Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Rome looked over his shoulder at where the woman promptly looked away and shrugged.
“She doesn’t like me. She’s married. She feels sorry for me. There’s a difference.” He grimaced. “She makes hats for the kids,” he murmured. “When they lose their hair, so they have something to cover their bald little heads. I think she sews them?”
“Knit?” I offered.
He nodded. “Yeah, that. She knits them. Donates like two hundred at a time.”
My brows rose. “That’s a lot.”
He nodded. “It is.”
Things fell silent after that and I wanted nothing more than to pull the big man into a hug and tell him everything was going to be all right.
But I didn’t.
One, he was still the enemy, even though he had a damn good story.
And two, everything probably wouldn’t be all right. He’d told me so.
Things weren’t looking good for his son…and by the end of the year, he could very well no longer be here.
I knew one thing, though.
Rome needed his friend.
Chapter 14
One thing that sucks about being a grownup is not being able to use the excuse ‘my mom said no’ when you don’t want to do something.
-Bumper Sticker
Tyler
I frowned at the note that I saw on my door.
Pulling it off, I glared at the slanted, obviously angry writing.
You’re a little bitch.
I sighed.
Pushing open the door to my home, I wasn’t surprised to see Reagan at my stove, cooking something that smelled absolutely delicious.
“This note is kind of harsh, don’t ya think?” I asked, waving it in the air like a small cease and desist.
“Yes.” She paused. “It is, but it’s also deserved when you consider the fact that you told Theo—my freakin’ boss— that I was a trespasser!”
My lips twitched. “But you are.”
She shrugged. “I am…but it was in the name of science, so it’s okay.”
I rolled my eyes. “Did you know in Texas, if you trespass on someone’s property at night, that they can legally shoot you if they fear for their life?”
I knew that Reagan never meant to break any kind of law, but honestly, she needed to be more careful in what she was doing.
She could get seriously hurt.
“Whatever,” she murmured. “And I already told Theo that I would be more careful, so you can calm your tits.”
I snorted. “My tits are calm, Reagan. Are yours?”
She looked down at them in contemplation. “They were kind of rowdy earlier when I wrote that note, just sayin’, but you did piss me off. It sucks to be reprimanded by your boss. A little warning would’ve been nice.”
My reason for saying something to Theo in the first place was a complaint from one of my neighbors about a woman on his property hanging over the side of his dock for an hour studying the moss on his dock piling.
I didn’t need to know anything further about his trespasser to know that it’d been Reagan. And it just so happened to be that Theo was in my office again and heard the call come in.
It was kind of hard to hide that fact and when he saw me unconcerned about the call, he’d asked why.
I then had to tell him that Reagan liked to go wherever the moss led her—damn the consequences.
“You should probably stay away from Jayco’s property from now on. He calls it in if we put the trash cans out and we’re too loud. He won’t hesitate to call in again about you,” I pointed out.
Reagan snickered, then her face settled into a serious expression.
“I did something today,” she murmured.
My eye twitched.
“Did you break and enter, too?”
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
“Then what?” I asked, studying her face. She looked extremely nervous.
She looked down at her fingernails. “I had lunch with someone today.”
“Who?” I asked.
She cleared her throat. “His son has leukemia.”
My heart broke.
Leukemia was a bad deal.
“That sucks. Is he from here?” I questioned. “I thought you went to Kilgore today.”
She nodded. “I did…he’s actually from there…”
“Then who was it?” I pushed.
She was usually better at getting her words out than this.
“It was Rome.”
Roaring started inside my ears.
“You had lunch with Rome?” I asked, deceptively calm.
She nodded.
That’s about when I exploded.
“Why the fuck would you do something like that?!” I bellowed, raising my arms. “He’s…”
“He’s got a son who’s dying,” Reagan said softly.
She didn’t need to yell.
Not with those words.
“And he named his son Tyler. Well, technically, it’s Matias Tyler, but he’s still named after you.”
I gasped in a breath. “No.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“No,” I repeated, my mind lost in thought.
When we were younger, we made a pact that one day we’d name our children after each other.
He was to use Tyler as a middle name, and I was supposed to use Roman. That was the deal.
And he’d stuck to it, despite our falling out.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Bear Bottom,” she murmured. “I can take you to him…but he’s not hard to find. He’s not hiding.”