Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
I like my mornings slow and quiet. I want the day to romance me before it tries to fuck me.
—Romeo’s secret thoughts
Romeo
The soup, like everything the woman cooked, was fantastic.
The bread that she’d scrounged up was the perfect addition, too.
She’d seriously missed her calling not opening up her own restaurant.
Oh, and let’s not forget the cookies that she’d pulled out of my freezer and popped into the oven.
“I’m not going to be able to live like this.” I patted my belly. “I feel like I’m going to pop.”
“You’ll live.” She batted her eyelashes at me. “Now, let’s go cuddle under the blankets on the couch and watch Blue Bloods!”
She loved the show.
I’d introduced her to it a week ago, and we were already in the fourth season.
Personally, I hadn’t liked the show all that much myself.
Having an issue with cops didn’t necessarily make me all warm and fuzzy inside to watch a cop show.
But I always felt like watching the Reagans on the show was how I felt like policing should be.
Not what I’d gotten in my own personal experience.
We made it to the couch, and Mable was currently lying curled up against my side, her beautiful head in my lap with her hair going everywhere. My fingers were skimming through the silky locks when my phone vibrated on the coffee table in front of us.
She reached for it with her toes and pinched the device between her big toe and her second toe.
I snorted when she brought it up to me and offered it to me like she was offering it with her hand.
“Thanks,” I teased, tickling her foot when she went to drop it back underneath the blanket.
She snickered and paused the show, yawning slightly as I answered the phone.
“Apollo,” I said, placing the phone to my ear.
“Houston,” Apollo drawled. “We have a problem.”
He’d been at home for a half hour. How could there already be a problem?
“What now?” I grumbled, knowing I wasn’t going to like what he had to say.
“You’re not going to like what I have to say,” Apollo said.
“I knew she was good. But I think we fucked up by showing our faces together. She looked into everyone in your life and didn’t find anything, because I’m just that good.
But when I showed up, she recognized me.
She looked into my life, and she found your old one. ”
God.
Dammit.
I’d have to leave.
There was no way I could stay here now.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
“Don’t freak out just yet,” he ordered. “You’re well hidden.
At this point, she only suspects. But you look nothing like what you used to look like.
When you went into prison, you were seventy-five pounds lighter and had the baby face of all baby faces.
You don’t look anything like that man anymore. Plus, the old you is dead.”
I closed my eyes as exhaustion washed through me.
I knew this life was too good to be true.
This life. This place. This woman.
Nothing was ever for me.
I didn’t have the kind of life conducive with being this happy.
I…
“Romeo.”
Apollo’s snap had me blinking past the panic. “Yeah?”
“Don’t freak out,” he repeated.
Yeah right.
Easy for him to say.
His whole life wasn’t currently flashing before his eyes.
“Got the boys rounded up. Gentry’s at the police station watching the girl’s so-called stepmother. Get down to the country club so we can make plans.” He paused. “Leave Mable behind. I want to get everything figured out before we bring her in.”
“Will do,” I said, stomach souring. “They need me right now?”
“Yeah,” Apollo said. “Waiting on you.”
I ground my teeth and cursed again inwardly.
Of course this was my life.
“I’m booking a flight back now.”
I’d no sooner hung up with Apollo just to have to answer it again when Gentry called.
“What?” I growled.
“We have a problem, man,” Gentry said carefully. “She’s in custody. But she knows, man. She wants to talk to your girl.”
I gritted my teeth.
“She knows about all of us? Or just me?” I asked.
Six months.
That was all that I’d gotten.
I’d have to move.
I’d have to…
“Just you for now,” he said. “I…” He paused. “Guess I’ll meet you at the country club.”
The country club had become our de facto home base.
When we’d moved here, Apollo had seen the huge, stuck-up facility had been put on the market, and he’d seen the opportunity for what it was.
A place that was practically made for people like us who just wanted to exist in peace.
The country club was more of a resort for the crème de la crème of the upper crust of society to have a place to go when they came down to go skiing during the winter.
It wasn’t my favorite place to go, due to mainly the type of people that frequented it, but it offered the discretion that was needed in a time like this.
“See you in half an hour,” I murmured.
At some point Mable had sat up and started to clean up around where we’d been lounging.
When I got finished with my call with Gentry, she was in the kitchen putting away a charcuterie board she’d made at some point.
“I have to run by the country club,” I muttered. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
She smiled at me, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I should go home anyway. I have no clothes to wear tomorrow for church that are clean, nor do I have any work clothes ready to go for Monday. Do you want me to take yours and wash them, too?”
I was already shaking my head. “No.”
If I didn’t have my clothes, that meant that if I needed to leave, I couldn’t without first stopping by her place.
And I just didn’t think I’d be able to say goodbye to her if I did have to leave.
I wasn’t built like that.
To say goodbye to Mable would likely rip my heart out…
She finished putting the food away, then walked to the door and slipped her tennis shoes on, not bothering to change her clothes out of the ones of mine she’d been wearing.
My heart panged in my chest at the thought of her having them.
By the end of the week, my scent would be off them.
Eventually, she wouldn’t wear them at all.
I’d just be a bad memory that she thought about every once in a while.
When she was in her shoes, she stood up and pursed her lips.
Even that made my stomach clench.
I moved toward her and cupped her face.
After placing the kiss of a lifetime on those upturned lips, I said, “Take care of yourself, Mable Louise.”
She scoffed. “I always do.”