Rowdy(34)

“Other things on your mind, my ass.”

He chuckled at me and looked back down at what he was doing. “We had to be sure. It’s not like it was something we were planning on. Now that I know for sure, I’ll be able to focus more on the shop and the store.”

“Everything happens for a reason.”

Rule paused and lifted the machine up off the client’s ink-smeared flesh. He looked back at me again and this time his eyes were winter cool and his expression pointed.

“Or sometimes accidents happen and we just work with them, consider them a blessing. Not everything is preordained, Rowdy. You should know this by now. Shit really does just happen. Look at Rome and Cora. None of what happened with them was on the agenda, but it happened and it all worked out.”

I disagreed, but I wasn’t going to argue the point and take away from the excitement of the fact he was starting a family with the perfect girl for him. And it was my firm belief that Rome and Cora had been thrown together by something far bigger than either of them so they could save each other. Little baby Remy was just a happy result of the fact the two of them were meant to be.

“Either way, congratulations, dude.” He nodded his thanks. I left him to finish his tattoo.

I always figured the things that happened, good or bad, had to be happening for a reason. There had to be a reason my mom was taken from me when I was too young to take care of myself. For a long time I reasoned that she had to go so that I could be taken in by the Ortegas and placed next to Poppy. I would have never met her otherwise. When Poppy had dashed all the dreams and hopes I had built on her young shoulders, I thought her turning away from me had been orchestrated to get me out of football, to get me on the path to my true calling and to Phil. Now all those little things, all those little pieces, were building a road to the other Cruz sister. I never considered a reason for all those things happening, but now I wasn’t so sure that Salem wasn’t the final destination my mother’s tragic end had been pointing me to from the very beginning.

SALEM WAS LOOKING AT ME like I was off my rocker.

The puppy was bounding around like a lunatic on the end of the leash. I think out of the three of us making the trek to City Park, he was the only one who was overjoyed to be headed out for day outside in the sun. His antic were making me have to hold onto the handle of his leash in a tight grip. The park was right off of Colfax. It was huge, green, and crowded with locals and tourists alike out to enjoy a beautiful Colorado summer day. I picked it because it was within walking distance of Salem’s apartment and that gave her an easy out if things got weird or if she decided she wasn’t going to get past the fact that she thought Poppy was very much standing between us even though I had no clue where the other Cruz sister was even at and frankly didn’t really care.

“The park? Are we twelve years old?”

She had heeded my warning and dressed down for our Sunday outing. Her dark hair was tied in long braids down either side of her head, the red stripe making her look like she had a flashy hot-rod racing stripe in her hair. She was wearing cutoff jean shorts that showed off her caramel-colored legs that had beautiful ink sprinkled across the surface and she was rocking black Chucks that were identical to my own. And just because she couldn’t help but emanate sensuality and dark beauty, she had on a tight plaid shirt that was tied up over her navel, flashing her taut tummy and a secret tattoo that dipped below the waistband of her shorts that I was dying to check out. She looked perfect and she didn’t have a drop of makeup on her face. The only thing I wished was different was that I could see her eyes, but they were hidden behind a massive pair of sunglasses that just showed my reflection back at me as I stared at her.

“It’s Colorado. We do things outside here when it’s nice. It’ll be fun, I promise.”

The puppy looked at us, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, and I laughed at the goofy picture he made.

“You really want to do this?” She tossed the football I had handed her when we started our walk from one of her hands to the other and I grinned at her.

“Yep. You used to have a pretty good spiral.”

I was sure if I could see her eyes she would be rolling them at me. “I still do.”

That made me laugh, and once we got to the park and found a place that wasn’t overly crowded where we could throw the ball back and forth and let Jimbo run off the leash without bothering anyone else, I put my own sunglasses on and told her, “We used to toss the ball back and forth all the time. It was fun. We deserve to have things that are still fun from then. I just thought maybe it would take us back to a time that was easier for us to be around each other.”