19. Just What I Needed
CHAPTER NINETEEN
just what i needed
ROMAN
There she is, in a tiny dress with blue eyeshadow smeared up to her temples and mascara running down her cheeks. Her feet are bloodied and sliced up, but it looks like that’s the least of her concerns. The entire contents of her purse are spilled out on the pavement, save for the wine bottle that’s sitting next to her.
Why is it that when you’re trying not to think about someone, all of a sudden, they show up right in front of you? She’s the most beautiful disaster I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Cute dog.”
She sniffles as Mitzy licks her arm.
“Imogen, what are you doing out here? It’s past midnight.”
She gestures vaguely, a bitter laugh escaping her lips.
“Oh, you know! Just enjoying Emerald Bay as a drunken disaster.”
She’s got tears streaming down her face.
“Did something happen?”
“Yeah, some guy got tossed through a glass door, and then the cops showed up at this stupid Halloween party that nobody else was dressed up for.” She lets out a long sigh. “And then I lost my keys, and my stupid swollen feet won’t fit back into my tiny fucking shoes !”
She takes a swig from the wine bottle and I frown. Should I sit with her? Should I ask her if she wants to stay at my?—
No. No, I can’t do that.
She would turn me down, anyway.
“I’m having a great fucking night!” She shouts to no one in particular before turning back. “But enough about me, how are things with you?”
“Did you call your brother?”
Her groan echoes through the empty street.
“Logan’s in San Francisco for some conference, and he puts his phone on Do Not Disturb after 9:00. He left me the spare key, which is, of course, sitting cozily on my nightstand.”
Son of a bitch. I can’t leave her out here.
“Do you have a place to stay?”
“Uh, no. I was thinking about downing the rest of this wine and going to the hospital. Maybe I can beg Piper and Jay to let me sleep on their couch.”
“Hospital?”
“It’s a long story.” She buries her face in her hands. “I always do this! I always lose shit, and I’m always fucking things up!”
A deep sob ripples through her and she drops the wine bottle, startling herself as it clatters onto the concrete.
“Son of a bitch!”
Shit.
I care about her too much to leave her by the side of the road, but I’m not great at this whole comforting thing. I feel awful, and she looks so damn helpless but it’s probably too forward to sit down and wrap my arm around her. Getting close tends to lead to poor decisions on my part.
Mitzy pulls me toward her again, licking her and nudging her in the arm.
“Can she smell a trainwreck a mile away, or is she just a big sweetheart?”
“Both,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood. “She picked me out of a crowd, and I’m a complete mess.”
More laughter, but this time there’s no irony; it’s bright despite the tears in her eyes.
“Roman, you don’t have to stick around. I can go meet up with my friends.”
She gives Mitzy a little scratch behind the ears.
“In your bare feet?”
They look swollen and beat up, and they’re only going to get worse if she tries to walk half the town with no shoes on.
“Well, unless you wanna swap shoes…” She points to the bright pink stilettos that sit next to her. “Honestly, I can’t even joke. You’d probably look good in these heels.”
“Well, I’m a size 13, so…”
Even with bloodshot, tear-stained eyes, she’s still kind of looking at me like she wants to jump my bones. Every time we’re around each other the tension feels like it might choke me. It’s been a month now of barely communicating via email. She’s waiting for an answer, and I don’t have one for her. I’ve gotten sick of pushing the feelings away, sick of thinking about her every ten seconds.
“Come home with me.”
She snorts, flashing me a look of disbelief. I barely believe it myself, it just sort of slipped out.
“What?”
“Your feet are swollen, you’ve got makeup running down your face, and it’s the middle of the night. I can’t leave you out here. It wouldn’t be right.”
She opens up her camera app and checks herself out, looking briefly disgusted before glancing back up at me.
“I look fine! And anyway, I can walk, just… you know, I’ll do it carefully.”
Mitzy sniffs at her purse as I kneel down next to Imogen, shoving the dog lightly away from the spilt wine on the pavement. Imogen stares at me in silence, those big brown eyes burning into mine, and I reach out and wipe away some of the dried mascara on her cheek. I’m a little surprised how willingly she leans into my touch.
“You can sleep on the couch and go to your friend’s place in the morning. We can even wash your dress.”
“It’s latex,” she says, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Hard to clean.”
“Okay, well, then you can wear my sweats. I can call a locksmith in the morning. I’ll cover the bill, too.”
This isn’t a good idea. Staying away from her, that was a good idea. Putting her up in a hotel? That would be a good idea. The whole plan was to stay as far apart as possible until all of this stuff is resolved. But then again, I still haven’t sent that transfer email, have I?
She takes my hand and stumbles a little, wincing as Mitzy paws at her calves.
“Mitz, cut it out.” I grab Imogen’s waist to hold her steady. “Can you walk, darlin’?”
“Yeah, I–” She takes a step and hisses in pain. “Ah, fuck!”
“Put your shit back in your purse and grab your shoes, I’m carrying you.”
“Roman, no!” She yelps. “That’s ridiculous!”
I tilt my head.
“I’m not going to let you hurt yourself, at least not anymore than you already have. I won’t tell you again.”
There’s a moment when I think she’s going to fight me, tell me off and limp out into the night, but she doesn’t. She just hobbles back toward her things with a little grumble. This is not a good idea, and I’m fighting against every instinct that I have, but I can’t let her sit out here by herself. Not like this.
I let Mitzy off her leash, giving her a quick command to keep close before hoisting Imogen up into my arms with relative ease.
