a little bit more of a major step than just moving in together. It’s what needs to happen. I love her, Rule.”

He nodded his head and wrapped his hands around his beer.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately.”

I lifted my eyebrow. “The fact that I love Cora?”

He made a face and elbowed me in the side, which caused me to grunt.

“No. The fact that I love Shaw. I never thought I would feel about anyone the way I feel about her, ya know. She is just … my whole fucking world.”

I clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I know. I can see it. I’m superproud of you for figuring it out. I know I was hard on you when I got back and that wasn’t fair. You’re amazing together.”

He gulped and the frost in his eyes thawed just the barest fraction.

“I want her forever.”

“Pretty sure you got her.”

“I want to ask her to marry me.”

I almost fell off my stool. Not because I didn’t think he loved Shaw, or that he would make an awesome husband, but because he was my impulsive, wild, unhinged little brother. Rule was not a guy that I ever thought would settle into the role of responsible homeowner and faithful husband. I just stared at him until he got mad and snapped.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just never thought I would hear you say that. Has she been hinting that she wants you to ask her?”

He shook his head and took a healthy slug of beer. The beer signs were making his typically wild hair even more outrageous with the neon lights shining on the white strands.

“No. She’s perfect. She doesn’t fuss, doesn’t nag, she trusts me absolutely no matter how dumb I act, and she never, ever holds the past against me. Which, come on, it would be really easy for her to do. On top of it, she’s mind-blowing in bed and I can’t keep my hands off of her. She’s too good to be true, so why would she want to spend the rest of her life with me?”

I thought the answer was easy. Shaw had loved Rule forever. For longer than he probably really knew. He was it for her and always had been. I had never seen Rule self-conscious or in doubt like this. It was eye-opening. He really did love that little girl as much as she loved him.

“Just ask her. She’s going to say yes. She loves you. She has always been in love with you and she will always be in love with you. For her, you were too good to be true as well. You’re both lucky to have each other.”

He dropped his head in his hands and sighed. The knuckles of his hand that had Shaw’s name inked across them caught my eye. I pointed to them.

“You have her with you forever already, a ring isn’t going to make that much of a difference, bro.”

“I need to wait until she’s done with school next semester. She needs to graduate and focus on starting med school. I don’t want her worrying about me or a wedding while she does it. Honestly, talking to Lando made me start thinking about it. God forbid something happened to me or to her. I want everyone on the planet to know how much she means to me. How she changed my life and made me want to be a better man for her and her alone.”

I shook my head in the negative when Asa lined up a round of shots on the bar rail and lifted an eyebrow to ask if I wanted one. I was doing pretty well with the no-drinking thing. I had a beer here and there, did a shot with Asa at the end of the night occasionally, but for the most part I was too busy with the actual running of the bar and keeping an eye on the customers to get tempted. Plus having easy access to my pixie and her particular brand of help with my stress management was so much more fun—and a much more healing balm for my soul—that vodka and the inevitable hangover held zero appeal.

“Rule, she’s always been an Archer. Putting a rock on her finger is just a formality. No one doubts how much you care about her, or that you are committed to her and her alone. Screw her obnoxious family and whatever headache Mom and Dad might want to cause, you want her forever, ask her.”

He looked up at me and lifted both of his eyebrows in question. The barbells that decorated them looked like they were winking at me.

“So you don’t think you want to marry Cora? You’re just gonna knock her up and live in sin?” Coming from anyone else, that would’ve pissed me off. Coming from him and hearing the humor underlying his tone, I was able to take it for what it was worth. I shoved him hard, which made him laugh at me.

“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s hard enough trying to make a new relationship work with an unexpected baby on the way.”

“Yeah. How exactly did that happen? You used to shove condoms in my pockets before I snuck out of the house at night. You drilled safe sex into me before I ever even saw a girl topless. It seems pretty against character for you to have an accident of that kind of proportion.”

I crossed my arms on the newly finished bar and leaned on the rail. I looked at my hands, the scars that dotted them.

“Sometimes things are just meant to be. I never thought about having kids, never thought about the kind of girl I would want to settle down with, never thought much beyond the next mission, and then when I got home it was beyond the next endless day. Everything was all shades of gray and I was just disappearing into the fog. I thought I needed direction, needed something to define me. I didn’t. I don’t. I can just be a guy, a guy that messes up, but as long as I’m accountable, that’s okay.”

Rule finished his beer and put his hands on my shoulders so that we were eye to eye.

“You will NEVER just be a guy, Rome. You’re the best brother a guy could have. You’re a fucking hero. No one, and I mean no one, has ever had my back the way you have. You are an incredible person, be it in the army fighting a war or sitting on the goddamn couch watching the game. Don’t forget it.”

