2. Roman
2
ROMAN
Dustin’s 'team celebrating' lasts approximately twenty minutes.
Because that’s how long it takes him—and the rest of the guys—to find a group of girls to chat up.
Sighing, I stretch my arm along the back of the booth and settle deeper into my seat. Not that I’ll be here much longer; drinking doesn’t hold the same appeal it used to. Nowadays, I stay away from anything that doesn’t make my body feel better. And with half my teammates gone, I’m not exactly itching to hang around in a loud bar for no reason.
But then, I see her.
She’s standing at the bar with her back to me. From here, all I can take in is her blonde hair down to her waist, and the tight black mini dress she’s wearing. But then she pushes up onto her heels to yell her order in the bartender’s ear, and the position perfectly accentuates her shapely legs. My focus immediately zeroes in on her ass.
Fuck , I want to bite it.
Once he takes her order, the bartender shoots her a wink and walks off to grab her drinks. The attention causes her to duck her head with a smile, her hand reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. The motion is adorable.
I take a sip of my whiskey, my eyes glued to her. She takes the four shots of clear liquor from the bartender and turns to her girlfriends standing behind her. With a big smile, she passes them out, then clinks her glass to theirs. The wince that pinches her face as she downs the shot tells me drinking isn’t really her favorite thing to do, either. When one of her friends gestures to ask if she wants another, she shakes her head with a laugh.
Downing the last of my own drink, I decide this is my opening.
It occurs to me on my way across the bar that I can’t remember the last time I approached a woman. With my name growing bigger and bigger—and with there being minimal damage to my face throughout my career—it’s not usually me who’s initiated dates or hookups. Being the one to approach feels weirdly foreign.
But she’s gorgeous, and that smile is doing something to me. I’m slightly more forceful than I need to be as I push through the crowd.
As I slide in next to her, she’s still facing her friends, her back to the bar top, which means we’re side to side but turned in opposite directions.
Keeping my gaze trained forward, I lean over to speak softly into her ear. “You know, I can recommend a great mocktail if you’re interested.”
I don’t plan to look at her when she inevitably turns to face me, but…I can’t help it.
She’s fucking breathtaking. I knew she had a great body and an infectious smile even from across the bar, but seeing her up close? Looking into those blue eyes?
It stuns me for a moment.
With only inches between us, I can see the surprise in her eyes and the way her hair sticks to her damp neck from the heat. Can smell the lingering tang of tequila on her breath, along with her subtly sweet perfume. And I take my time registering all of it.
But when she doesn’t answer, and her gaze continues to travel over my face, I eventually quirk an eyebrow in question.
Her head jerks as she snaps out of her study. “Sorry,” she blurts out. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word ‘mocktail’ come out of a hot guy’s mouth. Threw me for a second.”
A grin slowly pulls at my lips. “You calling me hot, gorgeous?”
She blinks, then slaps a hand across her eyes. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud. See, this is why I can’t drink tequila.”
I let out a loud laugh, which has her hand lowering and a small smile peeking up at me.
“Well, that just brings me back to my mocktail offer,” I say with a chuckle.
Her expression sobers, and she turns toward me fully as she cocks her head to the side. “You don’t drink?”
I shrug. “I do. Sometimes. I just like to put healthy things in my body more.”
She nods in understanding. “Same. Blueprint cookies are my exception.”
I glance back at her friends. “So does that mean tonight’s a special occasion?”
A proud smile overtakes her face. “Mmhmm. My best friend just passed her nursing exam, and I passed the NPTE.” When that only gets her a blank stare, she explains, “It’s the National Physical Therapy Exam. It means I’m now officially a licensed physical therapist.”
Impressed, I let out a whistle. “Wow. That is worth a celebration.”
“It really is,” she says on a heavy exhale. “I thought for sure the past three years were going to kill both of us.”
I wave down the bartender.
“Hey, Roman. What can I get you?”
Glancing beside me, I ask, “Are you okay if I order that drink for us? I promise it’s delicious.”
I love that she only hesitates for a beat before she nods. “Sure.”
Turning back to the bartender, I ask, “Can we get two orders of a mint berry smash?”
He’s already reaching for the cocktail shaker. “You got it, boss.”
