Chapter 7 – Roman
ROMAN
She unlocks the door and, for a moment, simply stands in the entryway, looking around and listening. It’s quiet. I don’t think Adam is home, and when she realizes that, she blows out a relieved breath.
“It’s so weird how the mind and heart work. I really didn’t want to see him. I asked him to respect that, and he did. But I think part of me wanted him to fight a little for it.” She turns and squints up at me. “You know what I mean?”
“You wanted him here and also didn’t want him here.”
“Yes. Does that make me crazy or just complicated?”
“You’re not complicated, kid. Someone just has to know how to read between the lines in order to get the full story.”
“Would you have been here if you were him?”
I shut the door behind me. “I don’t know how to answer that without hurting you more.”
She nods as she slowly turns back around. “You wouldn’t have cheated.”
“No. I wouldn’t have cheated. But in fairness to him, I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that he was a wreck on the phone yesterday morning. He knows he fucked up and is desperate to get you back.”
“I’m not getting back together with him.
I thought a lot about it today and yesterday and realized that if I did, it would eat at my soul.
My self-esteem would tarnish and he’d own a piece of me I don’t want him to take.
My self-respect. But there’s the part of me that wanted him to fight for me.
That wanted him to be here begging me for forgiveness.
And not because I’m being cruel or wanted to laugh in his face.
But because I wanted him to prove to me that not everything was a lie.
That there was something there that might be worth forgiving.
I wanted him to change my mind about not taking him back.
I wanted proof that he did love me above all else and that he had to ignore my request to stay away because he couldn’t handle not seeing me.
” She scrunches her nose. “I’m not making sense. ”
“You are. You want to be someone’s universe. The only one they see. The one they can’t live without.”
“Is that asking too much?”
“It’s what everyone should have, right? What our parents have.”
“You think that’s why he cheated? Because he came from a broken household?”
“No. I think that’s bullshit.”
She considers this as she thinks about that. “Our parents are relationship goals. Especially your dad, because he’s super obsessed with your mom.”
I check my phone when a notification comes in, and I see several apartments I have to sort through in Frankfurt and Paris. Damn. “That’s because he went four years without her and had to grovel to win her back,” I mumble absently.
“You’re not helping me with the groveling thing, but he never cheated, right?”
“Never. She was just too young at the time, and they were in different places in life until they weren’t.” Except my parents got together and with her it feels like it’ll never happen.
“I love their story.”
I put my phone back in my pocket. “Your parents were best friends. It’s a good one too.”
“It is. Enough about love. It’s depressing me.
” She picks up a small marble ball from the entry table before she puts it back as if she changed her mind about it.
“Let’s get this over with. I don’t want to be here anymore.
All I see is her on top of him and his face as he came inside her.
” She makes a gagging noise. “Let’s move me out. ”
We start with the bedroom because it has most of her stuff.
The suitcases come out of the closet and one by one, they get filled.
She changes her clothes out of the basic stuff we got her yesterday and continues packing.
Neither of us is talking much, and occasionally, I catch Braelyn sniffling, but not a lot.
“How about some music?” I offer.
“Oh, yes. Harry Styles, please.”
I roll my eyes at her and put on nineties grunge instead.
“Better. Now I’m all ragey.”
I laugh, but she’s not kidding. She grabs a pair of scissors and cuts up the sheets that were still on the bed and leaves them in a pile on the mattress.
“More?”
She shrugs. “I mean, that was sort of satisfying, but not really. I threw my ring at him when what I should have done was pee and leave it in the toilet for him to fish out.”
I crack up. “Savage.”
“Right? But I bet there’s something I can do along those lines.” She heads for the bathroom, and I wait out here even though she doesn’t shut the door. “I’m not peeing,” she calls back to me. “Get in here and do this with me. You know you want to.”
I totally do, so I enter the bathroom and lean against the wall as I watch her take his toothbrush and use it to clean the toilet.
“Why do guys always get pee on the toilet? So gross.” She makes a tsking noise as she shakes her head in dismay and cleans the entire thing with his toothbrush. When she’s finished, she puts it back on the charger. “Your turn.”
“You took the best one.”
“That was a good one. Wait, I have Nair. I’ll replace his shampoo with it.”
I start to lose it. “Remind me never to cross you.”
Her eyebrows bounce. “Who knew I was this vindictive?”
She gets to work on his shampoo, and I dip his hairbrush in the toilet, which feels lame in comparison. I’m more of a guy who uses his fists or would perhaps mildly poison his food to make him sick all night. Then I feel like shit for doing that to his hairbrush.
“I’ll bring your things down.”
“Knock yourself out.”
It takes me three trips, but my SUV is all packed up.
