Marked Men: Rome Part 12

"Are you okay?" His gaze swept over me from head to toe like he was looking for some sign of change in me already.

"I'm fine. Look, I know this is a lot to take in. I don't expect anything from you, but if you're looking for a really good reason to pull it together, I think you have one now."

"What do you mean you don't expect anything from me?"

I sighed. "Look, Rome, we hung out for less than a month. We were never really friends, then we became lovers and now soon-to-be parents. That's a lot for anybody to try and handle. I care about you and I really do think you're an amazing guy, but I'm not going to risk this baby or my heart on someone that isn't all in with me. I've been there and done that and seriously I wish I could give the T-shirt back."

"Give me a chance, Half-Pint, I'm all in."

I could see it there, dazzling and bright in the blue that was as sharp as a razor blade. He believed it, wanted it, I just didn't know that I could trust him to follow through on it and not leave me hanging again.

"The drinking ..."

He shook his head. "Done. I'm all over it. It doesn't do me any good and Brite won't let me hang at the bar if I'm loaded. He's been in and out over the last few weeks and finally told me that if I didn't get my act together, I was done. I was already feeling like I let you down. I couldn't stand the idea of disappointing him on top of that, which is why I finally called his friend for help." He made a face that resembled a grimace of pain. "There's a good chance I'm gonna be struggling with the aftereffects of PTSD for a long time. I'm not going to wake up tomorrow and be all shiny, polished, and perfect, but I can get better. The difference is I didn't really have the motivation to head in that direction until I lost it and couldn't face you. I don't want you to be part of my nightmares, Cora, but I'm selfish enough to ask you to want to be."

He was saying all the right things, he was putting more of himself on the line for me than Jimmy ever had, and I was selfish enough to want to believe that what he was saying was real. I didn't really want to let him go just yet, but I had to make sure he understood the rules moving forward.

"Nightmares are just bad dreams. If you want me to be part of your dreams, there isn't a better place I could think to be. Rome, I'm more than willing to stick this out with you, but this baby is bigger than both of us. You can't just walk away when you're freaked out or because something from the past is standing between us. You have to let me in, you have to stick around so we can work through it together. I'm not flawless either, Captain No-Fun, but I kinda think together we might get close to something spectacular, if we want it bad enough."

I squealed in surprise when he picked me up and crushed me to his chest. I didn't think I was ever going to get tired of the solid way he felt pressed against me. He pressed a hard kiss to my mouth, and I put my hands on either side of his face to hold him there. I missed him, missed this, but I didn't have any delusion that this was the last of the b.u.mps in the road we were probably going to have to face if we managed to stay together. It took a special kind of man to stick around when the reality of fatherhood was looking him right in the eye. We didn't know each other well enough to know if this was going to be it for us, but he affected me enough, moved me in ways I was continually surprised by, that I liked to think with some work he very well could be my new dream, that he could indeed fit what my new idea of perfect might be.

When he set me back on my feet, I laughed a little and moved my hands from his face to his shoulders.

"We might need to slow things down between us a little bit. We're going to be moving full steam ahead, and while there is no question that we are s.e.xually compatible, we should probably figure out if we can stand to be around each other for the long haul."

He dropped his head so that his forehead was resting against mine. "All right."

I tapped him on the chin with my index finger. "And you need to make nice with Rule. Family is important and he's going to be this kid's uncle. Plus Shaw is going to drive everyone nuts trying to fix things if you can't patch it all up on your own. Same goes for your folks." I would never squander family away, and he was just going to have to reconcile that fact if this was going to work.

He pulled back and bit the tip of my finger, which made me scowl up at him.

"Repentance is my new middle name. Rule and I are both afflicted with the Archer stubborn streak and I can't really be mad at him for wanting to protect you. He's right: I did do the same thing to him over Shaw. The only difference is I don't have the reputation of the Mile-High Lothario to warrant it. I'll work it all out, I swear this matters to me. More than anything I can remember since I started looking out for the twins."

I finally wrapped my arms around his lean waist and gave him the hug I had been dying to give him since I saw him standing in the shop.

