Page 146 of When a Soul Cries

Broken.

I had seen Roman cry before. When he was a little boy and busted his knee open trying to jump his raggedy bicycle over a piece of plywood. When his first dog died. When Khalil got sentenced and Rome walked out of that courtroom looking like somebody had ripped half his heart out.

But tonight was different.

Tonight my grown-ass, six-foot-five, hardheaded son had broken down over a whole damn woman.

A woman who wasn't his mama. Wasn't family. A woman he'd barely known.

Sol.

And her baby.

I leaned back against my pillows, but one thing Rome had said wouldn't leave me alone.

Everything they had left fit inside one diaper bag.

“Jesus.”

I pressed my fingers against my mouth.

I'd held myself together while Rome was on the phone because he didn't need me falling apart with him. He needed his mama reminding him that Sol and her baby had eaten. They were safe. They were sleeping.

He had done enough for tonight.

Because I knew my son.

Once Roman decided something belonged on his shoulders, that fool would carry the whole damn building and then get mad because it was heavy.

But hearing him cry like that worried me.

Not because I thought Sol had done something wrong. From everything he'd told me, that girl wasn't asking him for anything.

It was Rome I was worried about.

My son hadn't seriously dealt with a woman since Ulani tore through whatever trust he had left. He could entertain women. Sleep with them. Spend money on them. Send them home.

But let one get close?

Absolutely not.

Then Soleia Monroe showed up, and suddenly my son was crying because he couldn't undo everything that had happened to her.

Sympathy wasn't love.

And wanting to protect somebody didn't mean you were ready to build a life with them.

Especially when that woman came with a baby.

That part mattered.

Rome had never been a father.

He had never had a little person depending on him every single day. Never had to plan his life around bottles, diapers, fevers, daycare, doctor appointments, crying in the middle of the night or a baby needing him when he was tired too.

If he pursued Sol seriously, there was no separating the two.

He couldn't decide he wanted the mama and merely tolerate the child.