When I turn my attention back to the blonde, she’s looking at me with a curious expression.
“If you don’t drink often, how does he know your name?”
I could tell her that I get recognized more often than not in this city, especially by men. But for some reason, I don’t feel like going into my pseudo-celebrity status with this girl.
Instead, I say, “I just realized I still don’t know your name.”
For a moment, I expect her to push the issue. But then she says, “It’s…Liliana. Lily.”
I don’t hide any of the heat from my gaze as I take that in. “Liliana,” I murmur, tasting the syllables on my tongue. “That’s a beautiful name.”
And we’re still close enough that I can see the way her cheeks pinken, her eyelashes fluttering when she says quietly, “Thank you.”
I open my mouth to flirt some more, when we’re interrupted by the bartender appearing in front of me.
“Here you go, two mint berry smashes,” he says, sliding the drinks across the bar with a grin aimed my way. “No charge.”
I give him a nod, pulling cash from my pocket and dropping a twenty in his tip jar instead. “Thanks, man, I appreciate it.”
When I slide one of the drinks over to Liliana, she’s got that same curious look on her face from before. “So, he knows your name, and you get special treatment.” She cocks her head as she studies me some more. “But I don’t think you’re lying about the not drinking a lot, because you held strong eye contact when you said it.”
My lip quirks. “Are you sure that physical therapy degree wasn’t a psychology one?”
She chuckles and pulls her drink closer. “Sorry, that one’s all me. I like people watching.”
Letting out a thoughtful hum, I turn to face her fully. “Alright then. Any other observations, Doc?”
“I’m not a doctor,” she says, aiming an amused smile at me.
Lifting an eyebrow, I tell her, “I’ve met enough physical therapists to know you need a doctorate to get there. Ergo…doc.”
That earns me another curious look. “So, you work with physical therapists, and the bartender knows your name, even though you don’t drink. Not to mention, nobody has that many muscles without a good reason.” Her eyes narrow. “You’re a professional athlete, aren’t you?”
And even though I wasn’t planning on leaning on the pro athlete card to get her attention, I can’t help smirking at her accurate guess. “How badly does the physical therapist in you want to study my body to find out?”
A blink of surprise, then…
She bursts out laughing.
“I was expecting a line, but that was more than I could have hoped for,” she says between giggles.
I school my expression to one of affront. “Not exactly the reaction a guy wants to hear after he buys a pretty girl a drink, Liliana…”
“ Technically , the bartender bought my drink,” she teases with a pointed look.
“ Technically , the bartender bought me drinks,” I counter with a sniff.
She collapses into another fit of giggles, which is enough to make me smile. I’m still smiling like a fool as I watch her try the drink.
“Oh yum ,” she says emphatically, licking her lips as she turns wide eyes to me. “That’s delicious.”
I nod at the drink. “Told you. Beckett knows how to make ’em.”
My gaze stays locked on the way her lips wrap around the straw as she sucks down more of her drink. By the time she straightens again, her glass is half empty and my jeans are a little tighter.
“So the not drinking thing…” she starts, oblivious to my staring. “That’s because of your career?”
I roughly clear my throat. “Yeah.”
“And what’s your sport?”
“MMA.”
Her mouth forms an O . “That’s a rough one.”
“It’s not that bad,” I say with a shrug.
Her eyebrows pinch together slightly. “You’ve never had a bad injury?”
I shake my head.
“Why do I have a feeling that your idea of a bad injury and mine are two very different things?”
When that only earns her a grin, she rolls her eyes playfully.
“So why MMA?” she asks. “How’d you get into it?”
“I don’t know, it just kind of happened,” I answer, twirling my glass on the bar top as I recall the memory. “A new gym opened down the street when I was sixteen, and I was curious, so I tried it out. I got addicted my first class and never stopped.”
“Which naturally leads to getting in the ring and later going pro, of course.” She nods in mock-seriousness.
“Something like that.” Chancing a hip check, I volley the question back to her. “So why physical therapy?”
She takes a lazy sip as she thinks it over. “It sounds cliché, but I just wanted to help people. Specifically, with their quality of life. I mean, working with someone to make them healthier? It’s”—she sighs happily—“everything.”
“Sounds fulfilling,” I remark honestly.
