Chapter 25 Sasha
TWENTY-FIVE
SASHA
Roman was gone by the time I got up the next morning.
I wasn’t surprised, even though I wasn’t happy about it either. I felt like he and I needed to talk in a way we hadn’t yet.
Up until that point, all we’d done was a lot of arguing.
I felt like I had a small piece of the puzzle the night before, but we needed to keep going to reach some agreement.
He confirmed that he had feelings for me too, but he wasn’t going to let anything happen for a multitude of reasons: I was too young, because of Chloe, because of our family, or the excuse of him not wanting to ruin my life by being a part of it.
The feelings hadn’t gone away, so something needed to be done. I didn’t know what.
To me, the only option was for the two of us to give in and be together.
I knew there was no way I’d be able to live there and ignore my feelings.
They were eating me alive. Roman wasn’t the type to bring women home.
He never wanted to take the chance of having Sophia run into his fuck buddy for the night.
But I was sure that he took women back to his apartment, which was closer to the office.
I was eaten up with jealousy as I thought about him with other women.
Even if we weren’t together, he was still mine.
In my head, at least. I thought that he felt the same way about me, too, though.
I could tell how jealous he’d get when I told him I was with my friends.
He was sure that Lance wanted me. The difference in me hanging out with Lance and him being with all those women was that I didn’t want Lance.
I didn’t let him touch me. But Roman, he was touching all those other women.
He was doing more than touching them. Why would he allow himself to be with all of them except me?
I was surprised that I didn’t feel as bad as I thought I would. I guessed that my body had finally started to get used to dealing with hangovers.
Yes, I was tired, and yes, I had a headache, but I didn’t feel the need to lie in bed all day to recover, either. Instead, I wanted to get up and start my day.
I pushed back the blankets and stood, still dressed in my clothes from the night before. I stretched as I moved toward the attached bathroom, then stopped at the vanity and popped a couple of Tylenol. Stripping down, I climbed into the shower.
My day was full of things to do: laundry, homework, taking care of Sophia, and making dinner while doing some cleaning around the house.
I hoped to see Roman, even though I didn’t expect to.
He never ended up coming home. Sophia and I had dinner, just the two of us, and on Monday, he still wasn’t home when we left for school.
I headed toward the courtyard to meet up with my group of friends like I always did, but Lance saw me approaching, and before I could close the distance between us, he walked away. I came to a stop in front of Trevor, Addison, and Parker.
“Hey, guys. What’s up?” I asked, pulling my bag up higher on my shoulder.
Trevor pulled his eyes from mine. “Guess I’ll go too. I’ll catch up with you later, baby.” He kissed Addison and rushed off, leaving just the three of us.
“What’s going on?” I asked them, feeling the strain as it seemed like they were refusing to look at me.
“Addi? Want to fill me in?”
She bit her bottom lip as she picked at the skin around one of her fingernails.
“Parks?”
She sighed. “This is stupid. I’m just going to tell her.
“Parker, no!” Addison said, but Parker didn’t care.
“Lance is pissed at you.”
“At me?” I asked, pointing at my chest. “Why is he mad at me?”
“For whatever happened the other night.” Parker shrugged.
I scoffed. “Are you serious? Nothing happened the other night. I told him that I didn’t want to date. He’s pissed at me for that?”
She shrugged. “I guess he feels like you’ve been toying with him, you know? You two have spent a lot of time together. I guess he figured that at some point, you two would start dating.”
“Well, he figured wrong. That makes it my fault?”
Neither of them answered me.
“I didn’t want to date because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. I knew if things didn’t work out, this would happen. And now look, we didn’t date, and this is still happening.” I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head. “I guess you guys aren’t supposed to talk to me either?”
They just looked at one another.
“Well, that’s just great. Guess I’ll leave you two alone then.” I turned to go, but Parker called out.
“Wait.”
When I turned to face them, I found her standing before me. “It’s not like he told us not to hang out with you. It’s just that Addison wants to be able to hang out with Tyler, and Tyler won’t hang out if Lance doesn’t feel welcome.”
I nodded. “Got it.”
She rolled her eyes. “But seriously, I say screw that. We have fun when we hang out together.” She smiled and looped her arm around mine, pulling me over to her as she turned to look down at Addison.
She rested her head on my shoulder. “What do you say, Addi? We don’t have to hang out with your stupid boyfriend all the time, right? ”
Addison smiled and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess not.” She stood and pulled us both toward her for a hug.
I was flooded with emotion. I didn’t understand how it was possible for girls I’d only known for a few months to be so kind when my best friend since childhood could go and sleep with my boyfriend behind my back.
I knew that Addi and Parker were different, but they were the kind of friends I always knew I needed.
I just hoped that Lance could mend his wounded pride sooner rather than later because even though they agreed to skip hanging out with the guys to hang out with me, I knew they wouldn’t always do that.
At some point, there would be some event that they all wanted to attend.
I had a feeling I wouldn’t be able to go with them until Lance and I worked things out.
For the most part, the next few days passed at a normal pace rather than dragging.
I kept myself busy during the day with school, then I would pick up Sophia, and she’d keep me busy most of the evening.
Once she went to bed, I focused on homework, getting things done around the house, showering, and getting to bed to do it all again the next day.
