35. Roman
ROMAN
I can taste her pussy on my tongue.
Well, almost.
It’s been half an hour since I fingered her against the tree, her sweet little moans in my ear and her perfect body under my hands, and I can’t stop staring at her.
She’s sitting at our picnic bench, a cool breeze caressing her face and hair like it loves her just as much as I think I do.
The thought hits me like a smack to the face, and my mouth dries.
There’s a blush permanently staining her cheeks, and every so often, she looks at me like she can’t believe what we just did.
Neither can I, to be honest.
“You’re staring,” she murmurs, not looking up from her notebook.
“You’re perfect,” I reply, resting my chin in my hand. I gave up on trying to do anything other than watch her about twenty minutes ago.
I was worried she’d regret what happened as soon as it was over, but I should know better than to think that about her.
When Juliette Calloway decides something, she’s in it for good.
In fact, it was me who stopped us from doing anything else, insisting that we should take a second and just breathe.
I don’t need her to reciprocate; I just want to bask in this moment.
Up here. Just the two of us, where she feels like mine.
Frederick’s words play in my head like a bad omen. About taking love away to protect it.
But I’m not concerned about me . I don’t know her family dynamics well enough to trust that any of them would keep her safe if she made decisions they didn’t agree with. Every day, it feels like combining our worlds is more and more impossible.
So, I just want to soak this up for as long as I can, before everything goes to shit, and I have to tell her maybe she’s been right along. That we shouldn’t even see each other anymore.
Her brows are furrowed, and whenever she blinks, her lashes dust across the very tops of her cheeks. Her lips are swollen, a bit of red marring the edges from where my teeth sunk into them and claimed them for my own.
A hit of satisfaction runs through me at the sight, knowing I marked her as mine, at least this once.
Unfortunately, I think she’s marked my soul for good.
“My mother has a drug problem.”
The words fly out of me suddenly, and even I’m a little surprised by them. I hadn’t decided until this very moment to share that with her. But I want to give her something of me, something almost nobody else knows.
Her pen pauses on the page, and she glances up at me. And then realization crashes through her, her eyes widening and her hand covering her mouth. “Oh my God, Trouble. Those things I said when we first met… I didn’t mean?—”
“It’s fine, baby.” I shake my head to stop her. “I’m just telling you so you know me… My entire life has been about keeping her head above water and dragging my sister along for the ride.”
She swallows heavily, laying down her pen and closing her notebook.
“Will you tell me about her?” she asks.
My chest cracks open, and that little box I keep deep inside—the one with the fortified locks—springs open, my trauma laying itself at her feet.
“Her favorite is oxy, but it’s hard to come by so she settles for heroin.
She’s a mess. A manipulative shell of who she used to be, and I hate saying that because I want you to know that I love her.
Despite what she does, the mistakes she makes…
she was a good mom. And I love her.” I force out the words again like maybe if I say them twice, it will be enough to bring her back.
My chest pulls so tight I can barely take a breath, but I lick my lips, spin my ring, and nod.
“She met my father at an art show. Her art show, in California. Similar to the one where you saw mine for the first time, actually.”
She smirks. “I knew that was your art.”
I grin softly, but it’s coated in dejection that I can’t shake.
“He was charming, and she was lovestruck, and she definitely didn’t know—or maybe she didn’t care—that he was married. They were together for two years before I was born.”
Juliette’s hand goes to her chest like she’s trying to digest the information.
“I don’t know why my father gave me his last name when he never intended on letting me actually be his , but I’d see him every once in a while. And whenever he’d come into town, my mom would light up like the Fourth of fucking July, and I remember thinking, ‘why can’t I make her smile like that?’”
“Roman,” Juliette whispers.
She stands up and moves to the bench I’m on, sitting down next to me and gripping my hand, tangling our fingers, holding them in her lap.
“It’s stupid,” I mutter.
Her thumb ghosts across the back of my hand. “It isn’t.”
“Then Brooklynn was born, and I don’t know what happened. Maybe he was pissed that she wasn’t his, or maybe his wife got fed up, but he stopped coming around. He stopped caring.”
“He quit seeing your mom?”
I bite the inside of my cheek and stare down at our hands.
“Nah, I think they still got together—she seemed happy then, still. At least, some of the time. But then something changed, and she took us on a trip when I was fifteen. Brought us here to Rosebrook Falls to visit and wrapped our car around a tree.”
Juliette sucks in a breath. “And you think my father did it.”
Slowly, I nod, gritting my teeth. “I don’t really remember much of it, just waking up and not knowing what happened. Brooklynn and I were lucky. She had a broken arm and collarbone, and I had some gashes from the windows that shattered. But my mom, she broke her spine.”
“I remember reading that you all were dead.” Her voice cracks on the word, and she covers her mouth. “Sorry, I just… I don’t like thinking about you that way. Or that my father is capable of something like that.”
I bring her hand up to my mouth and press a kiss to the back, using her to ground me, because this is the first time I’ve really talked about it to anyone.
It’s hard for me to relive things, especially when the memories aren’t what I thought they were.
I’m still trying to piece everything together in a way that makes sense.
“My dad whisked us away, took us out of the hospital, sent us to a new spot in California…gave us new names. I never did know why. Never asked, I guess. I was too busy taking care of my mother while she relearned how to walk.”
“That’s a lot for a kid.”
