15. Roman
CHAPTER 15
ROMAN
I know Waverly’s jealous. Her face is scrunched and she’s trying to play it off by smiling, but instead, she looks…constipated. Yet she’s still pretty. Oh, Lord. I’m a goner.
“Why don’t we go finish our champagne?” I lead her out of the bedroom by the small of her back. Her camisole is so thin, it’s like I’m touching her bare skin. The soft, dark beige-colored fabric is only a few shades lighter than her skin. It’s fucking with my head.
My mind wanders, watching her sit in her seat. It’s all I can do not to imagine running my hands down her body, tracing her tan lines. If she wears anything while sunning to make any tan lines. Fuck. I have to stop that line of thought quickly.
“Rome?” Waverly calls my name from the seat. She’s belted with the champagne in her hand.
“The captain told us to fasten our seatbelts. Unless you’re going to try to balance while taking off. If so, let me grab my phone really quick so I can preserve that for posterity…and social media.” She pretends to reach into her backpack and pull her phone out.
“She has jokes,” I kid, taking a seat next to her. I want to ask her about the last time she flew, but I know it was her flying home alone from the Philippines when she should have been next to my brother. I can’t help but wonder if she wishes it was him here instead of me, but I bite my tongue. “We can watch a movie if you want.”
“Yes!” She white-knuckles the armrest between us as the plane starts to move to the runway.
I say nothing but offer her my hand and she doesn’t hesitate to take it. “You know, it was strange flying to the Philippines with Patrick and flying home without him. It was surreal. You know? It felt like I was living a dream I couldn’t wake up from. And then when I finally got back to the apartment…he’s gone so often with the Coast Guard, that it wasn’t the fact he wasn’t there, because I was used to his absences, but more that I knew he was never coming back.”
The plane starts ascending and she finishes off the rest of the glass of champagne in a few chugs before she continues, “Lately, I’ve been thinking…” she stops talking and turns to look at me. Her eyes slowly bouncing from my lips to my eyes. “Maybe our relationship was just a means for an attachment. Perhaps it was nothing more than a psychology study of two different attachment styles that spanned our entire relationship.”
Her face falls along with her shoulders. When he was alive, it seems as though the weight of the world rested on her shoulders if what she’s saying is true, which she would have no reason for it not to be. I mean, I know my brother, and he had never been invested in any woman before Waverly.
“While I was with Patrick, I practically became a psychologist without a degree. I have what’s called an anxious attachment, or a fear of him abandoning me—something I never looked further into and don’t want to—and he has an avoidant attachment. Mr. Independent finds it hard to get close—even intimate—with someone, even if that someone is their girlfriend. If you stop to think about it…”
She pauses again and turns away from me. “What we had, it wasn’t anything earth-shattering. It wasn’t exciting. We were just there. Like roommates who fucked sometimes.”
I choke on what little champagne is left in my mouth. Imagining being so insecure in your relationship that you have to google psychological terminology to figure out what the fuck is wrong with the man you’re dating because he doesn’t want to have sex with you. Fuck, that’s depressing. And also, what man doesn’t want sex with someone as beautiful as Waverly?
“That last part was aggressive. I apologize.”
“Please.” I clear my throat and cough once more. “Don’t apologize for using the word ‘fuck.’ I’ve been cutting back on my swearing around you; otherwise, I curse like a sailor.”
“Why don’t you swear around me?” she asks, forehead crinkled.
“I guess I’m turning a new leaf because it’s disrespectful to swear in front of women.” I grab a small bottle of Crown Royal whiskey from the holder next to me. “Or so my father told us.” I smirk at her. She’s not the type to get offended by a man swearing. Patrick never said any vulgar words, but when I was around, I would say all the words. She’d look at me differently. Like her interest was piqued. Her cheeks would blush, and her head would tilt slightly with the corners of her mouth turned up. It’s actually fucking hard for me not to tell her I’d fuck her into oblivion if she’d let me. I’ll pretend Patrick, wherever he is, didn’t just hear my impure thoughts about his woman.
I continue, “I get it, though. It must be a hard way to live, always wondering if you’re doing something wrong. Walking on eggshells.” She says nothing and blinks. “When we all would hang out, you always seemed happy, but…can I speak honestly?”
“I should hope so.” Waverly crosses her arms and purses her lips.
