Chapter 38
VAL
Today is a big day.
I grin as I reach for Roman’s fancy shampoo that he orders from France; the one that’s got—I shit you not—honey from “heritage apiaries” outside Lyon and, like, Alpine frost water or something in it.
I’ve come to realize that Roman is a fancy, bougie little bitch like that.
And I’m the one who’s been openly queer since I was fourteen.
Today is not a big day because I’ve finally decided I’m fine using Roman’s nine-hundred-dollar shampoo—I mean, fucking seriously—to wash my hair and my balls.
It’s because today is Roman’s official “coming out” party.
It’s a select group. “Coming out” doesn’t have to mean buying billboard space in Times Square.
And there are still no plans to mention it to Pavel, regressive homophobic douchebag that he is.
No, today is for our close friends, who only know that they’ve been asked to Roman’s penthouse for “an announcement”.
Telling Evie seems to have opened the floodgates of him wanting to tell the people he cares about who he truly is.
Bougie shampoo and dickhead fathers notwithstanding, that’s amazing. I’m happy for him.
I’m happy for us.
I grin to myself as I duck under the rain-head shower.
“Us” has a certain ring to it that I fucking like.
A lot.
Because I’m crazy about this fucking guy, of course, but also, because “us” isn’t something I ever thought I’d find. Or even wanted to find.
Water trickles down my body, and for a second, it feels like it lingers, tingling, in that one space on my arm covered in chaos and madness.
You will never be happy.
You will never be loved.
I flinch, a mini lightning-storm flashing and ricocheting through my skull. Then I grit my teeth and slam both fists to the shower wall, focusing on goodness.
On love.
On Roman.
The storm passes and I exhale, sputtering flecks of water against the wall.
We’ve got almost an hour before people start arriving, and as I step out of the shower and dry off, I feel heat flicker through me.
Today already started off fantastically: Roman woke me up with his mouth around my cock, which soon turned into me fucking him into the bed until he sprayed his cum all over both of us as I came deep inside him.
Like I said: fantastically.
But this man makes me a horny motherfucker. I mean, I already was. But Roman is like steroids for my libido. His scent. His body. His eyes. That fucking gorgeous dick.
I groan as my cock thickens between my legs, then grin devilishly to myself.
We do have an hour…
I wrap a towel around my hips and grab a second one for my wet hair as I walk out of the bathroom into his bedroom. I throw the towel over my head as I pad out of his room and head for the sweeping staircase down to the main floor.
“Where are you, gorgeous,” I growl, toweling my hair and keeping an eye on my feet as I hurry down the steps. “I want those perfect lips wrapped around my cock, and then I want fuck you on the veranda in broad dayli—”
“For fuck’s sake.”
It’s not just his gruff voice that stops me cold. It’s the barely stifled, female giggle that accompanies it.
I yank the towel off my head, and swallow when I see Roman…
And Brooklyn.
“I…uh…” she stammers.
“She came over early,” Roman growls, glaring at me, “to help set up for the surprise announcement party.”
I grin, shoving my hair back and turning to Brooklyn. “So…spoiler alert?”
“YOU GUYS!!”
I flinch at the shrill shriek that rips from her throat. She whirls and throws her arms around Roman, hugging him tightly and screaming over and over—which, thankfully, manages to wipe the glare off his face as he grins, hugging her back.
“Why didn’t you tell me?!” she blurts.
He glances at me, his face flushed and that goddamn beautiful smile on his lips. Then he turns back to her.
“I didn’t know how to tell myself,” he growls.
She squeals and hugs him again before she spins and marches over to me.
“And you,” she grins as she throws her arms around me. “Is this real?” she whispers fiercely into my ear as she hugs me. “I mean really—”
“Yeah, B,” I whisper back. “It is.”
She pulls away and sticks a finger in my face. “If you pull any bullshit with—”
“Thanks so much for the vote of confidence, friend,” I mutter as she giggles and hugs me again.
“Hey, when one of my friends falls for another one...” She shrugs. “It needs to be said.”
“Then say it to him, too,” I grunt, smirking as she turns to wave a finger dramatically in Roman’s face.
He smiles and looks up at me. “Could you please put on some fucking pants before everyone gets here?”
They're all here: Evie, Dove, Brooklyn and Kir, Carmine and Lyra, Nico and Naomi, Nero and Milena, Tate, Miguel, James, Laz, and Bane.
Surprisingly, even my brother showed up.
“You did invite me,” he says in that slightly too direct way of his.
“Yeah, but…”
“You didn’t think I’d come.”
“Not really.” I frown as I step close to him, tapping my finger to his chest. “For the record, my threat from before still—”
“I’m not going to use Roman, or you and Roman, or anything about this situation in any sort of Machiavellian chess move,” he says dryly. “I promise.”
I nod stiffly. “Well…okay then.” I grin as I sling an arm over his shoulder. “Thanks for putting the psycho evil villain routine on hold for the evening.” I turn to him. “I really am glad you’re here.”
Leave it to Roman, closet case extraordinaire, to come out in the gayest way possible. I mean, the man throws a fancy party, asks his guests to “dress up”, then calls their attention by tapping a teaspoon against his flute of fizzy apple juice.
I mean, the bougieness.
I can only get so fucking hard, you know?
But then he tells them—not haltingly, not awkwardly. He stands tall and proud, facing his close friends, and tells them the truth.
“I’m gay.”