Of course, as soon as I walked back in the shop, the boys jumped all over me. Rule was still all fired up and p.i.s.sed off, Nash was acting like a concerned big brother even though he was younger than me, and Rowdy was just watching it all with a maniacal grin that made me want to hurt his pretty face. There were only about ten minutes until we opened, so I dragged all three of them into the back room and faced off with them. Telling them to back off and mind their own wasn't going to cut it, so I laid it out for them in terms even stubborn, hardheaded, but well-meaning boys could understand.

I told them I was having Rome's baby and I didn't want to hear a single word about it because it was still so early and things were so tenuous. I thought Rule was going to go through the roof until I smacked him with the back of my hand in the gut and told him to calm down. Nash looked like he was in shock, and Rowdy was the only one to press a tiny kiss to the top of my head and tell me congratulations. I explained that what I was or was not doing with Rome had nothing to do with them and that everybody better play nice because the big picture was that I was having a kid and everybody I loved and cared about was going to be a part of his or her life, whether they liked it or not. Rule and I had a pretty lengthy stare-down, but really it was cute, and at his center he was a big ol' pile of mush, so eventually he caved and scooped me up in a rib-breaking hug.

He told me he was still going to whup Rome's a.s.s if he didn't start acting right toward me and I informed him that he was going to have to get in line. Nash was harder to crack. He just kept looking at me, then down at my stomach, then back up to my face, and shaking his head slowly from side to side. I just waited him out. Nash was a softy; he was more rational than the other guys, but his own upbringing had left some nasty scars and I don't think he was really comfortable with any human smaller than a bread box.

"It'll be fine. I'll be fine. We'll be fine."

He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and gave me a one-armed hug that was so tight it almost hurt.

"Don't get me wrong, Rome is a cool dude. I've always looked up to him, but lately he hasn't been acting like any guy that's going to be a dad should act."

"I just found out yesterday."

"But you knew before that, didn't you?"

"Maybe."

"Just be careful. I love ya both and don't want to have to pick between either one of you."

"Stop. We wouldn't do that."

Nash smiled a sad smile that looked so out of place on that handsome face and under that ring in his nose. "That's what every parent says."

He walked away leaving me speechless. Rowdy slid up next to me and hooked my arm through his.

"You're gonna be a great mom. Everything else will fall into place and everybody else can get over their own s.h.i.t."

I grunted and rested my head on his shoulder. "Thanks."

"What about the guy? He the right one to do this with?"

"I think so." And I really did. He might make me work a little bit for it, but I really did think he was worth the effort. I was so happy to hear that he had taken steps on his own to seek out some help for the nightmares chasing him from his time in the military. I could chase the shadows with him, as long as he was willing to let me bring the light in.

"He hasn't let me get upright since we started this thing." I wiggled my eyebrows up and down suggestively, which made him laugh. "Literally and figuratively."

"Sideways it is." Rowdy reached down and patted my still-flat tummy. "This is going to be so fun to watch."

I snorted at him and elbowed him in the side. The fact was, I could do sideways. I could do the unexpected. What I couldn't do was heartbroken and shattered, so big brother better be on board with that or there was no telling what I was going to do. Heck, I would even be able to blame it on hormones.

CHAPTER 10.

Rome

Taking it slow sucked. Don't get me wrong, I was pretty sure I was falling in love with Cora. I had spent the last two weeks trying to drink her out of my head and feeling like a royal a.s.shole for ditching her without a word. It was another p.u.s.s.y move in a list that seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds. I was embarra.s.sed by the fact I couldn't pull it together, ashamed she had seen me so broken and open. I had known going in that she was leery about all the dips and valleys in my personality, but having her bear witness to my own personal h.e.l.l was just too much for my ego and already battered pride to take, so I ran. It was cowardly and it was weak, but I didn't think I could handle her looking at me like I was someone to pity, someone that needed to be fixed. So I buried my head in a bottle of vodka and tried to drink it all away. My reasons for avoiding her didn't hold any more water than my reasons for avoiding my folks, a fact that I couldn't ignore or drink away.

