37. Roman
Roman
I don’t want to leave.
Damon might say he’s okay, might sound like he’s got his shit together, but after last night? After this morning? My gut is screaming at me that I need to stay. But I have practice, and I know if I don’t show, Coach will have my ass.
He must see the hesitation written all over my face because he exhales through his nose and grabs my hoodie, pulling me closer. “Baby, I’ll be fine.”
I don’t believe him. I don’t fucking believe him.
“You weren’t fine yesterday,” I say, grabbing his wrists. “You weren’t fine when I got here.”
He exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well. I am now.”
I narrow my eyes. “What changed?”
His lips twitch, but there’s no humor in it. “You stayed.”
The words hit me straight in the fucking ribs. I swallow against the lump in my throat, glancing away for half a second before looking back at him. “I don’t want to leave you alone.”
Damon sighs and cups my face. “I’ll be fine, Hotshot. I took my meds, and I’ve got a session later today.”
I blink. “A session?”
“With my therapist.”
My brain stutters for a second. “You go to therapy?”
Damon scoffs. “You sound surprised.”
“I am surprised,” I admit, because I am.
I don’t know why, but I never pictured Damon in a therapist’s office. He’s always been so guarded, so closed off. It’s hard to imagine him sitting in front of some stranger, talking about… this. He must see something on my face because he lets out a low breath and looks away, his jaw tightening before he speaks.
“I had a psychotic break a few months ago,” he says in a flat tone. “That’s why I left for three weeks.”
My stomach fucking drops. I feel like my body is full of cement. Like I can’t fucking move. This is why I didn’t see him? Back when I thought he was avoiding me?
Damon shrugs like he’s talking about the fucking weather. “The voices were getting worse. I wasn’t sleeping. Wasn’t functioning.” He laughs, but it’s hollow. “Eventually, I lost it. Fully lost it. I called up my mom and she flew down, made sure I was actually getting help. When I got out, she got rid of my old apartment and got me this one.”
I can’t help but frown at this. Weren’t his parents obsessed with being perfect? “She knows?”
“About the voices? Yeah,” Damon tilts his head, smirking slightly. “About you? Not yet.”
I don’t smile and I hate the way my chest clenches, the way my pulse stutters. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice rough.
He lets out a humorless laugh. “Because I didn’t want you looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now.”
Like my heart is shattering? Like I don’t know whether I want to cry or break something? Because Caleb started hearing voices before he died, too.
I feel sick.
Damon watches me carefully, but I don’t know what he sees in my face. I don’t know how to hide this. “Roman?”
I shake my head, trying to gather my thoughts. “Before Caleb died,” I rasp, my throat so fucking tight, “he started hearing things.”
Damon stiffens and his hands drop from my face with widening eyes. My chest, on the other hand, feels like it’s caving in. “I—I didn’t realize it at first. I just thought he was having a rough time. But then he started saying weird shit. Started looking at me like he wasn’t seeing me.”
Just like you did in front of that canvas last night.
My voice cracks, but Damon doesn’t say anything, and I can’t look at him. Because if I do, I’ll see Caleb and I don’t want to fucking see Caleb right now. But I force myself to look at him. “You have to promise me you’re not gonna…” My voice cracks and I shake my head. “You’re not him, Damon.”
Damon sucks in a stuttered breath. “I know.”
“Are you sure?” I demand, my throat closing up. “Because I can’t—I won’t go through that again.”
His eyes soften, and suddenly, he’s reaching for me, grabbing my face between his hands again and forcing me to meet his gaze. “I know, Roman.” His thumbs brush over my cheekbones. “I know what this looks like. I know what you’re thinking. But I’m not him. I’m not going anywhere.”
I don’t know what to say. I want to believe him, but I also wanted to believe Caleb.
And I fucking lost him.
“I promise,” he says, voice rough.
Something inside me snaps at that. Because fuck promises, actually. I’ve heard them before. I heard them from Caleb, and look where that got me.
Where it got him.
I don’t trust my voice, so I just nod.
Damon exhales, his grip on my face loosening before his hands slide down to my shoulders. “Go to practice, baby.”
“I don’t—”
“I’ll be fine,” he interrupts. “I swear. I’ve got therapy later, and after that, I’ll probably just crash.” He leans in, pressing a quick kiss to my lips. “You need to stop hovering over me like a mother hen.”
I huff out a weak laugh. “Fuck off.”
He smirks, brushing his fingers through my hair. “Go.”
I hesitate, but eventually, I sigh and head toward the door. “If you need anything—”
“I’ll call,” he says, rolling his eyes. I don’t believe him for a fucking second. Because all I can hear is Caleb’s voice in my head, telling me the same fucking thing.
Coach is pissed.
I knew he would be, knew the second I left practice yesterday that I was gonna get my ass chewed out, but I don’t care. I can’t care. Because the only thing running through my head right now is Damon.
“You think this is a fucking joke, Bishop?” Coach’s voice cuts through the noise of the rink, loud and sharp as a slap. “You think just because you’re one of my best players, you get to pull this shit?”