There’s a moment of frozen silence, then everyone starts to clap and whistle and cheer all at once. I watch as Roman’s face lights the fuck up, his shoulders pulled back, his chest puffed out, as he faces them all unhidden for the first time.
Then he calls me over, takes my hand, and finishes his announcement.
Yeah, that’s me. I’m part two of the announcement.
After that, it’s one big blur.
All my ballet girls are rushing up to hug me or warn me with a laugh what I can expect to happen if I fuck Roman over. But that’s nothing compared to the psycho shit I get from his friends.
Carmine tells me I’ve “garnered his attention”, which is just as creepy to hear in person as it sounds, trust me.
Nico congratulates me but then shows me the hunting knife that—for some fucked-up reason that truly escapes me—he brought strapped to the inside of his dinner jacket.
Bane starts to ramble on about how bodies can be disintegrated in a plastic oil barrel with the right kind of acid. Laz inquires if I have a high pain tolerance. Nero just plainly tells me he’ll cut my throat if I dick over his buddy.
Fun times. Solid memories.
But in the end, when they see the way he never leaves my side, and the way I never leave his, and how our hands stay locked together, the threats turn to firm handshakes and claps on the back.
Finally, long after midnight, the last of our friends have gone home, and it’s just the two of us.
It might not be daylight anymore, but I do fuck him out on the veranda, watching him ride my cock until he groans and slams his mouth to mine, kissing me as his hot cum sprays all over my abs.
I hiss into his lips, biting and sucking as I follow him over the edge, my cock pulsing as I empty my balls into him.
The city hums below us as I sit back in the lounge chair, his back against my chest and my arms around his body. Roman’s fingers lazily drag over my skin, sending incredible shivers down my spine as he strokes my arms.
Suddenly, his fingers go still.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” I murmur, kissing the back of his neck.
Then I freeze when his finger touches the chaos on my arm.
“What is this?” he asks quietly. “Honestly.”
For a second, I can’t even speak, it’s come out of nowhere so fast. I haven’t had time to put on my armor or throw up my walls.
Roman twists in my arms. “Hey,” he says gently, cupping my jaw. “Whatever it is—”
“It’s nothing.”
But he’s not stupid, and he doesn’t let it go that easily. It’s one of the reasons I like him so much.
“It’s covering scars,” he murmurs quietly. “That’s why the lines are so chaotic, right? To obscure the—”
“How…” My throat works, my chest rising and falling rapidly. “I—”
“I’ve gotten pretty familiar with your body,” he says, his face heating. He leans close to me, touching his forehead to mine. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“What if I don’t want to,” I rasp, tensing as the darkness begins to swirl and claw inside me.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
I look away.
Roman gently turns my face back to him. “You brought me out of a darkness that was going to fucking kill me,” he growls. “I want to—”
“No, you don’t,” I choke.
His lips touch my cheek.
“The thing is, baby,” he murmurs, his baritone voice humming though my chest and cracking the ice splintering around my heart. “I do.”
My eyes are glistening as I twist my face to look at him, my pulse thudding. “I—I’m worried you’ll—”
He silences me with a kiss as he holds me tightly.
“There’s nothing you could say that would make me adore you any less.”
Goddammit, this guy.
I start to cry, and I fucking hate crying.
Then it all comes out. I tell him about Connor, the twenty-something son of the foster mom I was placed with when I was thirteen. I tell him about Connor coming to my room at night.
About the touches that wouldn’t stop. The knife against my throat and the whispered threats of what would happen if I told anyone.
I go numb as I tell him about the touches turning to more.
About the garage behind the house.
About the rag in my mouth that I screamed into while he made me bleed, in more ways than one.
You will never be happy.
You will never be loved.
“Turn off the lights.”
My voice is leaden and dead. Roman is looking at me with pain in his eyes—not disgust, not second thoughts, just…pain.
We’re both completely silent as he switches the veranda lights off.
“Hand me that, please?”
I nod at the lit votive candle on the table next to us. When he passes it to me, as our fingers brush. I look up into his eyes, swallowing tightly.
I hold the candle near my skin, the flickering light casting shadows across the raised edges of the scars that the chaotic lines of my tattoo usually cover.
He frowns until suddenly, the light catches just right, and pain shatters his face when he sees it carved into my flesh.
F-A-G.
“Where is he.”
He whispers the words. But there’s such bone-crawling icy deadness in the whisper that it sends shivers down my spine.
He stares at my skin, his jaw clenched so tight that a vein throbs in his temple.
“Where. The fuck. Is—”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care anymore,” I choke, pressing my forehead to his. “What happened, happened.” I shake my head. “It’s not why I’m bi. It’s not why I get off on taking away your control.”
“I wouldn’t ever think—”
“It’s probably why I slept around so much,” I hiss, shaking as I realize that I’ve just shared this…this thing inside me with another soul for the very first time. “It’s definitely why I never had a real, lasting relationship. ”
“Val,” he chokes, wrapping his hand around the back of my neck as we press our foreheads together.
“It’s why I never looked for love. I knew I was never going to find it.”
“You—”
“Until you, wreckage,” I whisper, shaking, tears running down my face as I grab him by the back of the neck and hold him tightly. “I knew I was never going to find love until I met you. And wreckage,” I choke, trembling as I pull him into my lap, “I fucking love you so much it hurts.”
“I love you, too.”
The words fall like a prayer against my lips before we crash together.
And for the first time in my life, I don’t feel the need to keep moving. At all.