It became apparent the very next day that not talking to her, not being able to touch her, to hold her, hurt way worse than my pride did. She was under my skin, buried far enough down that I realized if I had to get help in order to be someone she could be with, then that was my only option and it was time to stop running and just do it. I was so glad she was willing to give me another shot. I needed her, and now with the baby, messed up or not, I was pretty sure she needed me, too. I was willing to do whatever it took to make this thing between us work, even if that meant all the s.e.xual attraction and potent heat that had drawn us together initially had to be banked. There was nothing quite like being put in the friend zone by your pregnant girlfriend.

I spent the entire month of September keeping my hands in my pockets and my d.i.c.k in my pants. I went with Cora to the doctor, which was exciting and terrifying at the same time. We went to dinner, hung out like a normal couple that was just starting to date, and I even entertained the idea of making peace with my folks like I had tentatively done with Shaw, because I knew it would make her happy and I was sick of running scared. I was tired of trying to guess what others' expectations of me were and had to get my head around the idea that my expectations of myself were enough. The idea of bridging that gap did make her happy, which made me happy, even if the idea was like torture for me. I just didn't know what to say to them in order to get the conversation started.

It was fine, the slower pace. I liked spending time with her, we got along great, and when we didn't, the way those two-toned eyes flashed and sparked a million different colors made me have visions of makeup s.e.x that were triple-X-rated. It wasn't like I was only with her to hook up, but I would be a big fat liar if I didn't admit that I missed it, missed her and all that colorful skin. s.e.x with Cora was unlike s.e.x I had ever had before, and not just because she was pierced down there and had all those colorful jewels embedded in her skin. Despite her refrain that she was holding out for some un.o.btainable vision of perfect, she just got me, like really got me even though I was as far from perfect as a guy could get.

I didn't know how she could stand the lack of s.e.x either. Her hormones were all over the place lately. She was more mouthy and a little snarkier than usual, but there was something in her eyes. I would catch her looking at me out of the corner of her eye, like she was feeling the same repressed desire as I was. Like we were sitting on the brink of something major, something bigger than everything we had experienced before, but it was like she was scared of the drop-off. She let me kiss her, let me cuddle her up on the couch while we watched movies, she was openly affectionate, holding my hand, wrapping her arms around me, and letting me know she was there. She was always the one who pulled away, who cut the contact short and stayed on the right side of s.e.xually unfulfilled. I could see the regret, the frustration on her pretty face, but I wasn't willing to push my luck, so I didn't question it or try and push it with her. She was willing to take me as is. I was willing to take her and any obstacles she put in my way as par for the course. Sometimes I thought she looked at me like she was downright terrified, not of me, but of something I was making her think or feel.

I was making up for lost time at the bar as well as trying to get my relationship with Brite and the regulars back on track. Brite was back, mostly I think to make sure I didn't drink him out of bar and profit the way I had at the end of the previous month. I think he was worried I was going to spiral out of control again. To prove to him that I had no intention of ruining my life, of letting Cora raise that baby alone without me, I was working extra hard and had all the improvements he asked for nearly done. I had even found a few of my own to add to the upgrades. The place looked like a nearly new bar; it was spotless, polished, and not a surface wasn't touched up and brand-new. There was an influx of new blood coming in the door and business had picked up enough that Brite asked Asa to stay on as the permanent evening bartender. My personal thought on that was that he liked the view. There wasn't a night the bar wasn't surrounded by pretty young things all clamoring for the blond country boy's attention. Asa was just that good.

I still didn't know what I was going to do when I was done with the Bar, but I was making a conscious effort not to lose sleep over it. I was losing sleep over enough other things. My future had enough twists and turns in it that beating myself up over not having all the answers was just exhausting and I didn't have the energy to do it anymore.