He was serious and that was important to me. We had always been close, but after learning about Remy and trying to navigate how I fit into his life now that he had Shaw, I had let distance and my own pride come between us.

I clicked the edge of my glass against the edge of his beer mug.

“I lucked out in the brother department as well. Not only do I think you will make a rocking husband, but I think you’ll be that baby’s favorite uncle.”

He laughed and turned around so that he was looking out into the bar. “Won’t I be the only uncle? Cora is an only child.”

“Semantics.” I copied his pose and was going to see if I could work any info out of him about Cora’s ex when the door to the bar opened and we both went stiff and on high alert. Now that I wasn’t under the pool table, I had no problem recognizing Torch and his lieutenants from the motorcycle club. Not that there was any missing those cuts or the badass biker vibe that rolled right in with them.

“Brite said he sold you the bar, kid. Congrats.”

I shook his hand because really, what else was I supposed to do? I introduced Rule and cocked my head to the side.

“Why do I think this isn’t just a friendly social visit?”

“Because it’s not.” The prez tilted his head toward the back of the bar where the pool tables were. I nodded and asked Dixie to go make sure the area was cleared out for just a few minutes. Rule put his hand on my arm and gave me a concerned look.

“Do you know what you’re doing? Those guys put Asa in a coma and left him for dead.”

“Not those guys in particular, and as I understand it, Asa messed up good in order to get to that point. Torch, the chapter president, has history with Brite. He kicked the guy that trashed the Dodge and robbed the place out of the club. I need to see what he has to say.”

He didn’t look happy but he didn’t stop me when I followed the herd of bikers into the back room.

“The place looks brand-new, kid.”

“I worked hard to make it that way.”

“I had a feeling about what that old goat had in mind the minute he mentioned you. The Bar is a Sons’ place; that means you got us at your back, kid. This shit with the rogue prospect isn’t how we do business.”

“You don’t mess with a man’s ride.”

“No, you don’t. You need to know he’s gone to ground. I’ve had eyes out for him since Brite called about the robbery, but we haven’t seen or heard anything. His old man was patched into a club for years, went to the pen for some heavy shit, so the kid knows some people. Not hard for him to lay low or get his hands on all kinds of stuff that can make trouble for you and yours. You read me, kid?”

Yeah, I totally read him. The scrawny punk was not only pissed but he was pissed and probably armed to the teeth. It sounded like Asa was lucky he just took the cash.

“I hear about the people in the Sons’ circle. I know you’re a good one, kid. I also know you got some heavy baggage you’re carrying around from the desert. You okay to deal with that and keep an eye on your six?”

I don’t think I wanted to know how this guy, this MC club leader, knew anything about what was going on in my head, but I couldn’t deny that he looked more understanding than most people who tried to talk to me about it. I cleared my throat and leaned a hip on the pool table. I met his gaze because that’s what you did when you were trying to be on the level with a man that not only offered you his respect, but also his protection and approval. The gray wasn’t going to suck me under, not when I had so much color in me because of Cora.

“Most of the time I’m straight. Had a few bad months, almost blew it with the best thing to ever happen to me, pre- or postwar. Brite made me feel like shit, gave me Neil’s number, and told me to go talk to him. When I can’t get out from under it on my own, I do. Otherwise that best thing takes all kinds of care of me and nothing in this world could matter more for me to keep an eye on my back.”

Torch laughed and nodded in agreement.

“I had one of those once. Was too much of a stubborn idiot to hold on to it. You got a girl that stays by you when you wake up in the middle of the night shaking, covered in sweat, and not knowing where you are, that’s a girl you don’t ever let go of.”

I could do him one better and say that I had a girl who not only stayed but generally put me back to bed by sucking me off or riding me until I couldn’t see straight, but I doubted Cora would appreciate the baddest-of-the-bad biker club in the union having that much info on our sex life.

“I have no intention of letting her go, or of letting some little punk with a grudge get anywhere near her, or me, for that matter. It all needs to be put to bed, and the sooner the better.”

“We are on the same page. Anything else comes up, you call me not the cops.”

I wasn’t sure how I felt about having his number in my phone, but I also didn’t think telling him that was a good idea. I programmed it in and pushed off the table, when he stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“We were all you at one point in time, kid. Dismissed, lost, and trying to figure out what was next. For some of us, what was next came out of the blue. The open road, the brotherhood, the family, it was like being back in but on our own terms and fighting for things that mattered here.” He thumped a hand over his chest where his biker heart was covered by a leather cut. “Some of us found it in the love of a good woman and making a family; others, like Brite, found what was next by helping the most lost of us onto a better path. Whatever your next is, kid, it’ll find you or you’ll find it. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”

With that profound bit of advice, he and all his seriously threatening and intimidating cohorts made their way back out of the bar. I took a minute to gather my thoughts, to ponder the dramatic ways my life had turned on its head in the last few months, and made my way back to where my brother was waiting nervously at the bar.

