Motown Throwdown (24 page)

Clearly she hadn’t been aware of the ice because she screamed “Fuck!” before slip sliding and finally crashing. Her book stayed in the air longer than she did and sliding over, I drop to my knees to help her.

“From where I was standing that was pretty graceful, Teach. Nice language by the way.” I say trying to help her up.

“I broke my fucking ankle,” she moans. Biting the tip of her glove and pulling each one off she covers her ankle in protection. “Just go, Roman,” she snaps. “I’m fine, I’ll crawl to the clinic.”

This would be the only time she’d let me carry her and I didn’t want to put her down. I didn’t care who saw us, I just liked that she needed me. Two hours and several curses later, I helped her up to her apartment and watched her trying to use her crutches. When Kandace wasn’t studying, tutoring or bitching me out she had a foul mouth that I loved. I won’t lie and say her having to use crutches wasn’t beneficial to me because it was.

It also drove her nuts.

Last night was hands-down the highlight of my adult life.

All of my minutes with her were memorable, but she had a fucking stripper pole in her arsenal. A man doesn’t forget a woman working a pole. She worked that shit like a pro first and me second. I’m no stranger to fucking but this surpassed fucking this, was pure magic. The way she worked me over, Christ… I have never felt that way and know that’s because of her, it was love and trust, it was our unique bond. It was ten God damn years in the making. No female has ever made me feel desired, needed and off the charts aroused like she does. Her body moved like she was boneless, she just flowed and she awed me.

Grocery shopping was not one of my favorite things to do, especially with a stiffy. Crowds were not my favorite thing to be around and being away from her, hurt. She went in early so she could get home in time to start cooking dinner. We both were excited to have our families under one roof. Checking out and stopping at Lush to grab my pay, Jules and Max had their heads together (literally) when I came in.

“Rome,” says Max calling me over. “Do you want a copy of this tape?”

Jules had it memorized and Max wasn’t too far behind. When I heard Kandace tell Michelle
I waited ten years
with need in her voice and
, while he was serving his time for a crime he didn’t commit I became a doctor, a good one. So when I tell you that I’m going to deviate your septum, bust your mouth open, snap your collar bone and severely blacken both eyes, we’ll just call it doctor’s orders, kay?
But then she nailed it with
, You came here to violate the restraining order. I know your type, bitch. The second he was within ten feet of you, you’d have called the cops. Momma’s here to make sure baby girl doesn’t make it to the phone
. I memorized all of it. She did this for me.

“Yeah,” I tell him pulling up a chair to watch it again. “I want a copy.”

“I’m military,” says Jules taking notes. “I know the basics of karate but our girl is a black belt. A black-fucking-belt. She’s like a white Jet Li!”

Laughing at them both, I wait for Max to burn my copy before getting ready to leave. “She loves me,” I blurt.

“Duh,” says Jules smiling.

“Congrats,” says Max in that awkward way he has.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “Still getting used to it.”

“Feels good, right?” she asks getting out of her chair to approach. “Never felt anything better,” I tell her returning the hug she forced on me.

“Hands off my wife,” he says with no anger whatsoever.

“She started it,” I tease letting her go.

Three people actually call my phone, one I just hugged who pays me, another is my grandma, who won’t call while driving and Kandace. Answering, I hear a lot of noise but plug my ear hoping to hear her better. “Kandace?”

“Where are you?” she asks breathless.

“Lush,” I tell her. “Talking with Jules---“

“Have them bring you to me, say my name when you get here and leave now, Rome.”

“What’s wrong?” I rush out.

“It’s Clara,” she says quickly. “Get here, Rome, I’m doing everything I can. I love you.”

Running for the door I knew that they were right behind me. When I threw my door open, Max jumped in the driver’s seat and Jules pushed me into the back. “Get me to Kandace!” Gripping my phone, my mind was a mess of events and I couldn’t focus on a single one. Even with Max flying, it felt like we were crawling.  Jules did her best to calm me down, reminding me that my grandma was in the best of hands, but I needed to see both of them. The second we hit the front of the ER, I ran in and told them I needed Kandace. Ushering me back to the waiting room, they told me they’d let her know I was there and that she’d be out as quickly as possible.

Jules also walked off for a bit and when she came back she told me Kandace personally was working on my grandma. My fucking heart stopped. “She’s the best, you know that,” she reminds me. I knew she was but I needed her right now and I was so God damn conflicted I didn’t even realize they had sat me down. Hours went by, hours. They must have called the crew because Bishop, Venessa, Rogan, Tony, Lina, Rafe, and Macy all showed to offer me support. It was appreciated but again, I just needed Kandace.

It was four minutes after seven when she came out.

It was nine minutes after seven that I ruined the foundation I waited ten years to build.

When I broke my ankle I was determined to handle it on my own. But then, there he was driving me from my apartment to class, carrying my pack, and taking me back home. He refused to let me do anything. Honestly, he acted as if taking care of me made him happy. The guy I thought was gone came through and the crush I’d carried for him turned into full on longing. For three weeks I had him to myself and we talked about everything. Books, music, football, medicine, and family.

