Jay Crownover - Rome

I sprinted across the asphalt like it was made of lava. I got to her right before the first bullet made contact. My head jerked back and blood started immediately rushing down the column of my neck and soaking into the collar of my T-shirt. I saw her wild eyes go huge in her face but didn’t have time to say anything to her. I was lucky she made such a tiny target because the next gunshot didn’t miss either, nor did the next as I took her to the ground under me. I’d been hit with bullets before, but had always had body armor to dull the impact. Bullets tearing through unprotected flesh felt like Satan flicking his tail across bare skin. My flesh burned and the calm night air instantly filled with the coppery scent of my blood. Man, there was a lot of it. I could see it flowing out of me and onto her and the pavement below her. How could have I forgotten there was a pissed-off biker all set to get vengeance on me? Cora shouldn’t have been in that parking lot alone.

I had her whole body under me. Could feel her shaking and whispering my name against my throat. I hoped I hadn’t hit the ground with her too hard, but I couldn’t move to check on her. In fact I knew I needed to get off of her so I wasn’t crushing her into the hard ground, but none of my limbs were obeying my commands. In fact her lovely and beloved face was blurring in and out as breath wheezed in and out of lungs that felt like they were suddenly full of cement. I was suffocating. I was bleeding. I was hurting all over, but she was looking up at me in shock and fear but alive. So full of life and color, and that was all that mattered.

“Cora …” I wanted to tell her I was sorry. That I would never be done with her, not ever, but there wasn’t a way to do that. I was going under. I could feel blood pooling under us. Could feel fire blazing in more than one place from my prone body. I think Cora screamed my name over and over again. I think I heard Asa tell her he was calling for help. I was pretty sure my little pixie had a death grip on me where I covered her, but I couldn’t feel anything. I was also fairly certain my girl was about to watch me die, and the last thing I heard before it all just went absolutely black was her tell me that she loved me over and over again.

“Always have to be the hero, don’t you?”

His tone was kidding, but it had been so long since I had seen him that all I could do was gape at him in shock.

“Rem?”

“Who else? Got yourself in a bit of a pickle, didn’t ya?”

I tried to shake my head, tried to reach out and put my hands on him, but all I could do was just stare at him while he paced back and forth in front of me, hands shoved into the pockets of impeccably pressed, pin-striped pants. He looked good, way better than a guy who had been dead going on five years should.

“You look good, bro.”

He smiled at me. A smile so different from Rule’s, and I felt my heart flip over. I missed him so much.

“I always looked good, Rome. We need to have a serious heart-to-heart, big brother.”

“About what?”

“You.”

“What about me, Remy?”

“You seriously have any doubts over whether I knew, absolutely, without any kind of shadow of a doubt that you loved me, Rome? That you were proud of me?”

I felt something happen in my chest, like lightning burning where my heart should be.

“I should have told you. I shouldn’t have asked you to keep an eye on them. That was selfish.”

“Oh, Rome.” It sounded like a sigh, but I wasn’t sure what was going on or where I was at, so maybe it was just the last of my breath escaping my no longer working lungs. “I was always so proud when you asked me to keep an eye on Rule or on Shaw. It meant you trusted me, you believed that I could do as good a job as you always did keeping everyone safe. Those words meant more to me than you can know.”

I took a minute to let that process and heard him laugh. It sounded happy and there was no regret in it.

“The girl, the one you just took three bullets for, she’s the one for you.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t feel obligated to answer him. “You don’t think she loves you? You don’t think her heart is breaking right now? Because I can assure you that it is and it has nothing to do with being afraid of having to raise that baby alone. She’s scared for you. Her heart is shattering for you.”

I tried to scowl but I didn’t have any control of my facial muscles.

“She’s never said anything to me.”

“But don’t you just know, Rome? Just like I knew you loved me without question. Love doesn’t always have to be spoken out loud. Shaw loved Rule from the beginning of time and never said one word about it, but if he had ever bothered to look at her, he would have seen it shining out of her like a beacon. The same thing can be said about your little spitfire. It’s stamped all over her, Rome, you just have to look past the fear, hers and your own, to see it.”

That point was burning and hot in the center of where I thought my chest was. I knew all about fear. The fear of the unknown, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of not having anything to offer. I hoped I hid it well, but I hadn’t taken one second to think that maybe Cora was hiding behind a cloud of terror as well. Our experience made us; what we did with that knowledge is what defined who we were going to be, and somewhere along the line I got caught up in all the noise of “what if” and forgot that.

“I should have just known.”

“You have time to make it right.”

“I do?”

He laughed again and I felt warmth embrace me, something like rightness settle around my shoulders.

“Someone had to set you right. I knew I could do it. Love is never perfect, big brother. It’s what you make of the imperfections in it that makes the ride worthwhile.”

“I met Lando.”

That sound that could have been a sigh or something else whirled around me.

“He is how I know all about unconditional love, Rome. He deserved better than my secrets. Frankly everyone did. Who we are is always shifting, turning, and changing. Soon you’ll be a father, a husband, then an uncle, and then later on down the line, you’ll be a grandfather. Who you are never stays the same. It’s called living life.”

I felt like if I could control any part of my body, I would wrap my arms around my brother and never let him go, but as it was, things inside me were starting to burn and those pale, winter-tinted eyes were getting hazier and farther and farther away and I was flared up on the inside like an inferno.

“Oh, and Rome.” I tried to focus on him but it was getting harder and harder to hold on to where I was at. Pain was starting to pull me apart at the seams and I wanted to scream. “Remy is an awesome name for either a little boy or a little girl. Just saying.”

I felt rather than saw him disappear, the warmth, the joy that was my brother, poofed away and I went crashing back to a body that was on fire with pain and flooding with blood in places there shouldn’t be blood.

Cora

I didn’t remember much of anything after I hit the ground, all of Rome’s weight and bulk pressing me into the hard asphalt. One second I had been sitting in the car trying to figure out how to talk my way out of this mess and try to fix everything, and the next I was wide-awake in the middle of one of Rome’s nightmares.

I had sent the text letting him know I was outside the bar, and then I waited while I held my breath for him to answer me back. My big mouth had hurt the one person I never wanted to cause pain, and I needed to fix it. It didn’t matter if he ignored me. I would march right in that bar and make him talk to me. As it turned out, I was getting all worked up for no reason because it only took a minute until his unmistakable silhouette came out the door and he was making his way toward where I had parked. I was nervous, but more than that, I was filled with regret. I never should have held on to what Jimmy had done to me and used it as an excuse to keep my heart insulated from all the wonderful things Rome was trying to fill it up with.