When I retired from the NFL, I’d put on quite a bit of weight. Sure, it wasn’t necessarily bad weight. While I’d been in, though, I’d had to be super strict with what I did and didn’t put in my body. It was only when I no longer needed to be as strict that I’d changed the way I ate. My workout routine had also become inconsistent.
I hadn’t been fat, but I sure as hell hadn’t been in tiptop shape, either.
Ever since Matias’ passing, I had nothing else better to do—meaning I’d been working my ass off to get back into shape—better shape—than I’d been in.
I wasn’t back to one hundred percent yet, but it was close.
I felt better—at least physically—and looked better, too. As long as you didn’t look at the frown lines on my face, or the deep bags under my eyes indicating that I barely managed to get five to six hours of sleep at night—and definitely not consecutively.
“Whether your ass is or isn’t any of my business doesn’t really matter,” she said lightly, opening the bag that contained the food. “I had my Abuela make us some food. I can cook—but I don’t necessarily have all that much time. In case you’re wondering.”
I wasn’t.
I was also a liar.
I wondered about her constantly.
There was never a point where she was ever far from my mind.
I’d seemed to shift my focus from my son to her.
I’d become obsessed, and I wasn’t sure that it was entirely healthy at this point.
Yet…I couldn’t help it.
She started pulling out foil packets, and I felt my gut tighten.
I could resist a lot of things. A lot.
In fact, had she pulled out any other thing than what she did, I would’ve curled my lip up at her and told her that I didn’t want it.
But…she knew my weakness.
How she knew my weakness, I didn’t know.
But she did…and I couldn’t stop myself.
I groaned.
Izzy’s smile was nothing short of beaming.
“Knew you couldn’t resist this,” she said, a small laugh tinging her words.
I frowned. “How?”
She blinked innocently at me. “How what?”
“How did you know that tamales were my weakness?” I asked.
She licked her lips nervously. “Uhhh, no idea.”
The little liar.
But since I didn’t want to talk to her, and I sure the fuck didn’t want her to think that I was interested in holding a conversation with her when I sure the fuck wasn’t, I held my tongue. And my accusations.
Instead, I tried to fight the temptation of reaching for one of the tamales that she unwrapped and shoved to sit directly in front of me.
I managed to make it through about four or five seconds of it wafting up into my nostrils, and then I caved.
“Fuck you,” I said, reaching for it.
Izzy didn’t give me a smug look. In fact, there was no smugness in her appearance at all.
She just smiled at me and reached for her own tamale.
I went through about eight of the little delicious bastards before I came to my senses.
It took everything I had to put the one down that I hadn’t finished yet, and I leveled Izzy with a glare to end all glares.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, sounding just as frustrated as I felt.
“Because you’re ignoring me,” she answered. “And I don’t like being ignored.”
I glared. “I’m not sure if you know this or not, but the world doesn’t revolve around you.”
Izzy laughed. “Oh, I know it.”
“Then why are you pushing when I don’t want to be pushed?” I crossed my arms.
“Because someone needs to,” she answered. “And, I’m tired of how you’re acting. You didn’t die, Rome. Yet, for all intents and purposes, you did. I realize that you’ve lost something great but ignoring everyone and everything isn’t going to make that heartache go away.”
I knew that.
But hearing my best friend’s voice reminded me of Matias because I’d named my son after him.
Hearing Izzy’s voice reminded me of Matias and how he’d wanted her there with him because she brought him cookies.
Hearing Liner’s voice reminded me of Tara—which reminded me of Matias.
It was a vicious fucking cycle, one that was just easier to ignore than to admit that it hurt.
The only people who didn’t remind me of Matias were complete strangers, and even then, it was a crap shoot. Hell, there was a girl that was eighteen or nineteen that’d been visiting her father at the penitentiary that had shaved her head for some fashion statement. She’d been spouting about feminism and how she shouldn’t be labeled by her hair, so she’d done the unthinkable and had shaved it off.
And then she reminded me of my boy with his peach fuzz head—both when he was a baby, and again when he was a little boy.
“You don’t know me,” I snarled, pushing back from the table.