10. Roman
Chapter 10
Roman
I launch my body up to a sitting position as panic washes over me. The only sound in the near silent room are soft cries coming from Audra. I turn my body to face her and she’s still fast asleep but rather than the peaceful, soft look I found on her face when she was sleeping on the couch with me, this time her face is twisted in a pained expression.
I climb off of the pull out couch and squat down beside her bed. Another distressed sound falls from her mouth. My heart free falls to my stomach and I think I might even feel it break on impact. I can’t help but reach a hand out and brush the hair from her face.
“Audi, hey,” I whisper in an attempt to stir her awake. Her head thrashes once away from me then back toward me. “Auds. You’re okay, it’s just a dream.”
Finally she budges, lifting her head with a sharp gasp. The panicked look on her face stirs a mix of sympathy and anger in me. Sympathy because it physically pains me to see the look in her eyes while she scans the room. Anger because not even knocking Tyler out will ever be enough to satiate the way I hate him for what he did to her. Knowing there is nothing I can do to him to undo the things he’s left her with is a stomach turning thought.
“What time is it?” Her eyes scan the room frantically before landing on mine. Her face softens like she can finally relax knowing I’m here. And yeah, it might go straight to my head.
“It’s 2am. You had a bad dream,” I say softly, tucking black and white strands behind her ear. She leans her head slightly into my hand and I want to take her face in my hands and kiss her until she doesn’t look so sad anymore.
“Will you sleep with me?” she asks, giving my hand a slight tug. I know I shouldn’t, I know I should tell her no and offer to stay awake while she sleeps or something. The last thing I should be doing is throwing myself into her life when she already has so much going on.
“I don’t know if that’s the best idea, Auds.” I lay the side of my head on her mattress to look at her straight on. The way she is looking at me I know if she asks again I won’t have it in me to say no twice, I know I’ll cave and I’ll get in that bed and hold her all night.
“I don’t care, I just want to feel safe. Please?” She pleads and I’m helpless against it. Saying no to her once was hard enough. I climb in the bed of the girl I’ve dreamed about the better half of my life and I wrap her up in my arms.
I don’t know if my life peaks when she pulls me into the bed by my wrist or when she lays her head on my bare chest and slides a cold hand across my stomach. However, I do know—undoubtedly—I’ll think about her small hand resting on my stomach and her black and white hair splayed out all around me for the rest of my life. Most of all, I know the rich cherry wine and amberwood scent she leaves around me will be burned into my memory forever.
“You’re hard to say no to,” I whisper against her hair as she makes herself comfortable. She nuzzles her head tighter into me.
“So are you,” she sighs.
I don’t know what she means by it. I wonder if she’s talking about the car when she told me she wanted to kiss me. Over a decade wishing and dreaming and I can’t believe she sat in my Jeep tonight and told me she wanted to kiss me. Audra Hart told me she wanted to kiss me. What’s more unbelievable is I told her no. I let my goddamn morals get in the way and the one time I had the opportunity I’ve dreamed of, I passed it up.
It might be easier to be mad at myself for the missed opportunity if I wasn’t so sure that this was the best thing for her. I couldn’t, in good conscience, kiss her tonight. Not after the way tonight went. Not when he had her crying and shaking at the campgrounds. Not when she had cried the whole walk to my car. Certainly not when it could blow up her friendship with my brother. I let all the overthinking subside and finally drift to sleep. The only thing on my mind all night is Audra’s smell, Audra’s hair, and Audra wrapped around me sound asleep.
* * *
I know it’s morning when my alarm rings across the room and warm sun beams through the blinds of her bedroom window.
I open my eyes and find her small body wrapped tightly around me. I take a minute to admire the beautiful girl asleep on my chest. Soft pink brushed across each cheek, the deep pink of her full lips, the peaceful look on her face.
“Hey, I have to get up for work,” I whisper close to her ear, attempting to slip her arm off of me. Her body tenses.
“Okay,” she says and it comes out cold. The response stings and my mind starts running the worst case scenarios.
Was sleeping in the bed with her a step too far? Does she regret asking me to sleep in the bed with her? Or worse, does she not even remember it and thinks I’m some kind of creep who got in bed with her after she fell asleep?
The thought that I might have done something to lose all the progress we’ve made over the last couple of months is front and center in my mind. The thought feels impossible to look past or ignore.
“Do you want to come with me?” I offer and I hope it doesn’t come out sounding as desperate as it feels.
“I just want to be alone today,” she exhales.
This feels an awful lot like the cold shoulder.
I want to beg her to come or beg her not to shut me out. I don’t though. I want to ask her what changed when we’ve been having so much fun together, but I don’t do that either. I just give her the space she wants.
And I fucking hate it.
Awkward. So goddamn quiet and awkward grabbing my things and leaving her house when she is barely speaking to me.
All I can think about is what changed. It’s all I think about the entire way to my house. It’s all I think about the entire time I’m getting ready for work. And it’s all I think about the entire drive there. Did I do something? Is she mad? Did I cross a line?
* * *
I walk into the shop and as usual Beck has beat me there, sitting on the stool behind the counter, working on a custom board. All I’ve got is an hour before I have back to back surf lessons for my entire day.
While I love the slow days where I can come in and shoot shit with Beck and do the small tasks, it’s the lessons that bring in the money. It’s really not about the money though, turning surfing into a career has been a dream come true. Nothing brings me peace like being out on the water with my board.