I stand there, my helmet under my arm, sweat rolling down my spine. My body is tense, muscles wound so fucking tight I might snap in half.
“No, sir,” I say, voice flat.
Coach scoffs, running a hand down his face. “Jesus fucking Christ. You’ve got talent, but talent means jack shit if your head isn’t in the game. You leave practice again without permission, and I swear to God, I don’t care how good you and King are on the ice—I’ll bench your ass.”
I nod stiffly. “Understood.”
He stares at me for a long moment, like he’s trying to gauge whether I give a shit. I don’t. “Get your gear on and focus today,” he mutters, shaking his head as he walks off.
I don’t say anything. Just head for the locker room and do as I’m told. By the time we hit the ice, I’m running on autopilot.
I move through the drills mechanically, skating harder, pushing myself past the pain in my legs, my arms, my fucking chest. I shoot, I pass, I dodge—every movement precise, calculated, and perfect.
But all I hear is static, like my brain’s tuned into a frequency I can’t turn off.
I should be paying attention. I should be listening to Coach, to my teammates, to Killian calling plays. But all I can see is Damon—his hands shaking, his eyes dark, his paint-stained fingers gripping mine like I was the only thing keeping him from slipping off the edge.
I grind my teeth and push harder. The harder I push, the less I have to think.
Killian’s watching me, I can feel it. He knows something’s up, but he doesn’t say shit. Not yet. We run through more drills, and I don’t miss a single pass, don’t fuck up a single shot. But I don’t celebrate either. I just keep moving.
When practice ends, I skate off the ice without looking at anyone. I rip my helmet off, my jersey clinging to my pads and my chest rising and falling too fast.
Killian doesn’t say a word until I’ve showered and changed. Then, as I sling my bag over my shoulder, he claps a hand on my back. “Burgers. You, me. Now.”
I blink at him. “What?”
He raises an eyebrow. “You’re wound up, and I’m fucking starving. So unless you have a hot date with your boyfriend, let’s go get some food.”
I snort, shaking my head as I run a towel over my damp hair. “Damon’s got therapy.”
Kill’s expression flickers, but he just nods. “Then you have no excuse. Let’s go.”
I almost say no. Almost tell him I just want to go home, shower, crawl into bed, and forget about everything. But it’s Killian, and if anyone knows when I need to talk before I even realize it myself, it’s him.
So I nod. “Yeah. Alright.”
We head out to the diner, slipping into our usual booth in the back. The place is packed with students, the air thick with the smell of grease and coffee. Killian orders for both of us, not bothering to ask what I want because he already knows.
Then he leans forward, arms resting on the table, his overly perceptive blue eyes locked onto mine.
“Spill.” I hesitate and he tilts his head. “Rome.”
I exhale hard, rubbing a hand over my face.
And I tell him everything.
About Damon’s break. The voices. The hospital stay. The therapy. Killian doesn’t interrupt. He just listens, his jaw ticking, his fingers tightening around his soda.
Then I tell him about Caleb, about the secret I’ve been keeping. The way he started hearing things, the way I didn’t realize what was happening until it was too fucking late. The way Damon’s confession hit me like a bullet straight to the fucking chest.
By the time I finish, my throat is tight and my burger is untouched. Killian breathes out slowly, shaking his head. “Jesus, Rome. You’ve been sitting with this the entire time?”
I laugh weakly, but there’s no humor in it. “Yeah.”
He leans back, running a hand through his blond hair. “And how are you?”
I blink. “What?”
He raises an eyebrow. “How are you, Rome? You good?”
“No,” I let out a breath. “Not even fucking close.”
Killian nods like he expected that. “You love him?”
The question knocks the air out of me and I look away, swallowing hard. “Yeah, and I told him, too.”
His eyebrows shoot up, and he leans back in the booth, letting out a low whistle. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” I say, my fingers curling against the tabletop. “And he—fuck, Kill, he looked at me like I was speaking another fucking language. Like it didn’t make sense to him. Like I couldn’t love him. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t fucking believe me.”
He exhales through his nose, rubbing his jaw. “Because he doesn’t think he deserves it.”
My stomach knots. “I know that, but—”
“But it still fucking hurts,” Killian finishes for me, nodding. “Yeah. I get it.”
I stare at my hands, my fingers twitching with frustration. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make him believe it.”
Killian shrugs. “You don’t. You just keep showing up for him until he does.”
I let out a breath, shaking my head. “It’s not that simple.”
“No, it’s not,” Killian agrees. “But he isn’t simple, Rome. You knew that before you ever fucking touched him.”
I press my lips together, my jaw tight.
Killian sighs. “Look, man. Damon’s been through shit, that much is clear. The kind of shit that makes a guy think love is some impossible fucking thing. He’s not just gonna wake up one day and be like, ‘Oh, yeah, Roman Bishop loves me. That makes sense.’ ”
I groan, rubbing my hands over my face. “So what the fuck do I do?”
He shrugs again. “You prove it. Every fucking day until he doesn’t have a choice but to believe it.”
I stare at him, my chest aching, my fingers digging into my jeans. Because I will. I’ll prove it to him over and over again.
Until he finally fucking believes me.