7. Roman
ROMAN
T he shading is off.
Sighing, I stare down at my black book like it’s personally offending me.
I’ve been lying around all morning in nothing but gray sweatpants and a nagging sensation, urging my fingers to pick up a pencil and sketch out a new design. But the design isn’t right . And it has to be perfect before I turn it into an actual piece like the others from last night.
I run my fingers over the sketch, my brows furrowing.
It’s a rose. Blood-red with thorns jutting like daggers from the stem. The petals drip like wet paint, melting and disintegrating.
It’s a physical representation of what running into the girl from Rosebrook Falls feels like. Fragile in a way that isn’t soft, and the kind of beauty that bruises if you get too close. She’s attitude and defensiveness. Every word she throws at me laced with venom and thorns.
The color is supposed to be the shade of peach that blooms on her cheeks when I flirt with her.
I’ve thought about that color so many goddamn times.
Fisted my cock while I dreamed about wrapping my hand around her pretty little throat, watching that pink crawl down her neck and spill over her collarbone while she begs me to paint my cum on her skin.
Fuck.
I’m still recovering from running into her in the first place.
The last thing I expected was to ever see her again, especially in Cali. And I sure as hell didn’t expect to have so much chemistry with her, or for her to be so affected by me . Which I think she is, unless I’m completely misreading the signals.
When I first met her four years ago in Verona County Park, she looked so familiar it made my stomach ache, and I fully intended to walk away.
The only reason I was there in the first place was to look out from the cliff and find a spot to tag before I left.
Something to leave my mark for my piece of shit father, a rebellion that would stain his precious town whether he wanted it to or not.
Maybe a glaring “I’m alive, bitches,” or just: “Roman Montgomery was here.” In the end, I didn’t have the guts.
My mom has always said he faked our deaths to protect us, but that when I became an adult, as long as his wife was out of the picture, he’d want me back. So when I actually went back after her funeral and was still rejected? You could say that chip on my shoulder felt heavier than ever.
I went up to that cliff with one thing in my head: rage.
But then she opened that perfect little mouth and started hurling insults like me saving her life was a personal inconvenience, and fuck , if that didn’t turn me on.
Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking about my piece of shit father, or how badly I wanted to burn down everything he ever built—everything he kept me out of.
I was thinking about her .
About how easy it was to get under her skin. About how nice it was to experience something other than that gnawing rejection.
She made me forget how small he made me feel. How unloved.
Her irritation? That was something I could hold on to. A memory from Rosebrook Falls he couldn’t taint.
The problem is, I think I know who she is.
My mother has always kept up on anything to do with my father, including the town he lives in, and that means I’ve seen my fair share of The Rosebrook Rag headlines and articles from various events and newspapers.
And even though I’ve been a bystander to his life, my mother made sure I knew everything there was to know about being a Montgomery, including the rivalry between him and the Calloways.
I’m ninety percent sure she’s Juliette Calloway, but I’ve resisted the urge to look up her name. I don’t want to have it confirmed, because right now, she’s just a pretty girl who’s fun to flirt with.
Potential is limitless when there aren’t strings attached.
And recognizing that she’s a Calloway would definitely attach some strings, even if I doubt she knows I exist.
It’s not as if Marcus spent time parading me around like a trophy, and I’ve only ever been to Rosebrook Falls twice in my entire life.
My mind flashes back to when I first woke up after the car crash eight years ago: a dark room with wires taped to my chest, and the steady beeping of a heart monitor to my left.
“Nobody can know who you are to me, do you understand?”
My father’s fingers grip my shoulder blades harshly, and I wince at the pressure, my body still too wrecked to pull away.
He shakes me slightly, and my head throbs from the motion.
“Answer me,” he demands, low and sharp.
I blink away the fog, trying to focus on his face. “Ye-yes, I understand,” I croak. “But why? Why can’t they know?”
His eyes flick toward the door like someone might be listening. There’s a manic energy around him, as though he’s waiting for something terrible to happen, something that might walk through that door at any moment.
