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“So, who is Eliza?” I asked, taking a seat at the edge of the porch next to Romeo. He was picking at the grass, one blade after another, tearing them to shreds and then starting again with a new piece.
I wondered if he was even going to answer me because he continued to sit there, ripping and tearing silently, his eyes unfocused and sad.
“I’m not going to leave until you tell me,” I tried again. Refusing to back down. “If she’s important to you, she’s important to me. I want to help, but you have to give up this hard-ass, ‘I can do it on my own’ act that you have going on. It’s me. I have your fucking back. The club, too.”
Romeo finally snorted, the first show of emotion I’d managed to drag from him. “I don’t need anyone to have my back, Hamlet. I’ve done just fine so fucking far.”
“Oh, yeah, you’ve done fucking dandy, haven’t you? You know, got yourself buried so deep in this pile of shit that Meyah was attacked, then Leo and Hadley’s wedding was shot up, and I got shot protecting Harlyn. You know Harlyn? My president’s eight-year-old daughter?”
I wasn’t fucking around anymore. Things with Romeo were so fucking unpredictable constantly. One moment he was acting like he felt at home here with the club, and then suddenly, he would shut down.
“Oh, and let’s not forget the fact I went to fucking jail because your hot-headed dumb ass took a gun that I legally owned. And to top it all off, you fucked one of the girls in my bed, and now my Old Lady thinks I’m a fucking cheating bastard. How am I doing so far? Because I think we have a different definition of ‘just fine.’”
I wasn’t going to let him get away with downplaying the shit this club had done for him.
Yeah, I was waiting for his comeback about how this was all my fucking fault because if I’d fought harder, or if I hadn’t been such a goody-two-shoes than things with Visser would have never reached this level. But there comes a point where we all have to take responsibility for our own choices and our own actions.
“Fine. You want to be my fucking therapist? I’m confused okay,” he finally admitted, and for a moment, I saw a flash of that little boy I grew up with. When he was so young, he would follow me around and want to be just like me. The little boy that did a runner from his classroom on his first day at school and came and found me, refusing to leave my side for the entire day. The little boy that trusted me to look after him and protect him.
“Why are you confused?”
I was always so sure that Romeo knew exactly who he was. Yeah, things hadn’t been fucking easy for him. He’d been beaten down and broken for years, forced to do a lot of shit that I can’t even imagine having the stomach to go through, but to hear he was feeling lost, that twisted my gut.
He cleared his throat, finally turning his face to look at me. “You found your place. I get that. I’m you know… I’m fucking glad that you did. Phee, too. I see how happy she is over in Cali now she has a home where she’s safe. She’s going to school. She has friends that are solid.”
I nodded, hearing what he was saying. At least, I thought I was hearing what he was saying. “You feel like you haven’t found your place?”
He shook his head and my brow knitted together in confusion. “That’s just it. I think I have, but honestly, I don’t want you or Phee to think less of me for it.”
Now, I was finally hearing him.
I wasn’t stupid.
I knew there was a part of Romeo that thrived on the way he lived on the wrong side of the law. That wasn’t exactly a foreign concept to me. I knew he didn’t agree with everything he was made to do. But essentially, he was a big player, he was respected by criminal leaders that the club would even have second thoughts about working with or even being in the same room as.
He was powerful.
But he’d also spent a long time being controlled and manipulated at the same time.
I tried to sum it up. “You’re confused because as much as you hated Visser and how that motherfucker treated you and used you… you loved being a part of the darkness?”
His head instantly fell, hanging low as if he was ashamed and embarrassed. “He forced me to take jobs that seriously questioned my morals. It wasn’t as if I enjoyed every single part. And if I decide to go back, things would be different.”
Here I was thinking that maybe Romeo would join the club.
Actually, being completely honest, I knew he never would. But I guess I was holding out fucking hope. Having him here with me would make everything so damn complete.
Phee was happy.
Romeo would be a real part of the brotherhood.
And I’d have Meyah by my side.
Needed to work on that shit.
“You know everything the club does isn’t exactly above the fucking law,” I started, swiping my hair back from my face. “I’m not trying to make comparisons, but there’s been shit we’ve had to do that made me question whether I was a good person, whether I deserved to be fucking happy.”
Romeo’s head bobbed up and down in agreement. “Yes, exactly.”