It was also a day-to-day struggle to deal with the nightmares and the weird slips in my mind that drew me back to the desert and all that blood and death in a more healthy and positive way than drinking myself stupid. An occasional vodka tonic was one thing; trying to kill my liver was another. When I woke up now, I went running or took the Harley out for a long ride until I came back into myself. It took longer but it worked just as well, and talking to Brite's friend was making me realize that it was just like everything else in life: I had to work at it, had to practice getting better. He also made me see that if I let the people that loved me help, it would make the process go faster. Just like Shaw told me, everyone was just going to have to learn to love me in a new way and I had to be all right with that. It was okay to ask them for help, that didn't make me weak, and I should be appreciating still being around to listen to them, not feeling guilty about it.

One night Cora and I were sprawled out on the couch at my place. Nash was out with Rowdy and my girl was all cute and curled up in a ball resting against my side. She had picked some dumb girly movie to watch after dinner and it was all I could do to keep my eyes open, it was so boring. I liked the way she fit next to me, she was so small and so deceptively delicate, and she brought all the protective instincts I had to the surface, which was funny because she was more than capable of protecting herself. It was hard for me to recall what my boring black-and-white world looked like before she stormed into it and bled color into every nook and cranny. I just wanted to take care of her, be with her.

"You hate this, don't you?" She was rubbing her thumb along the back of my hand and across my knuckles. I could feel her stop and worry over the raised scars and marks that dotted my skin.

"Naw, it's fine."

She laughed next to me. "You're about to fall asleep."

I was, but I figured she didn't need to worry about it. My attention kept drifting in and out. She wanted to see the girl in the movie get her happily-ever-after, and I figured I could hold out for that long. Besides, crashing out on the couch next to her was the closest I'd gotten to sleeping with her in the last month. I shifted so I could curl my arm around her and pull her closer to my side. I dropped a kiss on the top of her soft hair and told my overly anxious lower half to chill out. She had one arm wrapped around my waist and her other hand resting on my thigh. It was all very innocent, but telling my denied libido that was another story. Taking a little catnap might be the only way I made it through the rest of this date night without getting myself in trouble.

Between one breath and the next, I was zoned out somewhere between being all the way asleep and awake. I couldn't concentrate on the stupid movie and my mind just took a detour down a path I wished it hadn't. Everything sort of just faded away and I was back to a day I relived over and over, it was a waking nightmare and I couldn't stop the avalanche of memories as they free-falled on top of each other. I would have given everything I possessed to make it stop, to keep that particular day locked in a box where it couldn't get to me anymore.

I had only been back from Pakistan for a few months, the twins were barely in their twenties, and I got word I was headed to Iraq. My folks were freaking out, everyone wanted me to leave the army after this deployment was over, but I was excited to go. Rule and Remy had moved out, Shaw was almost ready to graduate, and being at home alone with my folks was boring. There was only so much of "Rule is terrible, Remy is perfect, you're a fool and could be doing something more important with your life" I could take.

I liked being in the army. I moved up the ranks fast. I was good with the other soldiers and had a natural talent for taking the lead. When I was home I was just the oldest brother of the twins. It was all always about the twins. Not that I didn't love my brothers. h.e.l.l, I went to war to make sure they had a safe and secure world to live in, but it got old just being the guy whose job it was to keep Rule in check and to let Remy's light shine. In the army I was Sergeant Archer. I was the one calling the shots. I was the one running missions and I had an entire platoon of men and women to keep safe, not just two boys who were opposite sides of the same troublemaking coin.

Mom insisted on a family dinner on my last night. I didn't want to do it. Rule was always an a.s.s to everyone, and something was going on between Remy and Shaw. They had an odd relationship anyway. They hardly ever touched, they acted more like girlfriends than a couple, and no matter how much they said they were just best friends, there was something more going on there, I just knew it. I also couldn't figure out why when she thought no one was looking, Shaw was making goo-goo eyes at the wrong twin. It all seemed complicated and trivial compared to what I had been dealing with day in and day out, so I was not looking forward to it.