“I wasn’t ready!” She squeaks, quickly trying to cover up how pleased she sounded just now. “Fine, fine, let’s get this over with.”
“Here, wrap an arm around my neck.”
She looks around, avidly avoiding my gaze as I start toward my place.
“You must work out a lot. How often are you carrying damsels in distress home?”
I scoff, my face burning.
I’ve never done this before. The most I’ve done was help Christa back to the car when she sprained her ankle playing badminton. She bailed within the first ten minutes, tripped over her own shoelace, and hit herself in the head with her racket. The two of us were laughing so hard we could barely breathe. It’s a beautifully painful memory.
“Okay,” she mutters. “The strong, silent type routine. Got it.”
The streets are quiet, and all I can hear is the wind rusting the trees and the sound of Mitzy’s little claws clicking on the pavement as she trots beside us. That and Imogen’s steady breathing.
“I’m so used to New York and horns blaring constantly, or people screaming outside my window,” Imogen sighs. “It’s so quiet here.”
“I went to UCLA for my MA and PhD. When I first got the job here, it took us a while to adjust.”
“Us?”
I can feel my stomach lurch at the thought of that word.
“Me. I meant me.”
Gracefully, Imogen doesn’t press the matter, shifting back to the previous subject.
“So you like it here?”
Despite the fact that she has a couple of friends in town, there’s a part of her that looks just as lonely as I feel.
“It was hard to adjust at first, but you’ll find your people. This town’s full of good ones.”
She smiles, adjusting her grip on the back of my neck and staring up at the infinite sky. There’s not a lot of light pollution in Emerald Bay, and the stars are especially beautiful out at Guardian Point. If things were different, I’d probably have already taken her there.
But that nagging sensation keeps digging its claws into me, over and over.
You can’t do this .
This is wrong.
You could lose everything.
I set her down at my apartment door, and she bends over to give Mitzy a scratch as I fish out my keys.
“Thanks for being our fearless leader, uh— what’s her name again?”
“Mitzy.”
Imogen smiles.
“Mitzy. I love that.”
With the front door open, I scoop her back into my arms and carry her up two small flights of stairs to my apartment.
“Wow, did you just move in?”
She whistles, making me a little self-conscious as she surveys the place.
“Ha-ha.” I roll my eyes and make my way toward the kitchen as she follows, hobbling behind me. “Don’t forget, I’ve seen your house. I know how that brother of yours lives.”
“What?” She giggles with a confused expression. “I was genuinely asking, I thought this might have been a new place.”
I bite my lip, embarrassment tickling the back of my neck as I try to focus on the task at hand. She needs ice. And water, if she has any hope of waking up without a ridiculous hangover.
“Sorry, sometimes it’s hard to tell when people are joking— uh, I moved in here after Christa passed away. I never really had the heart to…”
“I get it,” she murmurs.
Imogen bites her lip, not sure where to look as Mitzy happily dances around her new friend.
“Hey, so I don’t want to impose, but do you mind if I use your shower?” She asks, folding her arms around her body. “I’m kind of freezing and I feel gross.”
“There are towels in the closet, and uh… I’ll see if I can scrounge up some sweats for you to wear. Bathroom’s down the hall to your left, unless you need me to–”
I move to pick her up again but she grasps my hands, leaving me staring helplessly into her eyes.
“It’s like, what, two feet away?”
“Yeah,” I laugh. “Sorry.”
I take a step back, watching her hobble down the hallway with Mitzy carefully walking beside her, checking in on her every few seconds. When I finally hear the bathroom door shut, I head for my room to rifle through my drawers for something she can wear.
All of Christa’s clothes were finally donated last year. Logan and Frankie helped me clean everything out, pack it all up, and send it off to Goodwill. I felt so stupid tearing up just putting things in boxes, but they were there for me through it all.
I manage to find one of my old UCLA sweaters and a pair of shorts with a drawstring that Mitzy hasn’t chewed to shit, heading for the bathroom with my heart in my throat. The door is ajar, and Mitzy is sitting outside.
“You like her, huh?” I ask.
She yawns and flops onto her side.
“Yeah, me too,” I whisper. “It’s a real problem.”
I knock gently, leaning in to listen for her over the sound of the shower.
“Hey, Imogen? I’ve got those clothes for you.”
“Can you put them on the counter?”
I quickly slip into the bathroom, trying my best to avert my eyes but still catch her silhouetted figure through the semi-translucent shower curtain.
“I’ll get a first aid kit for your feet, and, uh…” Her back arches and I can see the perfect outline of her tits as she rinses the water from her hair. “I’ll get you some painkillers.”
She pulls part of the shower curtain back, mascara streaked and smeared beneath her eyes.
“You don’t have to do that.”
I frown and lean against the counter.
“Will you just let me help?”
She flashes me a resigned smile, and her gaze lands on the clothes sitting on the counter.
“I’ll be out in five minutes.”
I nod, standing stock-still until she quirks a brow.
“Oh, right, sure, and I’ll be in the living room.”
I rush out of the room, shutting the door and taking in a deep breath. This might be it, I might be doomed. The fact is, I can’t stop this chemistry from firing between us. She makes me feel alive. Even just being around her has my heart pounding and my palms clammy. Sure, I can transfer her, I should transfer her, but I’m still going to have to see her.
There will be more dinners, more parties, more mixers.
It’s not something we can easily run from.
And if we’ve already crossed a line, what’s a few more steps?