Chapter 10 Roman #2
“I don’t know how to want someone the right amount.” The confession costs me, but I keep going. “Not so much that I scare you off. Not so little that it’s just physical. I just know that watching you carry everything alone is killing me, and I can’t keep pretending I’m fine with it.”
For a moment, she just stares at me. Then something in her face shifts from exhaustion to anger.
“You don’t get to decide that for me!” She’s whisper-yelling now, pushing up from the floor.
I stand too, and suddenly the closet is way too small. We’re inches apart, both breathing hard.
“You don’t get to decide what I can handle or what’s too much or what the right amount is.” Her voice is shaking. “You kissed me like that—like you were dying for it—and then you walked away like it was nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing. I left because I wanted you too much!”
“That’s not a reason!”
“Yes it is!” I’m almost yelling now too, all the restraint I’ve been holding for weeks breaking.
“You called me under-brained the first time we met and I think about you constantly. Not just sex—though Christ, I think about that too—but the way you bite your lip when you’re concentrating and how you look at 7 AM when you think no one’s watching and—”
“Stop.”
“—and your mom is dying and you’re barely holding on and I couldn’t add to that. I couldn’t be another thing you have to manage.”
“I wasn’t asking you to be something I manage.” Her voice breaks. “I was asking you to come inside. To let me have something good while everything else falls apart.”
“Marnie—”
“No. You decided. You chose for both of us.” She scrubs angrily at the tears. “And now I have to see you every day and pretend I don’t know how you kiss. Pretend I don’t think about it. Pretend my body doesn’t remember exactly how you felt pressed against me.”
We’re staring at each other the air between us charged with weeks of tension and want and fear.
“Then stop pretending,” I say quietly.
“I can’t! You’re my patient!”
“Then I’ll find a different PT.”
“Winters would fire me immediately.”
“Then I’ll—”
“What? What will you do, Roman?” She’s shaking now, from anger or exhaustion or both. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re really good at wanting me when it’s safe. When you can walk away. When you can control it.”
“You think this is control?” I gesture to my shoulder, then at the space between us. “I tore my shoulder again because I couldn’t handle you ignoring me. That’s not control. That’s pathetic.”
“It’s self-destructive.”
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s—”
I kiss her.
Hard. Backing her up against the shelving unit until boxes of supplies rattle and shift.
She makes a sound—anger or want or both—and bites my lip hard enough to hurt.
“This is wrong,” she says against my mouth, but her hands are twisted in my shirt.
“Probably.”
“My mom’s dying.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to miss the opener because you’re an idiot.”
“I know.”
“I can’t stop thinking about Friday night.”
“Good.”
I lift her onto the shelf and she uses the leverage immediately, legs wrapping around me, yanking me between her thighs with a force that makes me groan.
We kiss like it’s a fight we both intend to win.
Her teeth catching my lip when I try to control the pace, my hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise when she tries to pull away to breathe.
“We can’t do this here,” she gasps when I move to her neck, but her hands are under my shirt, nails dragging across my back and all I want to do is find a surface that isn’t surrounded by medical supplies.
But neither of us stops.
I’m gripping her thighs, thumb pressing into the muscle I’ve watched her stretch a hundred times, and she rocks against me and I bite her shoulder to keep from saying something stupid like how much I’ve wanted this, wanted her.
She gasps and rocks again, harder, and I groan into her neck.
The door opens.
“Oh shit!” Jake slams it shut immediately. “Sorry! So sorry! Did not see anything!”
We freeze.
Marnie’s legs are still around me. My hand is so far up her shirt I can feel her racing heartbeat against my palm.
“Fuck,” she breathes, unwrapping her legs and sliding off the shelf.
We’re both breathing hard, staring at each other in the dim closet light. Her hair is wrecked. Her lips are swollen. There are red marks on her throat from my mouth.
“Jake’s going to tell everyone,” she says, trying to fix her shirt with shaking hands.
“No he won’t.”
“He literally just saw us—”
“He won’t say anything that matters.” I catch her hand before she can smooth her hair. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Acting like we just made a mistake.”