Dinner was as expected. Rule showed up with blue hair spiked up in every direction and sporting a black eye. Remy was distracted and evasive, while Shaw seemed sullen and out of sorts. I did what I always did and tried to play the middleman. I asked about Rule's apprenticeship at the tattoo shop, I talked to Remy about his new job, and grilled Shaw about getting ready to start her freshman year at college. My folks let me be the intermediary, like they always did, while dropping not so subtle hints about how much I was missed around the homestead. It was irritating and annoying, but I powered through knowing I would be halfway around the world the same time tomorrow. We struggled through dinner and then Remy made excuses for him and Shaw to go. Something was happening there but neither of them seemed like they were in any hurry to share. The four of us walked outside after saying good night to my parents and stood in the driveway. Rule gave me a hug and then punched me in the gut.

"Be safe. I'll miss your grouchy a.s.s. Check your e-mail more this time when you're gone."

I ruffled his stupid hair and punched him back. "Try and stay out of jail while I'm gone."

He snorted. "What's the fun in that?"

Shaw rolled her eyes and hugged me.

"I love you. Please come home in one piece. I'll send you a million care packages."

Rule drawled, "Send him p.o.r.n." Which made her glare at him and started them off on a childish round of bickering.

Remy shook my hand and pounded me on the back. When he pulled back I swear I saw something move across those pale eyes. I wanted to sit on him and make him talk to me, but there wasn't any time.

"Be safe. Take care of yourself, Rome. This family couldn't function without you."

I laughed it off because he was the golden son. He was the one we all wanted to be like. I inclined my head toward where Rule and Shaw were standing and arguing still.

"I'll take care of me, you take care of them. Try and keep your idiot other half out of trouble."

He just smiled somewhat sadly. "Which one?"

"Both of them."

We all hugged again and I went back inside. The next morning I was back on my way to a different desert and all of it was just mindless chatter that I forgot all about. I hit the ground running, went into mission-critical mode and under total blackout as soon as I landed. I was doing reconnaissance with a spec ops team for nearly two weeks before I had any kind of contact with the base.

They had been trying to reach me out in the field for three days before they managed to find someone that could relay a critical message from home.

Remy was dead.

There was an accident. He crashed his car on the interstate and hadn't made it. I was being granted only a few days' leave to get home for the funeral and then was expected back in proper fighting condition.

I felt like someone had stuck a serrated knife right through the center of my chest.

Remy was the good one, the best of the three of us. He was kind, he was loving, he was careful, and there was no way he was the one of us that was going to die before his time. Rule was going to get shot by an angry boyfriend or p.i.s.s off the wrong meat head at a bar. I was going to step on a land mine or get taken out by enemy fire. There was no way it was Remy's time.

I flew back in a daze. I couldn't think, couldn't feel. I was numb. I think that was how I missed my mom going from being just distant and snappy to Rule into totally arctic freeze-out mode. We were all sinking into a well of grief and despair for our own reasons and there was no way any of us could offer the others a hand out.

All I could think was that I hadn't even told him how much I loved him before I left. I had ordered him to take care of Rule, always told him to watch out for his more difficult brother, but never said anything about how amazing and impressed I was with the man he had become. I never let him know I might have been his hero, but he was mine. The regret that I squandered the last minutes I had with him was a bitter pill that I never managed to swallow. Add in the fact that I knew something was going on with him, something I needed to make him talk to me about, and a chunk of my heart, a part of my soul, went into the ground with him.

I went back to the desert without talking to my parents, without being able to look Rule in the eye because it hurt too bad to see Remy's eyes looking back at me. Every night for the next year, no matter what mission I was on, no matter what barracks I was in, no matter what part of the sandbox they sent me to, I went to bed at night thinking about everything I would do over again if I could. I had seen a lot of death in my line of work; it always sucked and it was always hard to forget, but nothing woke me up in the middle of the night with tears running down my face like the memory of those last wasted seconds with my brother.

There was a weight on me. Not the typical heavy, sucking weight of sorrow that I woke up with when that particular memory blindsided me, but a soft, warm weight that was whispering my name over and over again. I struggled up from the blackness and found Cora in my lap. She was literally straddling me, her hands on either side of my face. She was saying my name over and over again, whispering it against the scar on my forehead and against the twin tracks of moisture I could feel leaking out of each eye.

