30. Chapter 30
Chapter thirty
Roman
An ear-piercing scream pulls me from sleep, and I don’t even have time to process what’s happening before I have the bedroom door bouncing off the wall. In seconds I’m in his room, my hands trembling as I pull him to closer to me.
“Lance, wake up, pretty boy.”
“Ah, ah,” he hisses as he rubs his chest. “It burns.”
When his hand goes limp, falling away to reveal the brand beneath it, my stomach immediately lurches into my throat. As I stare down at him, my heart shatters into a million little pieces, scattering themselves around the room. How can something so devastatingly beautiful be so fragile?
“Why? Why, why, why?“ He repeats in a whisper as his chest heaves with sobs.
“It was a dream, love. I’ve got you.” I chant as I run my fingers through his hair.
He wipes at his eyes before tugging at the roots of his hair. His entire body is clammy and damp to the touch, but he’s still shivering. I pull the blanket closer, hoping it’ll comfort him. When his labored breaths finally slow down, I gently guide his head back to his pillow.
“Roman?” He asks with a sniffle.
“I’m still here.”
He shifts beneath the blankets, snuggling closer to me. “Please don’t go. Not again.”
“Never again,“ I promise.
When the morning light forces its way through the blinds, casting a glow across the room, I stir awake. When I turn over, the bed is empty, and the sheets are cold. I let out a defeated sigh as I throw the covers off and head to the kitchen.
When I glance to the couch, he’s there, where he always is. “Good morning.” I offer.
I was hopeful that after last night, he’d be a little more open to communicating today, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.
After I flip on the coffee maker, I go grab my phone from my room to distract myself.
I head back to the kitchen to finish getting my mug ready for coffee before opening up the app to check for a message from UnderneathItAll.
I scroll up and down the page, refreshing it a couple of times, but there’s nothing there. Again.
I turn around, leaning against the counter as I wait, my eyes finding Lance across the room.
I hate this. I fucking hate it. I want what we had before.
I want to crawl on that tiny stupid couch beside him and curl up with my head in his lap.
I want to touch him. I want to hold his hand and run my fingers through his hair again.
I want to watch documentaries together or sit in silence while he reads.
I want to cook while he watches cluelessly from the other side of the bar until we sit down to eat together. All I want to do is love him.
What we had wasn’t a fucking Grand Cayman vacation, but it was ours.
I thought that him not talking to me before was painful, but this is fucking excruciating. I’m so close to him, but he’s put even more distance between us than before, and I don’t know how to fix a problem that I can’t see.
With nothing better to do while I wait on my coffee, I look back down at my phone, sending another message that I expect to go unanswered.
Me:
I miss you.
There. Short, sweet, and to the point. The coffee maker beeps, so I look up as I move to stuff my phone into my pocket, immediately having to duck out of the way.
Lance’s phone flies across the room, splintering to pieces as it hits the cabinet behind me.
I glance at the cabinet, checking to see if it’s damaged, before turning back to him in confusion.
“What the fu—”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He yells at me as he tosses his e-reader to the side and pushes to his feet.
“I’m just making coffee,” I reply as I gesture to the coffee maker.
“Oh, really?” He replies sarcastically. “So, you weren’t just smiling at your phone as you texted another guy?”
I stop to think about it for a second, which he doesn’t seem to appreciate. Was I smiling? I don’t think so. Maybe?
“Um… maybe?” I reply as I finally manage to tuck my phone in my pocket.
“You’re fucking kidding me right now.” He replies stoically as he steps closer. “You’re actually fucking joking, right?”
Well, this is about to get ugly. The pressure and tension in the room are rising to a tipping point, like a crescendo. All the quiet, the things we’ve refused to talk about and acknowledge, have finally bubbled to the surface, and everything is about to start boiling over. I can feel it.
“You fucking stalk me through the cameras, text and call me all hours of the day and night like you can’t fucking breathe without me, and yet, somehow, I can’t manage to keep all your attention for what? A week?”
“You always have my attention. All of it.“ I reply honestly, because he does. He consumes every thought I have.
“You’re a fucking liar!” He yells again as he paces on the other side of the island, running his hand through his hair in frustration.