“Didn’t we?” Her voice is smaller now, uncertain. “My mom coded yesterday. You’re missing the opener because of your shoulder. Winters is documenting everything I do. And we almost—”
“Yeah. We did.”
“In a supply closet.”
“Not my first choice of location, but—”
She laughs, short and broken. “God, what are we doing?”
“I don’t know.” I touch her face gently, wiping away a smudge of mascara with my thumb. “But I know I should have followed you inside on Friday.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
I can see the exhaustion in her eyes, the tear tracks on her cheeks, the way she’s still leaning slightly toward me even though she’s trying to pull away.
“You stood up to me day one. Nearly killed me with those band exercises.” I can’t help smiling at the memory. “Plus you don’t take shit from anyone twice your size. You know what that is? Moxie.”
She blinks at me. “Are you giving me a nickname? Right now?”
“Yeah. Moxie. It fits.”
She stares at me for a moment before something shifts in her expression. Almost a smile. “You’re insane.”
“Probably.”
“This can’t happen again.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay.”
“Stop saying okay like you don’t believe me.”
“Okay, Moxie.”
“Don’t—” But she’s fighting a real smile now. “I have to go. I have to get back to the hospital.”
“Let me drive you.”
“I have my car.”
“You’ve been up since 4 AM dealing with your mom.” I step back, giving her space but not too much. “Let me drive you.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Not asking as the guy who just had you against a shelf. Asking as someone who gives a shit.”
She drops her hands, looks at me. Her mascara is wrecked, her hair is chaos, and she looks exhausted and beautiful and like she’s about to break.
“Jake’s probably already told the entire team.”
“Good. Saves me the trouble.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little funny.” I touch her face gently. “We lasted what, four days after our first kiss?”
“Three and a half.”
“Even better.” I let my hand drop but keep my eyes on hers. “Let me drive you to the hospital. You can get your car later.”
“What about your shoulder?”
“It’ll heal. That’s what you keep telling me, right? Everything heals with time and proper protocols.”
“You never follow protocols.”
“I’m following one right now.”
“Which one?”
“The one where I don’t let you drive when you’re exhausted and emotional and probably shouldn’t be alone.”
She leans into my hand for just a second, closing her eyes. When she opens them again, there’s something softer there. Something like surrender.
“Fine. But we’re taking my car. Your truck is stupidly high.”
“Deal.”
We leave the closet to find Jake standing at the far end of the hall, aggressively studying his phone like it holds the secrets of the universe.
“Jake,” Marnie says, all business again. “Document the shoulder extension. Three weeks minimum.”
“Already done.” He doesn’t look up. “Also deleted the last ten minutes from my memory.”
“Jake—”
“Selective amnesia. Medical condition. Can’t remember anything that happened after Roman went looking for you.”
“That’s not a real condition.”
“It is now.” He finally looks up, and there’s something knowing in his expression. “But it doesn’t matter. Everyone knows anyway.”
“Knows what?” Marnie asks.
“That Cap’s been destroying himself since Monday. That you’ve been ignoring his texts but answering everyone else’s. That something happened and you’re both being idiots about it.” He shrugs. “Supply closet was probably not the smartest solution, but at least you’re talking now.”
“We weren’t talking,” I say.
“Yeah, I noticed. My trauma noticed.” Jake shudders dramatically. “I’m billing you both for therapy.”
Marnie’s phone buzzes. She checks it, and her face changes completely.
“I have to go. Mom’s asking for me.”
“I’m driving you,” I tell Jake. “Can you handle my ice protocol?”
“Sure. Try not to make out in any more closets between here and the hospital.”
“No promises,” I say, and Marnie shoves against me.
As we walk to her car, she says quietly, “This doesn’t change anything. We can’t do this.”
“I know.”
“But we’re going to anyway.”
“Probably.”
“That’s not a plan, Roman.”
“Sure it is. It’s just not a good one.”
She stops at her car, turns to face me. “But Moxie? Really?”
“Would you prefer something traditional? Sweetheart? Baby?”
“I’d prefer you follow your shoulder protocol and stop making my life complicated.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me. I’m only one year older than you.”
“Yes, Moxie.”
“That’s not better.”
But she’s definitely fighting a smile now.
I’ll take it.