38. Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-eight
Roman
I couldn’t figure out how not to be angry. I really didn’t want to be angry at Shira. Logically, I knew the shit she’d pulled was all about her and not me, but I wasn’t succeeding. Deep down—maybe not even that deep—I still grappled with not feeling worthy of love. No matter how hard I pushed or how high my accomplishments stacked, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being lacking. My brothers would tell me how wrong I was—they had, many times, in fact—yet here I was, rattling my chains in a big empty house because the woman I loved didn’t believe it.
For a man with my baggage, her rejection was a knife to the gut. I could tell myself Shira was shutting me out to protect herself until I was blue in the face. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust me; it was that she’d come from the lesson she’d learned far too young—stay quiet and endure. But when it came to deep wounds that hadn’t healed, logic had no place.
I should have eased her in. Called her my girlfriend months ago. Told her I loved her when I was holding her in bed weeks after that. Let her come to me with her own declarations in her own time. I’d made mistakes, thinking Shira would understand how things were. But we were coming at this from two different directions, and today had been a blindside.
Still, I was pissed.
She was there, and I was here.
That wasn’t right. My gut roiled, and my entire body protested being this close to her and not having her in my arms. She’d put that distance there, and maybe it was right and needed, but I didn’t give a damn. If I was going to get her where I needed her to be, she was going to have to be within touching distance to do it.
Resolved, I headed to my front door. Before I could make it there, there was a light, timid knock that froze me in place. Only one set of knuckles made that sound on my door.
She’d come.
She’d fucking come.
I closed the rest of the distance and swung the door open. Taking her by the elbow, I pulled her into my house and locked the door behind her. For good measure, I planted myself in front of it so she couldn’t escape. That might’ve been barbaric, but I was past reason. She wasn’t leaving.
Parched, I drank every inch of her in. She was holding a plate of muffins, which was strange, but her face was what caught me. Cheeks ruddy, eyes bloodshot, nose pink, lips swollen—she’d clearly spent a lot of time crying, and that tore me up.
Her chin wobbled. “I’m so sorry, Roman.”
I nodded once. We were in this place partially because I’d kept my mouth shut. There would be no more of that. It was time to lay it all on the line.
“You really hurt me.” The plain, bare truth at the core of it all. She’d really fucking hurt me.
She took in a shuddering gasp. “I know that now, and I hate that I did. I baked your favorite muffins to make up for it.”
Arms outstretched, she offered me the plate, and I didn’t have it in me to turn her down. My body had become somewhat inoculated to her brand of cooking. I barely felt the burn when I swallowed anymore.
As soon as I took a muffin, she swatted it right out of my hand.
“You were going to eat that!” she cried, the plate slipping from her fingers.
“You made it for me,” I stated matter-of-factly. It was a matter of fact. She’d gone through the trouble of making food for me, so I was going to eat it, even if it caused irreparable damage to my organs. Between that and seeing her upset, the choice was obvious.
“Roman.” My name was a lament from her trembling lips. “Oh my god, Roman. I’ve been poisoning you—and you’ve let me!”
Glancing from the scattered muffins to Shira, who was more distraught than I’d ever seen her, all my residual anger fell away. Stepping over the muffins, I scooped her into my arms. She only wiggled for a moment before surrendering and melting into me, allowing me to cradle her.
I carried her through the living room, up the stairs, to my bedroom, and settled us on my bed. My legs were outstretched in front of me while Shira rested sideways on my lap, nestled against my chest. We had a lot to say, but right now, I needed this. A few minutes to ground myself in the feel of her, warm and solid. It’d been a few hours since she’d been here, and in that time, I’d convinced myself she was never coming back.
Her fingers curled into my shirt, gripping the material tight in her fist. Her other arm hooked around my neck, and those fingers slid into the back of my hair. I tucked my face into her crown and breathed her in.
“I thought my tastebuds were messed up,” she whispered. “But it wasn’t that. You were eating everything I made for you even though it was inedible because you didn’t want me to be upset. You even made your brothers eat it.”
I stiffened. “Who told you it was inedible?” If they’d upset her…
She tilted her head back to look up at me. “Bea. I think what she really said was they’re vile. I kind of think she’s telling the truth—which means you haven’t been.”
I’d have words with Bea. She cared about Shira, and she was a good friend, but I would not stand for—
“Roman.” Shira’s fingers lightly tapped my cheek. “I think you didn’t tell me because you didn’t want me to be upset. And you made your brothers eat my cooking for the same reason. Why else would you have done that other than caring about me and my feelings? You do love me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I could have left it at that—the most important, bare-bone fact. But I knew my Shira needed evidence to support my claim. She had to know I wasn’t just telling her I loved her on some whim. Like any other major shift in my life, I’d thought it over until I was certain.