I grin before I continue. Her little attitude rears its ugly head and she becomes feisty. It’s the old Waverly cracking through those walls she’s built around her, and I love it.
“As an outsider looking in, I sense you’ve been losing yourself. From the first time we met at the bar, and every time after that, you became less and less of who you were. I just remember seeing you and being so in awe of you that I couldn't help but point you out to Patrick and –” Shit . I can feel my face pale as I fumble for words. I didn’t plan on…
Her eyes narrow.
I can’t think of anything to say.
Her eyes go wide as they continue to narrow. “Wait, what do you mean, you pointed me out to Patrick?”
Shit. I didn’t really plan on telling her what actually went down the night we met. I don’t want to shine a negative light on my brother, especially when he’s not here to defend himself.
“Roman, tell me right now or I will tell the pilot to turn this plane around.” Her brows furrow and she turns toward me.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and let out a breath. Whiskey always makes my lips loose. Hendrix always warns me not to drink it in the company of others. Especially not during our poker nights with the guys. A light bump of turbulence causes Waverly’s eyes to go wide, and she grips my hand. Now I have to tell her, if only to take her mind off the flight. Or so I just keep telling myself this.
“Fine. Five-ish, maybe six years ago, Patrick and I were invited to our cousin’s bachelor party at that bar. I was only eighteen…and a half…” I smirk because that half still makes a difference. “I was in awe of you. I watched you.” I feel my face dance with heat, hoping she isn’t looking at me. But she is. She’s always looking at me. “Dancing like you didn’t have a care in the world with your arms in the air. I’m not sure who you were with because I never really looked. In the non-creepiest way possible, I watched your every move, completely captivated by everything you did.” I allow myself to find her glassy eyes peering at me with astonishment. That look alone empowers me to go on. I’ve come this far, might as well take the plunge. “The way your mouth curved when you smiled, and when you laughed, your whole face changed, just when I thought you couldn’t be any more beautiful…” She blinks rapidly, looking to the side and taking a deep breath of air.
“Please, that was probably just your teenage hormones,” she concludes.
“It wasn’t. Trust me. I know the difference. This was less about getting hard and more about how my heart was practically beating out of my chest. I was desperate to talk to you.” I set my whiskey down and turn to her, still belted. “I walked up to Patrick and told him I was going to use the restroom and after, if he couldn’t find me, I would be talking to you. I pointed you out to him. Maybe because I wanted him to be proud that for the first time, I wasn’t thinking with my dick? I’m not sure, but never in a million years did I think…” Another deep breath in. “When I came out of the bathroom, you were tapping your number into his phone. I walked up to him and slapped him on the shoulder a little harder than I should have. He played it off like he didn’t know it was you I was talking about.”
Waverly’s eyes widen and her mouth falls. This conversation wasn’t supposed to happen. Well, at least not right now. She chews on her lips and tears well in her eyes. I’m not sure what she’s feeling. Regret? Anger? Sadness because we’re talking about Patrick? Seconds later, tears finally fall down her cheeks.
“Shit. I’m sorry. This trip’s supposed to be a celebration, not me spilling my deepest, darkest secrets.” I rest my hand on her forearm that’s finally relaxed from take-off.
Her eyes fall to where we’re touching.
“Roman? Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Why would I? It wouldn’t have made a difference. And I wouldn’t do that to my brother. I may have seen you first, but he had the guts to walk up to you and beat me to the punch.”
“I saw you first, too,” she admits, whispering.
We sit there staring at each other for an eternity.
I have no words. I feel an identifiable heat taking over my body before she continues. “But Roman,” she says, resting her other hand on mine. “You were only eighteen. You had so much life to experience in your twenties. You still do. I’ve done all that, though.”
“You’re acting like you’re eighty and on your deathbed. Have you ever thought about it this way? So, you turn forty this week—if you live to be eighty-five, you still haven’t reached the halfway point in your life.”
“Roman, let me entertain this,” she gestures between us. “Just for a minute. Being a Huxley aside, if you were to walk up to your friends and tell them you were dating a forty-year-old, what would they say?”
My eyebrows fall. This conversation is starting to get under my skin. The fact that she thinks so little of herself because of her age. “First off, if I was dating a woman older than me, I wouldn’t start off by saying, ‘Guys, meet my forty-year-old girlfriend’...I’d introduce you by name. If they knew you like I know you, they’d love you—your age be damned.”