My eyes burn, and I push it back, not wanting to tear up over something that doesn’t even matter anymore. Although, I guess that’s not true. It matters a little; otherwise, it wouldn’t hurt so goddamn bad when I think about it.
“It’s a lot for anyone,” I reply, my voice low. “She lived on oxycodone for a while. And the doctors, they let her… They did what they were supposed to do, you know? Pain meds work when they’re used appropriately, and she was in pain, Juliette.”
I say it with more force than necessary.
“But she grew dependent on them?” Juliette asks.
I nod, pursing my lips and breathing deep to keep the old wounds at bay. “Yeah. And then just like that, all her medical support disappeared.” I snap my fingers. “I think my dad might have broken her spirit long before she broke her spine. She’s never been the same since.”
Clearing my throat, I spin my ring faster.
“What nobody tells you is those pills help curb the emotional wounds, too, at least at first. And when that’s the only kind of hurt left, and the doctors rip those meds away from you, well, some people spend the rest of their lives scraping at the hole they’ve unknowingly fallen into, just trying to numb the pain. ”
“I’m so sorry, Roman.” Her voice is small and sad, like she doesn’t quite know what to say. “She was an artist?”
A soft smile blooms at the memory, my chest lightening. “Yeah. A great one. She painted with bright, messy strokes; color everywhere. It was always under her nails, and all over the walls, and sometimes even in her hair.”
Juliette smirks. “Sounds familiar.”
My throat thickens.
“She’d play music too loud and dance barefoot in the kitchen, and I remember thinking that the whole world revolved around her laugh,” I say, my voice ragged. “She wasn’t perfect, but she was mine.”
Juliette’s eyes go glassy, her hand pressed against her chest like she’s holding something in. “That’s… I don’t even?—”
“And you know what the most fucked-up part is?” I cut her off, the words ripping out of me.
She shakes her head, swallowing.
“I haven’t felt that way since. Not about anyone. Not until you.”
She’s quiet for a second, and then she’s pressing her hand against my face, her eyes flickering between mine.
“I am yours. In all the ways that matter.”
My palm covers her fingers, and I lean into her touch, closing my eyes and soaking her in.
“Even if we have to pretend we’re enemies?” I mimic what she asked so many weeks ago, back when we were still acting like we didn’t belong to each other.
A stuttered breath against my lips. A warm mouth. A simple kiss.
My eyes open, and I stare at this perfect, beautiful, impossible girl that fate keeps giving back to me.
“You will never be my enemy,” she promises.
I nod against her, pressing our foreheads together and letting the quiet wrap around us like a blanket.
Eventually, I say, “My dad’s offering to help her now.”
“Well…that’s a good thing, right?”
I just stare at her like my heart doesn’t feel like it’s being ripped from my chest. “Yeah, if she goes along with it then it is.”
“You don’t think she will?”
“I think my mom is lost in some kind of hurt I can’t even fathom and has spent a majority of her life numbing that pain instead of facing it.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “That’s a hell of a habit to break.”
She watches me for a moment, empathy shining in her gaze. “Do you think that’s why the news hasn’t found her yet?”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugs, and then says slowly, “I mean…it’s unusual for The Rosebrook Rag to not find gossip and cling to it with every single part of them. When you came back, it opened up the question of whether your family was alive, too. But since then, there’s been nothing.”
My spine straightens, and a tic forms in my jaw. I hadn’t even thought about that, but now that she’s mentioned it…
“Maybe my dad is having Frederick keep her out.”
Juliette’s eyes widen. “Freddy?”
I shrug. “Makes sense, don’t you think? He kept us from being in the papers, what’s to stop him from doing the same with her? He said they show him all the pictures first. That he has a friend there.”
The thought that my father may be protecting her, even with her being the way she is, makes me feel warm and…grateful.
“That could be it,” she muses and then her eyes pin me in place. The tension snaps tight between us. She doesn’t say it, but I can read between the lines, and I feel it, too.
This inevitability.
My father wants me here, to help bring down her family, and if I don’t play my part, then it’s my family who might pay the price. Her dad tried to kill me, and might still want me dead.
My chest squeezes tight, stomach bottoming out at the impossibility of it all.
Her fingers tangle on top of her notebook. “Do you think your mom and sister would still be protected…no matter what?”
My mouth is dry and I peel my tongue from the roof. “I think if I can convince my sister to sign some papers, she’ll be taken care of regardless. But my mom…” I run a hand through my hair. “I don’t know, Little Rose. I don’t even know if there’s anything left of her to save.”
The words catch in the air and ricochet into my sternum. I press my lips together.
“Don’t say that,” she whispers. “She’s still there, Roman.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “I’ve said that a thousand times. It’s not her, it’s the drugs. But I don’t know, sometimes life doesn’t give us happy endings, you know? Sometimes the bad thing wins.”
“Well.” She lifts a shoulder and gives me a soft smile. “Then I’ll have the faith for both of us.”
And I know it right then, surer and steadier than I’ve ever known anything.
I love her.
“Will you come with me somewhere?” I ask suddenly, desperate to show her every piece of me.
She lifts a brow, looking around. “Are we not somewhere right now?”
I smirk. “Cute. But I mean somewhere else.”
A softness enters her gaze and she bites on her lower lip. “Yeah, Trouble. I’ll go anywhere with you.”