“Because if they find out you’re alive…”
He stops. Cuts himself off, and the unspoken words buzz louder than the pounding in my head. The air grows quiet and tense, and then ? —
“Mr. Montgomery, sir,” a voice interrupts, although my vision is so hazy, it’s too difficult to see who.
“What?” he snaps, his blue eyes still staring at me like I might vanish.
“She’s awake.”
I snap out of the memory and swallow against the ache blossoming in my chest.
Not telling her my name was the right choice. The only choice, really. After all, even if she didn’t know of me, she could run home and mention me, and then who knows what would happen?
My entire body tightens when I think about my sperm donor and the way my mother still clings to the idea of him as some sort of twisted salvation.
She wants me to crawl on my knees and beg for money.
Thinks he’ll welcome us back like some prodigal son story.
Or maybe she just wishes he’d be her savior.
I know what’s really waiting there.
Nothing but bitter disappointment.
Even when I had his last name, I didn’t get the perks that came with it, so why the hell she thinks something would change now is beyond me.
My jaw clenches as I stare at the drawing in my black book.
Sighing, I run my fingers through the slight muss on the top of my head, gripping the roots and pulling until it stings. Physical pain is easier than the desolation that swirls when I focus on my family.
My phone rings, jolting me from my daze.
I glance at the clock. Noon.
I’m supposed to meet my mother at the coffee shop in ten minutes. Shit.
Rolling out of bed, I answer the call.
“Brooklynn?”
My sister sniffles on the other end.
“Brooke? You okay?”
“R…Ry-Ry?” she stutters into the phone.
My body freezes at her tone, panicking that she’s had a seizure or is hurt somehow.
I’m dressed and at the front door grabbing my keys within seconds.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It’s all g-gone.” She gets out.
Relief that she’s all right pours through me like a waterfall, but then her words register. My brows draw down. “What do you mean?”
“The m-money. The rainy-day fund you had me start? It’s… Everything’s missing.”
I laugh, thinking she’s joking, because there’s no way. Between her working a part-time job and me funneling her every extra dollar from my art, she’d have saved up close to ten thousand dollars by now.
“What are you talking about?”
“The money… I kept it under my mattress, and I went to take some with me to pick up my Felbamate and… It—it’s gone.” She hiccups into the phone.
My stomach drops. “Wait, why the hell are you using the money I give you to pay for your seizure meds?”
Silence answers me, and I grind my teeth so tightly, I’m surprised my jaw doesn’t crack. “Brooklynn. Has mom not been covering the cost of your meds?”
“Sometimes she does,” she whispers.
Sighing, I pinch the bridge of my nose. I can’t win here. “It’s all gone?” I confirm.
Brooklynn hiccups again. “I should h-have had a better hiding spot, I just… I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” I soothe, trying to keep the anxiety from showing in my voice. “Just tell me what happened.”
Glancing at my desk, I look at my wallet, already knowing there’s only a few hundred bucks in there. That’s not nearly enough to cover a supply of her meds, even with the coupons we get her since we don’t have any insurance.
“M-Mom said to call you. She…she said you’d be able to help.”
Anger whips through me so violently, it burns my throat. “Did our mother do this?”
Brooklynn hesitates again. “She said she didn’t.”
I swallow hard, my tongue sticking to the top of my mouth like glue. “Listen, Brooke, I don’t want you to worry, okay? I’ll take care of it. How many pills do you have left?”
“I’m good for a couple days, but Ry, I’m sorry, I…I didn’t mean to…”
I shake my head even though she can’t see me, realization settling heavily into my gut about what my mother did. About what I know I have to do if I want to make sure Brooklynn stays healthy.
“Hey, it’s all right,” I say. “I’ve got you no matter what, okay?”
She sniffs. “Yeah.”
“You trust me?”
“Always.”
“I’ll handle it.” I grab my hoodie from the coat rack next to my door and put my phone on speaker while I slide it on. “And Brooke?”
“Yeah?”
“Quit trusting our fucking mother.”