My baser instinct was to shove her off of me and get out of there. It was to bury the shame and sadness deep down inside and cover it with a layer of vodka so thick I couldn't ever feel it again, but I knew if I did that she wouldn't give me another shot, so I just stared at her and let her brush kisses all over my face until my heart rate slowed back down and I could breathe normally again. I put my hands on her waist and counted backward from twenty until I was absolutely sure I wasn't going to bolt on her again.

"Want to talk about it?"

No, I sure as h.e.l.l did not, but I had promised to let her in, so I would make an effort, and if it meant keeping her on top of me, stroking her fingers along my scalp, I would struggle through it even if it felt like it was killing me.

"Remy. I was thinking, maybe sort of dreaming, about Remy."

If the thought of a man's dead younger brother wasn't allowed to move him to burning-hot, sorrowful tears in his sleep, then nothing was. I wanted to be embarra.s.sed, didn't want Cora to see how fractured and torn on the inside I really was, but she just watched me and didn't say a word. The bluish green of her turquoise-colored eye was full of compa.s.sion and kindness; the melty chocolate of the brown one was much sharper, waiting to see what I was going to do now that I was naked and raw in front of her.

"The last time I saw him I was annoyed. My folks were on my nerves, Rule was acting obnoxious, Shaw was being weird, and something was going on with Remy that he wouldn't talk about. Now I know it was his secret and Shaw was all bent out of shape over Rule, but at the time all I wanted was to get back to work. I told him to take care of Rule, not that I loved him, or that I missed him, or that I was so proud to be his brother. I just told him to keep Rule out of trouble."

I had to swallow back the flood of memory in order to keep talking to her. She just kept her eyes steady on mine. She didn't interject, didn't tell me it would all be fine, she just watched me and let her fingertips run along my shorn hair.

"When I came back for the funeral everything had turned to s.h.i.t. Rule decided that the best way to deal with the loss was to be even more of an a.s.shole than he was already. Shaw turned into this conciliatory, peacemaking machine, and my parents immediately went into blame mode. It was Rule's fault for calling for a ride, it was my fault for not being home to keep an eye on him, and it was Shaw's fault for letting him go. They put him in the ground and every single one of us went with him."

I had to blink and strain to keep my eyes on her. My fingers flexed involuntarily as I tried to decide if I wanted to pull her closer or push her away.

"I went back to the desert and watched more kids die, gave more of myself to the sand and the enemy, and then when I came home last time, things went from bad to worse. Mom had turned into this grief-filled monster who wanted to eat Rule alive. Shaw was head over heels in love with him and he was oblivious and it was killing her. And then there was Remy. Gone but always there between all of us and his G.o.dd.a.m.n secret that everyone seemed to know but me and Rule. I was so mad at him. Mad at him for lying, mad at him for using Shaw, mad at him for being gone, but mostly I was so furious with myself for letting him go that last time without saying something that mattered. Maybe if I had been different, acted differently, he would have been comfortable enough to tell me about his life. It's all I can think about."

We sat there in silence for a long time, just looking at each other. She kept stroking my head and it was interesting to watch her thoughts play out in those odd-colored eyes. Remorse for me flashed in one, while disapproval and something else flashed in the other. She didn't like me beating myself up over something that couldn't be undone, but it was clear she wasn't going to condemn me for it either.

"You don't honestly believe that either of those boys ever doubted how much you love them, how much you sacrificed for them? Do you?"

I shook my head slowly in the negative. "No."

"Good. Because no matter what you said to him, the words didn't matter. He knew. Rule knows. You could have told Remy all those things, and he still would have gotten in that car that night. Losing him that way would still have you hurting and your family in disarray. You know he knew you loved him. That's all that matters, Rome. If he wanted you and Rule to know, he would have told you. That's all there is to it. That's not your fault, it's not your parents', and it sure as h.e.l.l isn't Shaw's. At some point you have to just let it rest."