“I took my time getting there. As soon as you told me about our baby, my instinct was to be near you to protect you. That was all Beanie, but once I got near you and we had time to actually get to know one another outside of our assumptions, it became all about you. It’s my fault for only verbalizing any of this now, but I guess in the back of my mind, I wasn’t willing to hear you say you weren’t there with me. I should’ve done it anyway, but that’s history. The fact remains: I’ve examined my feelings. When I say I’m in love with you, I mean you , Shira—not the mother of my son, you .” For once, she was giving me her eyes, and I searched them for what I needed from her. “Do you think maybe you could love me?”
Her lips rolled over her teeth, and I thought I wasn’t going to hear it. For those few seconds, I decided to be okay with that. So long as she let me love her, we’d get there. She’d eventually feel safe enough with me to let herself fall.
But she swept away all my plans of winning her over with her sweet words.
“I love you too, Roman Wells.”
“Christ,” I breathed, my forehead falling to hers. “That’s all I want from you. You loving me and letting me love you.”
“You have it.”
“Then I’m content. So damn content.”
Her hand flattened on my jaw. “You’re always so careful with my feelings, and I failed in reciprocating that. I’ll be better about that. I want to take care of you the way you take care of me.”
“It’s okay. I don’t need taken care of.”
I never had. Even before our mother cut and ran, I’d always been the one to check in on my brothers. It came naturally to me in part, but even when I was a little kid, I thought I had recognized a void that needed filling—something our friends had that we’d been lacking. So, I’d filled it any way I could. These days, my brothers didn’t need me like they had back then, but when push came to shove, I was the primary support person. It made me feel purposeful, and I’d never once resented them for my position.
But the idea of Shira taking care of me? Yeah, I liked that, and if she wanted to give that to me, I wouldn’t turn her down. If we could get to a place where we leaned on each other, we’d be unshakable.
“No, it isn’t okay, Rome. I let you go for three hours believing your love wasn’t enough, and that’s just wrong. I didn’t identify the way you treat me as love because I’ve never had anything like this. Before I met you and knew you, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of knocking on a man’s door not knowing without question he would be happy to see me. I wouldn’t have been able to climb into his lap, sure he’d welcome me with open arms. I wouldn’t have fathomed a man would understand where my limitations came from and help me inch past them. Nor would I have imagined this man would be endlessly patient when I couldn’t meet his eyes then find a way for me to make it my choice.”
Her lips touched mine, a whisper of sweetness.
“Roman, you’ve been loving me, and I didn’t even know it because it’s brand new to me. I did know you treated me like I was something precious, but I thought it was because of Beanie. And that was all because of the limits I’d placed on myself. It had nothing to do with how well you’ve loved me.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled, filling my lungs with her and the words she'd uttered. Releasing it with a shudder, my arms went tight around her.
“I threw that in your face, and I’m so sorry for that,” she murmured, stroking my jaw. “We had a hard beginning, but since then, you’ve been nothing but good to me. I’m going to be good to you too, Roman. To start, I’m never cooking for you again.”
A grin split my face as I let it fall against the top of her head. “We’re just going to be good to each other, and I don’t mind cooking for you and our family. Nights we’re too busy, we’ll get takeout.”
Her lips pressed against my jaw. “I like the sound of ‘our family.’”
“That’s what we’re doing here, Shira. When you fell asleep in the glider that day, I imagined getting you pregnant again and again. Part of that was because it turns me on to think about fucking you with that intention, but mostly, I think we’re making something beautiful here.”
“How many?” she asked.
“How many what?”
“Kids. How many do you want?”
“I’m open to negotiation, but I like having a lot of siblings, and I wouldn’t mind giving that to our boy.”
“So four?” She smoothed her hand over her belly. “I was an only. I know I want him to have at least one sibling. Can we see how that goes?”
Relief and something that felt a lot like optimism poured over me, warm and cozy. “Yes, baby. We can see how that goes. One, two, or seven, I’m going to fucking adore every child you give me like I adore you.”
She let out a breathy laugh. “Not seven, Rome. Get that out of your head.”
“Fine.” I nuzzled her temple, rubbing my nose back and forth. “We can pretend we’re making seven. I’ll settle for a little playtime with you.”
“We can do that.” Her arms slid around my neck. “I adore you too, Roman. You are something special I didn’t know existed. But I found you, and now that I know you’re mine and only mine, I’m going to work my butt off to keep you.”
For a man who’d been abandoned by his mother and had never done enough to hold his father’s attention, hearing those words from the woman who’d become the most important person in my life healed a rift in me. It made being disposable and unvalued by my mother and father into a scar instead of an open wound. Shira and I both had work to do; that much was clear, but if we were in this together, trusting the solidness of our relationship, we would get where we needed to be.
“Haven’t you been paying attention? All I want is you and our family, baby. You’ve got me free and clear.”
“And you have me,” she promised.
Then we have all we need.