Rome (Marked Men #3)(22)

“Do you ever wonder ‘why you’?”

I frowned at him and shot Nash a text to see if he was home.

“Why me what?” I didn’t understand what he was rambling about and his eyes were still closed, so I wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t talking in his sleep.

“Why am I the one still here? Why was I the only one to walk away? Why did I dodge one bullet only to end up useless and unnecessary anymore? Whose plan was that? Why was I someone Remy couldn’t tell? Why didn’t he trust me? Why? Shouldn’t there be a point to it all?”

It was incoherent for the most part but the sentiment behind it was heartbreaking and shouldn’t be coming from someone so vital and thrumming with life. I didn’t really have a working understanding of how survivor’s guilt affected a man that had seen so much, but in Rome’s case it seemed to be eating him alive.

“That is probably a conversation you should have with a professional and maybe not when you tried to drink your liver into submission.”

“People die every day that shouldn’t die. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right. There should be some kind of rhyme or reason to it.” But there wasn’t, and when he was sober he had to know that, didn’t he?

My phone dinged at me and I had to wait until I stopped at a stop sign to check the message. I swore softly because Nash wasn’t home and had no plans on returning. I didn’t want to bug Rule, not to mention he wasn’t the most sensitive of guys and there was no way Rome was in any state to be left to his own devices. I was just gonna have to take him to my house and put him on the couch until he sobered up. Jet was on the road and Ayden was working late, so that meant I was only going to have to deal with a million questions and speculative looks from Asa.

“A lot of bad things happen every day that shouldn’t happen. Unfortunately it’s part of life.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

I looked back over at him and noticed those bright eyes were wide open and focused on my face. It was unnerving to be the target of such intense scrutiny.

“Maybe not. Hey, I’m just gonna take you to my place for a minute. I’ll let you catch a quick nap and put some food in you and you can run me back to my car when you’re back at full operating power. Okay?”

His eyes slid back shut and his broad shoulders rose and fell like he couldn’t care less. I hated to admit that I was worried about him, but whatever blanket of despair he had wrapped himself up in, it was thick and it was fibrous and I could almost feel the weight of it suffocating him.

We made it to Washington Park, where the cute little house I shared with the gang was located. I thought Rome might have finally settled in to sleep for real, but as soon as the motor of the big ol’ truck shut off, his eyes popped open and he was once again staring at me fixedly in the dim interior of the cab.

“Why did you come get me?”

I fiddled with the key and pushed open the door. “Because I love your brother and he loves you and I want to keep it that way. I’m much better at dealing with something like this than he is.”

“Something like what?”

He managed to get his own door open, but I heard him mutter a string of swearwords and a loud thud as he lost his balance and fell against the fender of the truck. I sighed and walked around to collect him.

“Something like a guy who is clearly hurting and lashing out at those that are closest to him because he knows they’ll take it. We can go as many rounds as you want, Captain No-Fun, you don’t scare me.”

The uneasy way he made me feel did scare me but no one needed to know that. On the outside I was always rock solid, no one knew that on the inside I struggled every day with the holes left in me from not getting my perfectly planned future and happy-ever-after after Jimmy left. Growing up primarily on my own had sucked. I thought with Jimmy I would never have to be untethered again. Once that security had gone away, I knew there was no way I could risk my heart and dreams on someone who wasn’t ready to offer me forever, stability, and family ever again.

He blinked his eyes at me and we had a stare-down; for a second I wasn’t sure if he was going to scoop me up or push me down. Instead he just shook his head and whispered so quietly that I thought it could have been my imagination had I not seen his lips move, “That’s good, because most of the time I’m f**king scared shitless of myself.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I took his rock-hard arm and half tugged, half guided him into the house. Asa was propped up on the sofa doing something on the computer and I could have sworn a look of guilt flashed quickly over his face. He gave me and my unwanted guest a questioning look and went to lumber to his feet. I waved him back down and kept tugging Rome across the living room, past the kitchen, to where the master bedroom was located.

“Don’t get up. I’ll put him in my room in case all that booze tries to come back up and he needs the bathroom close by. He just needs a little nap.”

Both blond eyebrows went up. “He couldn’t have taken one at his house?”

“Not now, Asa.”

Rome stumbled and knocked a picture of me and the guys at the shop off the wall. I was fast enough to catch it before it hit the floor, but not strong enough to keep him upright as he toppled into the open doorway of my room. Luckily it was an older house and the room wasn’t giant, so he half hit the king-sized bed. It took a little bit of work, some tugging and pulling, some swearing and grumbling, to get that big body spread across hot-pink comforter. He was breathing hard, his eyes slid closed, and I didn’t bother to try and make him any more comfortable or tell him where the facilities were. I just left him alone, figuring sleep was the best thing for him.