“Everything okay?”

Typically I would have just brushed it off, told him it was my problem and that I would handle it. I was the big brother, the protector, but I was starting to see that all the things I had used to define myself for so long needed to be tweaked, needed to be redefined, as life moved forward, as I wasn’t the same guy I had been when we were kids.

“Nobody seems to know where the punk with the grudge is at. Torch and the club said he has connections, could be armed, and he is good and pissed that picking that fight with me got him eighty-sixed. They want me to watch my back, and Torch was concerned that with all the stuff going on up here, I might not be able to give the situation the attention it deserves.” I tapped my temple with two fingers and he frowned at me.

“Are you? Okay to keep an eye on yourself, I mean?”

“I think so. Protecting myself and survival is second nature to me.”

“If you need anything from me, from the guys, you know all you have to do is ask, right?”

“I know. Just keep an eye on my girl. I don’t want her to worry, not with the baby and not with her acting all twisted up over that e-mail from her ex.”

I saw Rule’s pale eyes go diamond hard and his tattooed hands curled into fists on the top of the bar.

“That asshole had the nerve to e-mail her after all this time?”

I dipped my chin in agreement and cocked my elbows to lean back against the bar. I didn’t want to appear too eager to hear what he had to say about Cora’s ex, but information was power, and the more I had the more I could break through that shroud of fear I saw in her multihued gaze every time I brought up the L-word.

“I guess his old lady was stepping out on him with another one of the artists at the shop. He apparently had a revelation that all the crap he shoveled Cora’s way might just have made him a douche bag, so now he’s all fired up to make amends. She says it’s all water under the bridge, but sometimes she shuts up and I can tell she’s somewhere else, but she doesn’t say anything to me about it.”

He let loose a litany of swearwords and his hands clenched and unclenched.

“That guy did a number on her, Rome.” He sighed and motioned for Asa to bring him another beer. “When Phil came back to the shop after going to New York and told us we were getting a new shop manager, none of us knew how to take it. But then Cora showed up and it was clear she needed someone to save her. She was wasting away. I mean she is tiny as it is, but she obviously wasn’t eating, wasn’t sleeping. She was quiet, withdrawn. We tried to joke with her, tried to shake her out of it, but nothing worked. She was heartbroken. I’ve never seen anything like it. She wasn’t just some chick that was sad because she got dumped … she was dying from it.” He blew out a breath and slowly shook his head from side to side.

“Rowdy always said she took it so hard because her dad was always gone and Jimmy was her only constant in life. I don’t know if that’s the case, but I do know that guy hurt her in a way I would like to skin him alive and let fire ants eat him from the inside out just to teach him a lesson. No man should do that to a woman that loves him, even if he isn’t in love with her anymore.”

I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like the sound of any of that at all.

“What snapped her out of it? What kept her from just fading away?”

His mouth turned into a wry grin and he bit down on his lip ring. “Remy died.”

I blinked in surprise.

“Remy died and I went off the deep end and she waded in to save me. She was so focused on me and my mess I think she forgot that she was suffering herself. Day by day she got better and held on to me with both hands. I was operating from a really bad place, but I stayed just on this side of redeemable because of Cora. She’s more than a big-sister figure, she’s my voice of reason.”

I barked out a laugh. “Tinker Bell.”

“Definitely Tinker Bell, but a Tinker Bell that can flay you with her sharp-ass tongue and put you in your place with a simple look. Don’t let that guy get his hooks back into her, Rome. That’s bad news all around.”

I grunted. “You’ve met Cora, Rule. She’s going to do whatever it is she’s going to do. All I can do is hope what we have going for us is enough to make him getting anything into her an option that isn’t on the table.”

We shared a knowing look.

“Sucks.”

“Definitely sucks.”

We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence as the jukebox shifted from the Rolling Stones to the Clash. I walked back behind the bar to help Asa with the dishes and to have something to do with my hands.

“You like it here, Rome? You want to stay here and run this place or are you just doing it because you don’t know what else to do?”

Rule’s question made me take a second and think of an answer that worked.

“A little bit of both. I like it here; I like the clientele and the regulars, I like that I get to make my own hours and that I put this place back together board by board. But I don’t have a clue what’s next for me, what I should or shouldn’t be doing with all the years of training I have. For now this feels right and I can’t ask for more than that.”

“Whatever you do, whoever you want to be in the long run, Rome, I am so fucking glad you came back home in one piece. I missed you, we missed you. Even when you were being a royal pain in the ass. Knowing you’re here, that I can call you, that you have my back even when you’re pissed at me, you don’t understand how much I need that.”