“What the hell was that about last night?” Beck asks, coming around the counter and plopping down on the couch. I flop down next to him, letting out a big sigh.
“I can’t tell you about it.” I groan. I want to, I want to tell him everything and maybe he could give me some advice. Maybe he could tell me what I did wrong. Beck is the best person for advice and I can’t even tell him about this. I’d love nothing more than to spill it all to him and ask him what I should be doing.
“Well, tell me something. Tell me what you can.” He shrugs, turning his body to face me. I don’t know what I can say. It isn’t my business to tell.
“Audra’s asshole ex boyfriend was at the fair and she texted me about it.” The words run through my head a few times trying to decide if I said too much but I decide it’s nothing more than he already knew from the day Tyler’s friend came here.
“But you can’t say what happened?” he questions, raising a brow.
“I don’t know.” I shrug.
“Is she safe?” he asks and I can see the concern on his face.
I drag my hands down my face. “I don’t know.” I sigh.
“I know she is when I’m with her,” I admit. It makes less and less sense to me why we aren’t together today.
“That’s why she’s been coming to work with you so much?” he questions and now the sympathy is apparent in not only his voice but his face too. All I do is nod in response. “So where is she today, then?”
“At her house. She didn’t want to come,” I say chewing on the inside of my cheek.
“Did something happen?”
“Fuck if I know,” I grumble, “I spent the night at her house last night and?—”
“—You spent the night at her house? Dude, that’s like your dream,” he cuts me off quickly, gushing excitedly. He doesn’t even know she told me she wanted to kiss me or that I stripped her naked in her bathroom and gave her a bath.
Normally I would be itching to tell him everything about last night. How my heart was fucking pounding in my chest because it was like watching my dreams come true. But now all I can think about is the cold tone in her voice this morning when she told me she wanted to be alone.
“Yeah but I don’t know what happened. She asked me to get in bed with her in the middle of the night. She had a nightmare and didn’t want to sleep alone. So of course I did because she’s her and I’m me. Then this morning she was so short and cold with me. Said she wanted to be alone. I don’t know man.” The words tumble out something like word vomit.
“She asked you to get in the bed with her in the middle of the night?” His eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “Holy shit. Do you think she’s scared of what Ares will think?” Ares, duh. I don’t know how that didn’t cross my mind. Of course she’s thinking about what my brother will think and how this will affect him. He was the last thing on my mind last night and this morning but now it feels glaringly obvious.
“Yeah, actually,” I admit.
It’s as if it all clicks for me all of a sudden, that it might have nothing to do with anything I did. She’s probably just in her head about my brother and the inevitable fit he’ll throw for this.
For the first time since last night I have the time to think and the clarity to do it well. It’s almost unbelievable the restraint it takes not to kiss a beautiful girl in your passenger seat who just told you it’s all she can think about. Although, nothing compares to the restraint it takes to undress her and bathe her without ever raking my eyes down her body. Regardless of the fact I showed restraint, I’ll still never get the image out of my head.
The time flies by and I’m now headed down to the beach to teach surf lessons despite the fact that all I’ll think of all day is Audra. What’s new though?
I decide to pull out my phone before heading to the beach and shoot her a text with my last free minutes of the day.
Roman
Are you in your head about last night?
Audra
I’m fine. I just need to be alone.
I let out an exasperated sigh, tossing my phone into the shed and head down to my first lesson of the day. I fill up every slot available with a lesson just to try and distract myself from everything. I try to think of anything other than last night or this morning. The effort is completely useless. My final lesson wraps up right as the sun starts to set and the sky is filled with oranges and pinks.
By the time I walk back into The Surf Shop, Beck is gone and everything is turned off. I finish up the things I should have been doing this morning instead of talking about Audra. I send out some payment reminders and invoices to a few customers. Just as I’m starting to sweep the floors my phone rings and it’s her. Audra’s name flashes across my screen and relief settles in my chest. I stop everything I’m doing to talk to her.
I pick up the phone and before I can speak, she does. “I don’t want to be alone anymore,” she says the words so quickly I almost wonder if I heard her wrong but I know her well enough to know I didn’t.
“Then don’t be,” I state simply. As if it could be that easy for us. Instead we have nosey friends, an abusive ex boyfriend, and my little brother. Which until recently, all of that was at the back of my mind. Until of course I realized that without those things, the absolute dream that is Audra Hart, could be within reach.
The line is quiet for a few moments before she finally speaks again. “I need out of my head.”
“I know,” I state simply. Because I do know, I’ve known it since I came to the conclusion with Beck. I know her well enough to know that one thought will send her spiraling for an entire day. There was not a single doubt in my mind after talking to Beck that she was just lost in her own head.
“You’re the only person who can get me out of my head lately.” I know this to be true as well but this time I don’t say it out loud.
“If you want something, just ask, pretty girl,” I prod. There’s another silence on the line before finally, she speaks.
“Will you come and get me?” she finally asks. The words are hardly out of her mouth before I’m reaching for my keys. I can’t ignore the feeling that we’re about to do something we absolutely shouldn’t be doing. At the end of the day though, it’s her and I can’t say no. Not that I’d want to if I could.
“Let me lock up and I’ll be there,” I assure her. I decide right then and there that the only mission tonight is to get her out of her head. In fact I plan on getting her so far out of her own head tonight that she just might fully relax for once. If I do one thing right tonight, it will be showing her a good time, and I know exactly how I plan on doing it.