Rome (Marked Men, #3)(74)

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 f*cking 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 f*cking 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.