And there it was. My brother still needed me. Yes, he had Shaw to take care of him. Yes, he had become enough of a badass, and enough of an adult to protect himself from most things, but he still needed me to have his back. He needed me to be the guy who looked at him and always saw the guy who lived his life on his own terms, made his own rules, and didn’t judge him for it. That was a redefinition of my relationship with my brother I had no trouble filling. I was working my way toward that with my parents as well. I was starting to figure out I could just be Rome, nothing more and nothing less.

“I missed your punk ass, too, and I am sincerely sorry it took me such a long time to get my head out of my ass.”

He nodded, finished his beer, and went home to his girl. It was an interesting evening, to say the least, and after the cryptic warning from Torch and the club, I stayed until closing with Asa and watched him leave with not one but two of the pretty coeds. I wanted to make sure everyone got out of the parking lot safe and sound and that no one was lurking around. The guy had game like I had never seen before and I probably would have felt a twinge of jealousy had I not been going to my house, where a very sexy pixie was no doubt passed out in my bed, where she waited for me to get home.

Nash’s muscle car was gone when I got to the Victorian, but the Cooper was parked in its spot. I was getting tired of playing ring-around-the-apartments with her. I wanted one place to call our own, but after Rule’s revelations about her and her ex tonight, I was starting to wonder if her inability to meet me in the middle on a place had more behind it. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and thought I would snag a shower and crawl into bed next to her, but when I pushed open the door to my room, I was surprised to find the light on the nightstand on and the bed empty. I frowned and set the beer down while kicking off my boots and pulling my shirt off over my head.

I was worried that maybe she wasn’t feeling so great. So far she had been lucky and morning sickness wasn’t something she really had to deal with unless she got superemotional. She was tired a lot and hadn’t asked me to go get her pickles and ice cream in the middle of the night or anything, so I just assumed it would be smooth sailing for the duration of her pregnancy. I tapped on the door with a knuckle and called her name.

“You all right, Half-Pint?”

The knob turned easily under my hand and I walked in the bathroom. She was naked, all tattooed and bejeweled skin, staring in the big mirror that hung over the vanity. Her blond hair was sticking up all over her head like she had been woken from sleep by something and she was biting down on her lower lip. She was perfect. Everything about her was just absolutely fucking perfect. I braced my arms over my head on the doorframe and watched her watch me. Her eyes did that slow roll over my chest, across my stomach, and stopped on the front of my pants the way she liked to do. I needed to remember to always come home and take my shirt off … it really did make it hard for her to think.

“Look.” She turned to face me, and I think she wanted me to look at something besides her perky breasts and the delicate junction between her legs, but I was a guy and she was naked, so she was out of luck.

“Look at what?” I wanted to snatch her up and take her to bed. I wanted to lick every single one of those jewels that decorated her rib cage and trace the line of the lilies all the way up her side with my teeth.

“Look at our baby.” She flattened both her hands on the very slight swell in her stomach. She was so tiny that the barest bulge did indeed have her looking more rounded out than she had a day or so ago. She was just too cute with those big eyes so full of wonder. “I passed out a few hours ago and rolled over on my stomach, which sucks when you aren’t there to act as a pillow, by the way, when this woke me up. I’ve never had a belly in my life and now I do and there is a supersmall person in there. It’s unbelievable.” She just sounded in awe, and I wouldn’t have traded this moment for all the assuredness or foresight in the entire world.

I pushed off the doorway and stalked toward her. I got so close that I was towering over her, staring down at her, and she just continued to watch me. I saw her suck in a breath and let it out slowly as I sank to my knees in front of her. I put my hands on her hips and pulled her to my face so I could put my mouth on the soft skin right above her belly button. I heard her gasp softly and twine her fingers loosely in my hair. I let my fingers dig into the sweet curve of her hips.

“I put that baby in there, Cora. Anytime you want to talk about it, you want to marvel at it, you let me know. Yeah?”

She let out a little laugh and dropped her cheek on the top of my head.

“Yeah, Rome.”

I gave her a squeeze to let her know I was serious and decided while I was on my knees in front of her I might as well take advantage of the situation, so I stuck the tip of my tongue into the dip of her navel and felt her shudder against me.

“I love you, Half-Pint. Love that little baby. You understand where I’m at with all of that?” She nodded a little but I was working my way south with my tongue and I don’t think she had the ability to form words anymore. I breathed out a little puff of air against her cleft that I could see was getting slick and ready for me. “I know you aren’t on the same page as me just yet, Cora, and for right now I’m happy enough we’re reading the same book. Eventually you have to turn the page, though, you got me?”

Her fingers got tighter in my hair and I knew there was no one else on this planet I would willingly get on my knees for, but this girl with all her mouthy ways and swirling eyes, I would do it for her whenever she asked and even when she didn’t.

“I got you, Rome.” And she did. She had me any damn way she wanted me, and I was more than happy to show her since she was already naked and wet for me.