Rome's Chance (Reapers MC #6.6)(22)

“Meds,” she gasped, pointing at the nebulizer, and I realized I didn’t even know how the damned thing worked.

“Lexi!” I shouted. “Get in here—I need help!”

She came running back, taking it all in with one glance.

“I’m on it,” my sister said. “Out of the way.”

Moving quickly and efficiently, she opened a tiny plastic vial of clear liquid. Then she twisted off the top and squirted it in the little cup thingie attached to the machine with clear tubing. In seconds she had the top back on, attached it to a mask, and then slipped the whole thing around Mom’s head with an elastic.

The machine whirled to life and I watched as a cloud of vapor filled the mask. Mom kept coughing, but slowly the medicine did its work. The coughing stopped. Another couple minutes and the wheezing went away, too. Mom still looked like hell, but she was breathing just fine.

As for me, my heart was pounding. The woman drove me crazy, but I loved her. Of course, it was easy to love someone so difficult when they lived nearly four hundred miles away. My sixteen-year-old sister had to deal with her on a daily basis.

“How long has she been like this?” I asked Lexi.

“Six months,” she replied, clearly exhausted. Not the kind of exhaustion that comes from lack of sleep—this was the kind that comes from endless stress and too much responsibility. “It’s been getting worse.”

I glanced toward Mom. She wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I felt a twinge of guilt. Not that I regretted calling her out over the way she treated Lexi, and I still had every intention of throwing away her weed. But I could’ve handled it better.

“Should we take her to the ER or something?” I asked, raising a hand to rub the back of my neck. The muscles were tense.

“Not unless she gets worse,” Lexi replied. “The nebulizer usually takes care of it, and she responded pretty fast this time. It’s when the nebulizer doesn’t work that things get scary. Let’s talk in the kitchen.”

“Is it safe to leave her?”

“I can hear you,” Mom said, her voice hoarse. “So don’t talk about me like I’m not here.”

Frowning, I sat down on the bed next to her, then caught one of her hands and held it in mine.

“I love you,” I said, looking up at her face. She rolled her eyes, but she squeezed my hand. Lexi crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall, watching us. “Why are you doing this to yourself?”

“I know it’s stupid,” Mom admitted. “But it’s fast and it feels good. And sometimes that’s just what I want. I used to take oxy, you know. I’m off it now. The weed is way healthier.”

“I understand why you want pot,” I replied. “It’s the smoking I can’t figure out—why don’t you just eat it?”

“Takes too long.”

Lexi snorted, and I shot her a look. She flipped us off, then walked out, shutting the door hard behind her.

Sixteen going on forty.

“Don’t throw my drugs away,” Mom said, squeezing my hand again. “I don’t have the money to buy more. You can bake it into brownies for me, how’s that? Before you go home? You don’t leave until tomorrow afternoon, right? There’s time.”

I sighed, then nodded my head.

“I’ll do it,” I told her. “But after this, you have to get edibles, okay? It’s not just about your asthma. Kayden shouldn’t have to go to school smelling like a dirty bong.”

She pulled her hand away and we sat in silence for a minute. Then she sighed. “I haven’t been much of a mother.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She really hadn’t.

“You need to make a plan,” I finally told her. “Some way to take care of yourself and the kids. Lexi can’t keep doing all this.”

“I know. I will, baby. I promise. Things will be different.”

They wouldn’t.

I’d heard her say the same thing a thousand times, but this time it sounded like a prison door slamming shut. Lexi and Kayden needed me. They weren’t my responsibility, but someone had to take care of them.

I thought about my apartment in Missoula, and my job.

“So are you looking forward to the reunion tonight?” she asked. “You’re looking pretty sexy with that shiner.”

“You know, I’d forgotten all about it,” I admitted. The bruise had seemed like such a big deal when I’d gotten it. But compared to my home drama, it was nothing. “I think I’ll probably go. I saw Peaches Taylor last night. She looked good.”

“God, her mother was a wild one. We used to party together.”

Of course they had.

“I need to help Lexi,” I said, standing up. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, but she wouldn’t meet my gaze. “The asthma looks scary, but your sister is exaggerating. It’s not that bad.”

She was lying and we both knew it.

“Okay,” I said, playing along. Then I went to find my sister.





Chapter Seven



Rome



I woke up to find the apartment empty.

So much for morning sex.

Not that I’d actually expected it, but I’ve always been an optimistic kind of guy. What I had expected was to cook Randi breakfast and revisit her little speech about our lack of relationship potential. She probably thought sneaking out on me would end the conversation.