When he found an opportunity to touch me, he took it and I let him. But like all things, my ankle wouldn’t stay broken forever and two weeks later I was moved into an air cast and he behaved as disappointed as I felt. The weeks of time with him all but evaporated. When I was mobile again, he went back to being fake Roman and it cut me deep. I didn’t get it and was too hurt to ask for fear of his response. Falling back into my role, I knew I’d miss tutoring him at my place and hated going back to the library because there the fantasy ended. The second we went back, the Roman I fell for was gone. Poof, vanished.

I couldn’t do this.

I couldn’t go out there.

Sitting on the floor with my head between my legs it was pure devastation that kept me from moving. Five and a half hours of surgery. Her life had been in my hands, her blood was covering my scrubs as proof. I tried. I had tried so hard but I lost her. “Doctor,” says one of the nurses. “It’s time.”

Nodding to her, I put my lab coat and my game face on. Clearing the doors and making a left toward the family waiting room, the second I opened the door, the only one that registered was Rome. In a blink he was on his feet and grabbing me.  He was talking a mile a minute but I can’t speak yet, it was too hard. Maybe my face gave it away to the others because everyone surrounded him in support of what was to come.

“Rome,” I say taking his hands. “She had a heart attack---“

“No…” he whimpers.

“She was on the freeway and lost control of her car,” I try to explain.

“Heart attack?”

“Yes,” I manage. “I tried, Rome, but after I repaired the damage I wasn’t able to bring her---“

“She’s dead?”

“Rome,” I start.

“She’s fucking dead?”

At a loss of what to say or do, I nod and tell him in a firm voice, “Yes, Rome she is. I am so sorry.”

Grabbing onto me he pulls me down into a chair and screams into my neck. Holding him, trying to comfort him, I gave him time to get it out. It helped that the others each laid a hand on him too. Whispering to him, telling him how sorry I was, how hard I tried and how much I loved him didn’t do what I had hoped. It did the opposite, it enraged him.

With the force only Rome could offer, he pushed me off of him so hard I landed on the floor with a crack. Bishop was there to help me up but the shock of the act rendered me motionless. When he came at me again, it took all the men minus Bishop who was my shield, to hold him back.

Screaming obscenities at me, he looked like he wanted to strangle me, that I was the enemy and I was terrified. Not of him, but of what this outburst meant. Holding my ground, I continued to tell him I was sorry, that I was here to help and even the others tried too, but he wasn’t listening.

When they got him back in a chair and kept him there he calmed down enough to deliver the final blow. The one I would never forget as long as I lived.

“Twice,” he says shaking everyone off and locking eyes with me. “You failed me
twice
. You didn’t save her. Fuck you,
Teach
.”

Staggering back, I shake my head to clear it of what I just heard.

Yes, he just received awful news, the worst kind of news possible but I did everything in my power to save her. Everything. I even brought her back four times when I knew she was gone after two. Stunned, I push the door open and exited. Out in the hall, I was held up by the wall and when Jules came out, she just held me.

“He doesn’t mean it, Kandy Kane,” she whispers rubbing my back.

Shrugging her off and putting my heart break aside, I told her the truth.

“Yes, he does. He meant it ten years ago and he meant it tonight. I should have taken my own advice and listened.” Turning and walking away, I left the orders with the attending and clocked out. Whether he went back to say goodbye or not was his choice. I personally prepped her in the event that he did she would look peaceful to him. That his last memory would be of her sleeping.

I did my part, my job. I had wanted to be there for him, needed to be. I had thought he would have been comforted by the fact that it was the woman he loved that tried to save her. I’ll be God damned if I ever fucking tell him what her last words were.

I’ll be God damned if I ever let him near me or my heart again after this.

The days of Roman using me like a football to punt were over.

“What is this?” I ask snatching an envelope from her hand. “It’s a letter,” she says rolling her eyes. “See, that’s my name and that’s the address where it’s going. Inside is a piece of paper with words on it---“

“Smart ass,” I say handing it back. “Who even writes letters anymore?”

“I do, obviously,” she says opening her book.

“Who’s it to?”

“A solider overseas,” she says. “He was wounded several months ago and we write each other. I’m trying to keep his spirits up.”

I’m sure more than his spirts were up if he knew what his pen pal looked like. “You send him pictures of yourself?”

“What? No!” she says appalled. “The site said uploading one was optional and I did but it was from the neck up. Knowing how your brain works, I assume you think---“

“Did his dick get blown off?” I ask.

“Well no,” she stumbles.

“Then he’s thinking with it.” After she picks her jaw up off the floor she laughed.

Then she laughed so hard that it won a smirk from me. Leaning forward and resting her chin on the top of her hand she whispers, “Touché.”

But that was Kandace always thinking about others first. Writing to a guy laid up in the hospital never once thinking he’d be jacking off to her picture, pure her.

Burying my grandma without Kandace by my side was the hardest thing I’d ever done. Prison was easier than watching her casket being lowered into the ground without her there. Coming home to an empty house was no easier. Every time a car door slammed I expected her to walk through the door and tell me about what she’d been up to but she never does. Which always brought me back to Kandace. The one who always needed her routine. I got it now. I needed the routine back too and it was fucking gone.