“It is,” she says with a nod. Then she lets out a loud laugh. “The fact that I come from a family of thrill-seekers who are prone to injuries probably played a part in it, too. But I’m going to say that was my secondary reason.”
That piques my interest even more. “Thrill-seekers, huh? What kind of activities are we talking about?”
She waves her hand. “Oh, you know, the usual. Skydiving, mountain biking, hiking the biggest mountains in the U.S.”
My eyebrows lift. “Damn. I kind of thought you were going to be exaggerating.”
I’m bumped from behind, the bar starting to fill up. But since it moves me closer to Liliana, I don’t even mind it. Especially when it causes her to bite down on her lip in an attempt to hide her smile.
“So do you join your family for these crazy hobbies?” I ask her, letting my gaze drift down to her glazed lips for a split second.
“Of course,” she says with a fond smile. “Although that will probably change now with my degree. I’ll probably be too focused on my career to do the impromptu stuff that my chaos junkie older brother comes up with. But family vacations are always really fun.”
“I can imagine,” I say with a chuckle.
“What about you?” she asks. “Any crazy hobbies? Outside of the obvious, of course.”
I shake my head. “Nope. MMA pretty much fills my quota of crazy.”
Her lips twitch. “What about normal hobbies, then? What do you do when you’re not fighting?”
I mull it over for a second. “Nothing. Fighting is all I do.”
That makes her frown. “ Nothing? Your entire life is fighting? Sunrise to sunset?”
I shrug. “Yeah. It’s kind of a full-time gig.”
“Nothing is that full time,” she argues, leaning closer as she asks, “What do you do to relax? You have to have time to relax after fights.”
Her proximity makes it hard to think straight as I answer, “I’m actually post-fight right now. So I guess…this.” I gesture around the bar. “Celebrating with my teammates.”
“But we’ve already established that you don’t drink, so clearly this wasn’t your idea of a good time.” Then something occurs to her, and she quirks an eyebrow. “Unless you came out to meet women.”
I hold her gaze as I slowly shake my head. “Believe me, that was just a happy coincidence,” I tell her. “I was on my way out when I saw you.”
Her throat bobs with a swallow, eyes not leaving mine.
“Suddenly, I’m not as annoyed with my teammates for dragging me out here,” I murmur.
That earns me a blush. It takes her a few seconds to respond, and she stumbles over her words when she says, “So, um, we’ve established you don’t like partying.” She clears her throat. “What do you like? We still haven’t figured that out.”
I take another chance. “Talking to you,” I say evenly. And it’s the truth.
Her blush deepens as she glances away. “God, and you’re not even lying ,” she blurts out quietly.
I can’t stop my grin. “No, Liliana, I’m not. In fact?—”
I look toward the dance floor, flashes of my usual ‘move’ appearing before me. How I would ask the girl to dance, using it as an excuse to touch her and fan the lust.
And yet…that’s not what I want to do. Not with her.
“Do you want to go someplace quieter?” I ask, then instantly catch the first flash of hesitation in her eyes.
Shaking her head, she pulls back. “Um, I’m flattered, really, but I don’t think?—”
“That wasn’t a line, as much as it sounded like one,” I interrupt before she can get the wrong idea and move any farther away. Jerking my head toward the back, I explain, “There’s a rooftop garden upstairs that no one knows about. You wouldn’t even really have to leave your friends.”
When she bites her lip with clear indecision, I add, “I meant what I said about wanting to talk to you.”
Thankfully, she can tell I’m being genuine. Her expression softens once more, at ease as she nods.
“Let me just tell my friends where I’m going,” she says, then quickly turns to the three girls behind her who are completely wrapped up in an animated, drunken discussion. They’re only shocked out of it when Lily says something into one girl’s ear, and her head snaps toward me.
I weather the once-over that can only come from the friend of the girl you’re trying to hit on, letting her judge me and trying to look as non-threatening as possible. I must get the stamp of approval, because after a moment, she nods at Lily and says something back.
Lily kisses her on the cheek before turning toward me, a big smile on her face.
“Okay, let’s go,” she says sweetly.
And I can’t help it. I need to touch her. So before I turn to lead us through the crowd, I reach for her hand.