39. Sincere
Two Months Later
NOVEMBER
Rome nudged my knee with his under the table while I was in the middle of dipping my first fry in cheddar cheese. When I looked up at him, he didn’t say anything, but stared at me with imploring eyes.
“What?” I asked, confused. I knew there wasn’t anything on my face because I hadn’t started eating yet, but my fingers still flew to my chin, rubbing at nothing.
“You good?” he asked cryptically, his knee swiping mine again.
We were seated on the same side of the booth for four because we were waiting for Goldyn and Lorenzo to arrive. But Rome’s warmth by my side was nice. His presence was always nice.
“I’m good.” Better than good , but that was beside the point. “Why you asking?”
I ate my first handful of fries and cut him a look out the corner of my eye. Ever since Goldyn had introduced me to the food at Lucky’s Tavern, I ate here at least once a week.
“Because I haven’t in a while,” Romeo answered, licking his lips. “Checkin’ in and shit.”
Cleaning my hands, I grabbed my ginger ale and nodded. “What about you? You good?”
The question felt redundant when I could read how he felt written all over his face. Romeo was the happiest I’d seen him in a while. Hell, I didn’t know if I’d ever seen him this happy.
Goldyn had shown up and pored light into all the darkest parts of us until all we could do was radiate it. We were good before she came, but she made us better.
I expected a terse reply from Romeo, but he surprised me and said, “I’ve never felt like this before. About anything or anybody. It’s scary, but most days I don’t even give a fuck. I like being lost in her. I can’t go back to what I was doing before she showed up. I thought I was happy, but I was just existing.”
“You’re in love,” I supplied, picking up my burger. Chili spilled from the sides and my mouth watered at the sight.
“It’s deeper than that. I don’t even know if what I feel is healthy, but it gets deeper every day.”
“As long as you don’t wake up one morning and decide to run from it, we’re good.”
He scoffed until I cut my eyes at him again.
“I’m serious, Rome. Goldyn loves you. When we asked her to stay for good, she made sure we knew she was in love with you and wouldn’t stop seeing you. Her heart and happiness are wrapped up in this too. And I know we promised to never let a woman come between us a long time ago, but you gotta understand Goldyn isn’t just ‘a woman.’ The same way I don’t want her to hurt you, if you hurt her…”
“You never gotta worry about that,” Rome assured me, his voice calm but unrelenting. I could hear the love lacing his words and my chest squeezed.
“Good. Now why aren’t you eating?” I took a bite of my burger while I waited for his reply.
“Nervous,” he mumbled, and if the place wasn’t so quiet right now I wouldn’t have heard it.
Thankfully, it was the lull between the lunch and dinner rushes, and no one was talking except us.
“What if she has to get surgery?” he asked lowly, and I dropped my burger, my appetite waning the more he made me think about it.
Lorenzo and Goldyn had been in Charlotte all morning for an appointment with her new OBGYN.
She’d had another bad episode earlier this month, and the heavy bleeding that came a few days after it scared the fuck out of Rome. To the point that he knocked on our bedroom door in the middle of the night and told us to be on standby in case we needed to go to the hospital.
But Goldyn had declined the hospital visit, saying she knew her body and the bleeding would get better in a couple days.
It did, but the thought of her being in bed for two days while her body waged war on her was still a mindfuck.
“She’ll be fine. And if she has to have surgery, she’ll be getting it from one of the best doctor’s in the state.”
He nodded, still looking unconvinced until I threw my arm around his broad shoulders.
“She’s fine , Rome. Us worrying about it won’t make it better, either. Just wait for her to get here and tell us how it went.”
“Yea…right.”
I wasn’t used to Rome being the one in need of reassurance, but the worry emanating off of him was almost a tangible thing, wedging itself between us.
“Besides,” I added, trying to lighten the mood. “Aren’t you still working on a new tea for her hormones? Goldyn Hour or something?” I fully knew the name of the proprietary blend Romeo had formulated for our girl, but I hoped giving him a chance to talk about it would ease some of the tension bunching his shoulders.
And it worked. Little by little, he relaxed as he caught me up on the progress he’d made with it this week. “There’s still work to be done before I let her try it. But I’m using Lottie as my guinea pig and she said it tastes good and her last period had mild cramps.”
As if we’d summoned her, Goldyn appeared in the doorway to Lucky’s a few seconds later. Her usual sunny smile was missing, but I was convinced that had more to do with how long she’d been up today. She and Lorenzo got on the road at seven o’clock this morning.
Her eyes glowed when they landed on us, and she made a beeline for our table.
“Hi, baby,” she said with a radiant smile, leaning down to kiss me. Our lips brushed in a sweet kiss before she stared at me with unguarded emotion covering her face. Her hand caressed my jaw as she sighed and turned her attention to Rome. “Hey, lover.”
“Hey, G. You okay?” he asked, the emotion in his voice thick and heavy with concern.
Goldyn paused to think for a second and sighed wearily. “For the most part yea. Got an MRI but won’t have the results until next week, but the ultrasound was productive.”
Before we could ask what that meant, Lorenzo walked in, tucking his shades into the open collar of his shirt.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him as he approached and he smirked when he noticed my attention pinned on him.
Goldyn scooted into her place across from Rome and grabbed his hand over the table while Enzo bent to kiss me.
“We fucking missed you today,” he said roughly, gripping my jaw to deepen the kiss. I would’ve been self-conscious about the chili and cheese clinging to my breath if he didn’t lick into my mouth like I was his favorite flavor.
Enzo pulled away with a groan and gave Romeo a quiet nod in greeting, sitting down beside Goldyn.
Romeo and Goldyn were having their own hushed conversation, so I focused my attention on my husband. “How’d it go?” I asked.
“So many damn tests.” He shook his head, scrubbing a hand down his darkly-stubbled face. “I was more anxious than her. I don’t know if I can do that shit again. By the time we got to the pharmacy after the appointment, she was trying to calm me down.”
I shot him a sympathetic smile, knowing exactly what he meant. All three of us were fucked up when it came to Goldyn. Romeo was the most extreme which was exactly why he’d been left at home today. But I wasn’t far behind him. None of us liked the idea of her suffering and not being able to do anything about it.
Pushing my fries across the table, I motioned for Enzo to eat. If the rigid set of his shoulders was any indication, I knew he’d been just like Rome all day and wound too tight to feed himself.
Quietly, he started eating and I let my eyes roam over everybody at the table. All the people I adored in one place. The man I gave my last name. The woman who felt like home. And my best friend who was the mirror to my soul.
I flagged down the waitress and ordered more food for the table before I let my eyes rest on them again. Especially the woman who turned out to be the perfect missing piece for all of us.
Because of Goldyn, I was finally taking my baking seriously. When we met, I knew right away that I would do anything to help make her dreams come true. But I didn’t know she’d end up doing the same for me. She was my partner in more ways than one, lifting me up and pushing me to do things I’d shied away from for too long.
We were in the middle of designing the bakery connected to her store together, and every day I got to work on that, more of my former insecurities were laid to rest.
Loving the people at this table and letting them love me in return had given me everything.