Lance was avoiding me, and because of that, I didn’t hang out with Addi and Parker as much as I usually would. I didn’t go out drinking as I did with them, and my grades were improving since I had nothing else to do but study. Roman was avoiding me, too. He didn’t come home. He didn’t call or text.
It wasn’t until I finally gave up on seeing him that he walked in the door the following Thursday night. Sophia was in the kitchen with me as we prepared a pizza from scratch. She was covered in flour from making the dough when Roman walked in.
He stopped the moment he entered the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re making pizza!” Sophia yelled, smiling from ear to ear.
He chuckled. “I see that.” He started walking over. “It looks like you’re making a mess.”
“Well, that too,” I agreed, using a damp cloth to wipe the flour from Sophia’s face.
“What are you doing? What time were you planning on taking off?”
I looked over at him to find him checking the time on his watch. “What do you mean?”
He stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. “I mean, it’s Thursday. It’s your night off. I thought you’d be going out or something.”
I shook my head. “Nope, no plans.” I helped Sophia down from the chair she was standing on at the island. “Go on and play while I put the pizza in the oven and clean up this mess,” I told her.
She ran across the room and out into the living room, where she started dancing to the theme song of the cartoon playing on the TV.
“I came home to take over for you. Go ahead with your plans.”
I picked up the pizza and slid it into the oven. “Seriously, I’m not going out.”
“Why not?” He crossed his arms over his broad chest.
“Because.”
When I glanced at him, I saw the way he was looking at me: like he was waiting for a better answer than that.
“Because things are weird right now with my friends and me, okay?”
“And by weird, you mean…”
“I mean, Lance asked me out, and I told him no. So, now he’s mad at me.
Every time he sees me coming, he walks off.
Trevor does too because he’s friends with Lance.
And then the girls can only hang out with me when the guys aren’t around because Addi wants to be with Trevor, and Trevor doesn’t want to piss off his buddy by picking his girlfriend over a frat brother.
Everything is screwed up.” I started wiping down the countertop, my throat tight.
When I glanced up at Roman, I could tell by the look on his face that he was sorry he had asked. He pursed his lips and then nodded toward the door. “I’m going to go get cleaned up for dinner.” He started toward the stairs.
“Wait. You’re staying?”
He paused in the doorway. Looking back at me, he nodded. “Yeah, may as well. I’m already here.” He walked out, leaving me to watch him as he moved toward the stairs.
My heart fluttered to life in my chest even though I tried to tell it to calm down.
We hadn’t talked in over a week. I assumed that nothing had changed for him.
It didn’t matter how badly he wanted me; he’d never be able to see me as anything other than Chloe’s little sister.
I knew that he wasn’t going to profess his undying love for me or something like that, but that didn’t stop the hopeful side of me as I imagined him pulling me into his arms, promising never to let me go, and kissing me passionately before he carried me to bed for the night.
My stomach muscles tightened with the thought, and that’s when the mental pictures ended.
Because even though I wanted to be carried to bed, I had no idea what we’d do once we were there.
I’d never been with a man before. Even though I knew the physical side of sex, I didn’t know how to go about it.
I didn’t know what he liked or didn’t. Hell, I didn’t even know what I liked.
All I knew was that I wanted to explore it all, and only with him.
I could never trust someone like Lance with something like this.
Even though Roman and I had been within inches of ripping one another’s heads off, I knew that I could trust him.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been cleaning, lost in my morose thoughts, but Roman walked back into the room in a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt.
“Pizza smells good,” he said, opening the fridge and pulling out a soda.
He closed the door and popped open the can as he turned to look at me.
I felt my entire body heat under his gaze.
Part of it was embarrassment at being caught thinking about him, but the other part was just the way my body had been reacting to him.
I wasn’t experienced, but I wasn’t innocent either.
I knew what that heat was that kept teasing me. Desire, longing, need.
I forced myself to smile before I turned to the oven, where I opened the door a crack to inspect the pizza.
“Should be done in a few minutes,” I told him.
He nodded and walked out of the kitchen.
Suddenly, I was breathless, wondering if I had taken a breath since he walked in.
My entire body relaxed when I was no longer under his stare.
I couldn’t believe that he was home and talking to me like nothing had happened between us.
I couldn’t believe that he was going to have dinner with us instead of ordering himself something different or complaining that what I’d fixed wasn’t dinner in his book.
I let the pizza cook for a few more minutes, then pulled it out of the oven and set it on the counter to cool before cutting.
I fixed myself and Sophia a drink and got the table ready.
We were planning on watching TV while we eat, but with Roman home, I thought we’d try the table instead.
If he decided to take his food to his office, then we’d move to the living room.
Finally, I cut the pizza and put a couple of slices on each of our plates.
“The pizza is done,” I called out to them.
Sophia ran in first, and she climbed into her chair at the table.
I was sitting down when Roman walked in, grabbed his plate from the island, and moved to sit at the table with us.
Sophia lifted her brows in surprise and nervously started picking at her pizza.
She was just a kid, but she was smart. She knew how special it was to have her dad join us for dinner.
We were both left wondering how dinner would go. Would we have a nice meal full of laughter and family bonding, or would one of us piss him off, causing him to stomp out of the room and slam his office door behind him?
Only time would tell.