I walk to the edge of the kitchen, just a few feet away from him. “It’s not a lie, Lance. You just don’t want to believe it. You’re scared to accept the fact that someone cares about you, but I do. You’re all I ever think about. You’re the only thing I want.”
He stops pacing and glares over at me. He takes a couple of slow tentative steps toward me, forcing me to match his pace as he backs me against the wall.
He props himself up, trying to cage me in.
I’m bigger than him, so he can’t actually keep me here unless I want to be here, but I do.
I’m ready to put all this bullshit on the table. I’m tired of the secrets. The lies.
“Let me see your phone then, Roman.” He whispers.
I swallow nervously, shaking my head to deny him. I can’t do that. I can’t. He wouldn’t understand.
His head flops forward as he lets out a husky chuckle, then he looks back at me. “Why did I expect that answer? Huh?” He asks as he pushes off the wall, leaving me to stand there in stunned silence.
“You care about me more than anything, right?” He asks causing me to nod in reply.
“Then why— tell me why. Why wouldn’t you ever take your clothes off?
You strip me down to fucking nothing, get what you wanted and never even take your fucking shirt off.
Why wouldn’t you actually have sex with me?
Hm? Why did I beg you for weeks and get denied every single time?
Why did you leave me laying in the fucking floor and tell me to leave, Roman? Why?!”
I nod to acknowledge him, but the words are jumbled up in my throat, choking me.
“Why?!” He yells again, causing me to flinch.
“Or tell me this…” he continues. “Why does the guy that you’re messaging all the time get just as much attention— No, he gets more attention than I do, than I ever did.”
My face heats, shame washing over me. I can’t take back the things I’ve done, the things I’m doing, but I can change our future.
I can give him everything he desires if he just tells me what he wants.
“If you want all of my attention, then you can have it, Lance. Anything you want. I’ll delete the fucking app. I don’t give a shit.”
“So… what?” He asks with disgust all over his face. “You’ll just toss him aside like he never mattered to you? How would that make him feel? Did you even think about that? Or were you just trying to have your cake and eat it too?”
“It’s not like that,” I deny as I shake my head. I don’t know what the right thing is to say. I don’t know what I wanted to get out of this, but this isn’t it. “He knows about you.”
He scoffs as he takes a few steps closer to me, staring down at the floor before looking back up at me through his lashes.
My heart pounds in my chest, echoing in my ears.
I lean my weight forward, tucking my hands in my pockets nervously.
Everything, the truth and all the shit in between, it’s on the tip of my tongue.
I’m trying so hard to choke it back. I’m afraid that everything I need to say, it’ll just make him pull away more, but I don’t know how much longer I can keep it from him.
I lock my eyes with his, hoping that what I have to offer is enough. “I did all of that because I love you, okay? I love you, Lance.”
He rears back from me, in complete shock that those words are coming from my mouth right now. Hell, probably shocked that they’re coming from my mouth at all.
“For a long time,” I admit with a chuckle.
“I don’t— I didn’t have sex with you because I love you.
I didn’t want to do it knowing that I felt something more for you and that it was just some stupid verbal contract to you.
I wanted it to be different. I wanted everything to be different.
I wanted you to feel the same things I did…
to— to experience that with me. What I have with him, it matters.
I’m not saying that it’s not important, but it’s not like that. It’s not what I have with you.”
“It’s not like that? Love? So, you don’t love him too?”
I know it’s not the answer he wants to hear, but I refuse to lie to him anymore. “Ye— Yes, I do.”
He shoves against my chest, causing me to bounce off the wall. I could fight back, defend myself, but I won’t. I submit to his anger, because he deserves to let it go. He took what I gave him, and now it’s my turn to do that for him.
“You’re un-fucking-believable, Roman. You realize that, right?”
“I know,” I agree with a nod. “I didn’t mean for any of it to go like this.”
“You didn’t mean for—” He scoffs as he shakes his head in disbelief.
“When I got up, I went into your room. I saw the way you talk to him. All the shit that you say to him, that could’ve been me, Roman.
You could have been sharing your life, yourself, with me.
You say you care about me so fucking much, but you hide shit from me and give him everything. ”
My brows pinch together in confusion, letting his words sink in as he continues to talk.