I head for the kitchen and dump an entire bottle of hot sauce into his ketchup and shake it up. He eats ketchup with everything and hates hot sauce. It’s also revenge for that time he came to Round House, ordered lamb chops that were perfectly cooked, and proceeded to dump ketchup all over them.
This is more my style, and he deserves it, so I don’t feel so bad about this one. Braelyn pops her head around the corner just as I’m putting the ketchup back in the fridge and hiding the empty hot sauce bottle at the bottom of the trash. She lets out an amused laugh.
“Damn. That’s a good one. He’ll cry like a little bitch when he eats that. I think our work here is done. Let’s go see a movie.”
“A movie?”
“I don’t want to go home and think. I’m trying to channel my inner badass or hard-ass or whatever women who can brush off their cheating exes and come out bright and shiny and amazing on the other side are.”
I comb some of her dark curls back from her face.
Her pretty brown eyes, framed by impossibly long lashes and sitting above two beds of freckles, blink up at me.
I don’t usually touch her like this. Not so intimately where I’m standing this close.
Close enough that all I’d have to do is bend to kiss her.
“You’ve got this, kid. You’ll get through it, but you’re already bright and shiny and amazing.”
“Maybe he was dulling my colors,” she says, her voice a breathy whisper.
“Maybe you’ll find that this was the best thing to ever happen to you.”
“I think it will be. Once I get over the burn and the heartache and betrayal, I think I’ll be something better than I ever imagined I could be.”
I don’t know where it comes from or even how it happens. But I dip down and kiss her cheek. Thankfully, not her lips, but I don’t typically kiss Braelyn. Sort of how I don’t usually touch her, I’m apparently breaking a lot of boundaries I shouldn’t be breaking.
Instantly, I pull back, and that’s when the front door opens and in walks the dickhead. He spots us hovering by the kitchen, us standing close, and instantly his expression breaks.
“Hi,” he says, his gaze locked on her.
“I told you I didn’t want to see you.”
“I never agreed to that. I would have been here sooner, but I had a client to deal with.”
“Priorities are a bitch like that. Did you see your lover?”
He looks away, shame tinting his cheeks, and that’s another thing he didn’t think about. The fact that he has to see this woman regularly because she works for his company.
She makes a dismissive noise. “That’s what I thought. We’re done here anyway. I don’t want any of the things we bought together.”
“Braelyn, please don’t do this. We can figure this out. Just stay here and talk to me.”
She looks down at the floor. “I’m not sure what else there is to say. You told me all about her and your reasons for fucking her. The wedding is called off. Engagement over. I even returned the ring to you.”
A wounded cry wrenches from the back of his throat and he covers his face with his hands. “You called off the wedding?”
“My parents are managing it.”
“What about mine? They’re paying for a lot of this too.”
“Then you can call them and tell them what a lying, cheating bastard you are!” she screams at him. “Either way, I’m not marrying you in seven weeks. No fucking way.”
Jesus. I shouldn’t be here. “Do you want me to go—”
“No,” she cuts me off. “I’m done with this.”
“Braelyn—”
“Don’t say my name like that!” She slashes the air in front of him.
“You trashed three years together and over a decade of friendship because you suddenly realized you weren’t going to get more pussy in your life.
There is no talking yourself out of that.
It’s cheap and shallow, and I deserve better.
” She steps toward him and gets right up in his face without touching him.
“I deserve better than you. A man who prioritizes his needs at the expense of the woman he claims to love isn’t a man at all.
Please do the honorable thing and respect my choice. We’re over.”
She walks out after that, and I can’t stop my prideful smile.
“I can’t do that,” he whispers hoarsely. “I can’t respect that.” His gaze casts up to mine. “You have to help me with her. You have to talk to her and help me win her back.”
Fuck. I stare bewilderedly at him. “Adam—”
“No,” he cuts in urgently before I can argue. “You have to. I was there for you after you lost Nash in the water. I heard the whispers. I knew what people were saying. But I stood by you even though I lost my best fucking friend. So you owe me. Please. You have to help me win her back.”
Motherfucker. That punch hit me as none have before.
I wince and he winces in return. He knows what he just did. But he’s not backing down either. He’ll do whatever it takes to win Braelyn back. That’s what he’s telling me.
I pick up Braelyn’s purse off the counter and go to leave when he grabs my arm and stops me. “I won’t lose her.”
“You made your choices and now she’s making hers.”
I tear my arm from his grip, only to grab him by his collared shirt and hoist him up until he’s on his tiptoes. His hands reflexively grab my arms and cling. I want to hit him so fucking badly. I want to pulverize him for what he’s doing both to Braelyn and to me.
Instead, I shove him away, making him stagger back four steps before the wall saves him from falling on his ass. That’s how I leave him.
Only I already know he’s far from done with this.