When I’d gotten to her, she’d been a shell.
A broken hard taco shell, in a million and one pieces, and there was no way she’d ever be fixed the same way again.
Now, though she was still usable—still able to live her life—she wasn’t able to live it the same way she’d once done.
That meant that we dealt with panic attacks.
That meant that we dealt with her being scared of the dark.
That meant that, when she quit work, I didn’t complain.
That meant that, when she decided that she was going to hide and not live her life, I hid with her.
But I didn’t want her to hide anymore.
I wanted her to live.
“I’ve already talked to someone up there. They’re going to hold it when you can go,” I promised.
She shook her head. “Maybe next month.”
I grumbled in frustration as I reached in my pocket for Vlad’s pacifier that was stashed there.
“Here,” I snapped. “Take this, or he’ll scream the entire time I’m gone.”
Fran took it with a roll of her eyes. “You know he only screams for you. He’s a beautiful baby for the rest of us.”
That was too true.
In the last two and a half months that Vlad had been alive, he’d proven that he liked everyone better than he liked me.
Which fucking sucked.
Shouldn’t your own kid like you?
I mean, I didn’t even get the same kind of smiles out of him that Murphy did when we passed each other in the grocery store.
Hell, then there’d been the time that my grandmother had seen him while we were at the doctor’s office. She’d been coming out of her own cardiologist appointment.
Vlad had smiled at her like she wasn’t the wicked witch of the west.
And when I’d taken off without saying a word to her, she’d called my name, and my kid had up and cried when I wouldn’t turn back.
Then he’d cried all the way home.
That, sadly, was only a handful of instances that had led me to the decision to start back at CrossFit.
The problem? Now that I was working full-time as a nurse anesthetist, the only times I could go was when Murphy was working out, or late at night when I was tired.
Which led me to now.
I was going at the ass crack of dawn, and really not wanting to.
Even worse, when I got there, I instantly got a scowl from Murphy as I walked in the gym door.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m here because I either work out right now, or I don’t work out at all. And I need to work out. Bad.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “You’re not fat.”
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t say that I was. I’m just…I’m stressed.”
I didn’t want to go into detail.
But when he crossed his arms and leaned against the rig at his back, expecting an explanation, I was unable to stop myself.
I told him everything.
I unloaded every single burden that I had onto him. Ending with the way he pissed me off.
“So you think your kid doesn’t like you. Your grandmother won’t stop calling you. And you think I hate you,” he summarized.
I blushed at that last part.
“I think that you’re humoring me,” I admitted. “You talk to me because you feel sorry for me.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I do.”
• • •
Three months later
I hated him.
I officially hated him.
He’d said something mean to me last class, and I’d left in a really bad mood. I’d woken up in an even worse mood.
And to make matters worse, I now had to see Madden and him working out side by side.
They were eye candy in their purest forms.
Though, concern started to enter my heart when I saw how bad he looked after the workout.
I’d been so obsessed with him over the last month, so cued in to his every single move, that I’d noticed his decline.
Something was wrong.
He couldn’t even get through a workout anymore without having to stop for breaks. And not even for water. He literally had such a hard time catching his breath at times that I’d become concerned and stopped my workout just to make sure he was all right.
And that went over like a turd in a punch bowl.
What made it even worse was to see Madden and him working out next to each other.
I’d never been able to really compare him to other people because the men and women that went to the early class weren’t as physically fit than the other classes. That, or they were way older, so their movements appeared slower compared to the other classes anyway.
But today, Madden had wanted to work out because he had a SWAT event later this morning, and he wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
Which led us to now.
I was done with my workout.
I was still scaling everything down due to not being back into shape like I was PV—pre-Vlad.
So it gave me plenty of time to ponder just how physically ill Murphy was starting to look.
And I didn’t like what my mind was putting together.
Nor did I like his defensiveness when he caught me staring at him dying on the floor once he’d finished.
• • •
2 months later
I didn’t know why I was at Murphy’s shop.
I knew he wouldn’t like me being there.
I knew he would take one look at me, and the mean words he couldn’t stop himself from spewing would come out of his mouth.
But I was there, because today was the day that I figured out what in the hell was going on with Alessio Murphy Romano.
At least, that’d been my intention.
However, when I arrived inside Murphy’s office it was to find him sitting at his desk with Madden’s adult son, Jasper, leaning his hips against the other side of the desk while they spoke.
“…the lawyer just outside of town. His name is Jarome Matters. He’s a slick SOB who knows everything there is to know about the law. But he’s also not necessarily a family estate lawyer, either. He dabbles in a little bit of everything. I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to help you do what you need done.”
Vlad cooed, excited to see the man that he loved more than his own mother, and both sets of eyes swung in my direction.
I’d purposefully parked at the bottom of the driveway so that Murphy wouldn’t hear me pull up. So he wouldn’t be able to send his mother out here to ‘deal’ with me like he had the last time while he hid somewhere in his big shop.
But this time, I didn’t see his mother.
Vlad screeched again and lunged.
The only thing holding him in place at this point was my strong hold on his hips.
Murphy’s face went from blank to happy at the sight of my kid, and that battered and bruised thing inside of my chest bumped slightly in reaction.
I walked over and handed Vlad to Murphy before he hurt himself or me—I’d literally thrown my back out twice over his short life trying to keep him in my arms. And both times had been because he’d wanted down when I hadn’t expected it.
The moment that Vlad hit Murphy’s arms, he threw himself into the world’s tiniest hug, and laid his head down on the big man’s chest.