Jay Crownover - Rome

“That’s all I ever wanted for you. And with Jimmy calling the wedding off to that girl, I’m happy you have someone so you aren’t tempted to contact that piece of shit. Let that dog lie exactly where you left him.”

I almost dropped the phone. I had been so busy with Rome, so caught up with the baby and trying to figure out what I was going to do next, that I hadn’t given Jimmy or the wedding a single thought, let alone spent a single second Internet-stalking him.

“What?”

I heard my dad sigh and swear under his breath.

“Apparently the little chickie he was stepping out on you with took a page out of his book. He caught her stepping out on him with one of the other artists at the shop. He tracked your aunt down looking for you. I told her to tell him it’s been too long, too much water under the bridge. Next time I’ll let him know you’ve moved on to someone else.”

I had moved on. Jimmy was very much a part of my past, but that didn’t stop my heart from thudding hard and heavy in my chest and my ears from ringing. I must have made a noise of distress because my dad demanded to know if I was okay.

I had to rapidly shake my head to get my thoughts ordered back together.

“I’m fine, Dad. That was just a blast from the past I wasn’t expecting.”

“But it doesn’t matter because you’ve moved on, right?”

“Right.” Only I didn’t sound nearly as confident about it as I wished I did. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Dad, I’m pregnant, so air or no air, you need to come to Denver when this baby gets here.” He was my only family and I needed him here for the birth.

Echoing silence met my declaration. I knew he wasn’t going to give me a long-distance high five, but the absolute quiet wasn’t expected either.

“Daddy?”

He cleared his throat and sounded even rougher than usual when he decided to speak. “You happy about it, sunshine?”

“I was surprised and I freaked out, but I’m happy about it. Like I said, he’s a good man, Dad. He isn’t going to let either of us down. He tells me that he’s all in and I believe him.”

“That’s a lot of faith you’re handing over to him after what you’ve been through, Cora.” My dad, always the über-pragmatic sailor. I wish I could tell him I hadn’t really handed anything over yet because I was too scared to let go. He would tell me to stop being such a sissy and just give it up.

“I know. But I do trust him.”

“Well, I’m proud of you. I might not tell you enough, but the way you rebuilt your life, it was something else. I know I never knew how to handle all that girly shit with kid gloves, but you make me wish I had been a better dad, and I know you’ll be a terrific mom.”

I choked up a little and climbed to my feet. “No one is perfect, Admiral Ass Hat. I turned out okay and you did what you could. I should’ve been a boy.”

He snorted at me. “Be glad you aren’t, because then I would have to kick your ass every time you call me that. When is that baby due? I need to buy a plane ticket.”

I told him around the end of March and he swore he would be there. He asked me a million questions about Rome and about how I was feeling, and I didn’t realize that I was crying silent tears until I got off the phone with him. My dad and I had a complicated relationship, but I loved him and I forgot how much I missed him until times like this. Family was important, that’s why I was going to make sure this baby had as much of it as I could. I rubbed my palms over my face and raced to the shop.

When I barreled in the door the guys were already busy with their clients, but Nash was the first one to look up and frown at me.

“You and Rome at it again?”

I made a face at him and threw my stuff on the desk and sat down.

“No. I’m pregnant and emotional. I’m going to cry and it isn’t always going to be Rome’s fault, so chill out.”

He grunted at me and went back to his client while I fired up the computer. I told myself I wasn’t going to look, that I shouldn’t look, but sure enough, the first thing I did was log onto Facebook and pull up Jimmy’s page. Of course all the pictures of him and the tattoo tramp were gone and his status had switched from engaged to single. I couldn’t get my head around how that made me feel. Not happy, not sad, not vindicated … I just felt weird and I didn’t like it. I was going to flip back over the appointment page and start weeding through the private messages on the page we used for the shop when one caught my eye. It had my name on it and it had been sent a couple days ago.

I felt my body still as I clicked it open and saw Jimmy’s smiling face in the sender space. I needed to erase it, needed to get away from the computer. It had been too long for him to try and reach out to me, too much damage had been done, but despite all of that, I was compelled to read it.

Cora: I know it’s been years and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I want you to know that I understand now how badly I hurt you. It’s hard to ignore when the exact same thing happened to me. Everyone in the shop knew Ashley and Drake were hooking up behind my back while she had my ring on her finger and no one said a word. I just wanted to try and make it right. You were a great girlfriend and I should have treated you so much better. Your aunt said you moved to Denver and I figured you would have hooked up with Phil. The shop looks nice. If you are open to it, give me a call. I would really like to make amends. I’ve missed you.

He left an e-mail address and a phone number, but I hit delete and just stared at the monitor. Well, wasn’t that all kinds of a mind fuck?

“Now what? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

I spun the chair around and met Nash’s curious gaze.

“Have you ever had your heart broken, Nashville?”

He growled at me, which made his client laugh.

“Don’t ever call me that again.” He never used his full name and got touchy whenever someone else did. “And yeah, my heart was broken by the girl every boy loves first. My mom. The second she picked that dipshit over me, she broke my heart.”

“What did she have to say about Phil? Did she agree to talk to him?”

“She was all weird about it. She said Phil is a grown man, and if he doesn’t want to talk about whatever is going on, I should be mature enough to respect it. I still can’t run him down and it’s all starting to piss me off.”

Phil had been scarce around the shop lately, and when I did catch him on the phone, he still sounded terrible. I didn’t like it at all, and the fact that he was still dodging Nash just didn’t bode well.

“I just had a bit of my past bite me in the ass but it’s fine. Nothing to get all twisted up over.”

“You sure?”

That was the question I was struggling with myself, but luckily I had a girl coming in to get the same piercing I had done and I needed to get ready, so I moved to the piercing room to set up and made sure all the instruments were ready to go. I needed to keep busy or the past was going to drag me under, and that was the absolute last thing I wanted or needed.

Rome knew something was off. I met him at the bar because he had to stay later than normal because of a band or something. He fed me and poked and prodded at me, which I tried to evade because I just wasn’t sure what to tell him. He had nothing to worry about. I didn’t want anything to do with Jimmy. He was history and his apology was beyond a lifetime too late, but a part of me couldn’t deny that I was curious about what he thought he could say to me after all this time to make any kind of difference. I was avoiding handing my heart over to Rome, because I was still scarred from the damage Jimmy had done when he drop-kicked it back to me and I wondered if there were any words that existed that could make that fear obsolete.