36. Juliette
JULIETTE
W e’re two towns away and I’ve never done anything like this.
When I agreed to let him take me somewhere, I never imagined it would be us sneaking out of Rosebrook Falls altogether and riding the train to get us here .
My heart is racing, adrenaline surging through my body as I let him lead me down a street in an industrial area. Our hands are tangled together, and it reminds me of back in Cali, before we knew who we were to each other…or before I knew who he was to me .
Things were simple then.
Now it all feels like an impossible mess. One that I’ll only get out of if I decide to grow a backbone and stand up to my parents. The thought makes me want to puke.
“Where are we going?” I ask, my eyes flicking to where we’re touching.
This is fine.
Actually, I’m totally cool with it.
It means nothing to me that his hand—the same one that was inside my vagina a couple of hours ago—is now entwined with mine perfectly.
“Hello?” I try again, my legs working hard to keep up with him. “Is anyone home?”
He still doesn’t answer.
“Roman,” I snap.
That gets his attention.
His gaze floats to mine, and he tightens his grip, bringing my knuckles up to brush a chaste kiss against them. “I still like the way you say my name, Little Rose.”
My heart flips and I give him a soft smile. “Do you really plan on calling me that god-awful nickname the rest of your life?”
“That depends.” His eyes darken. “Do you plan on being around for the rest of my life?”
I snap my mouth shut, something hot and sharp growing like a weed cracking through pavement. Because I can see it, our future together.
Mornings tangled in too-warm sheets. Him mumbling about my alarm going off and me pretending I didn’t set three backups just to be sure. Coffee cups lined up on the counter and breakfast forgotten on the stove because when he laid me out on the kitchen table, he decided to eat me instead.
A dog we didn’t plan to get but couldn’t say no to.
A cat that roams the backyard and Roman pretends he hates because he knows I’m allergic, even though he secretly feeds it every morning.
He’d kiss my shoulder while I write, smudge charcoal across my cheeks without realizing, and I’d find little drawings of us in the margins of my notebook and in the drawers of his nightstand.
Soft.
Simple.
Terrifying.
Because none of it’s real, and part of me wants to build it anyway, just to see if we could.
He stops us and turns to face me, his thumb brushing my cheek as he gazes into my eyes. “Where’d you go, Little Rose?”
I smile, ignoring the tangle in my heart. “Nowhere important,” I lie.
He gives me a look but doesn’t press.
“Where are we?” I ask, looking at a giant parking garage in the middle of a concrete jungle.
There’s not much to see here other than a few buildings and warehouses mixed in with a parking garage every couple of blocks. It’s quiet, not even a car going down the streets, and I don’t know how he even found this place.
He pulls me into an elevator, the dings ringing in my ears as it slowly takes us higher. “You know, you’re really living up to your serial killer lore, bringing me to an abandoned garage like this.”
He smirks and then pushes off the side until he’s crowding me against the wall.
My breath hitches, butterflies erupting in my stomach and heat pooling between my thighs.
“A murderer and a stalker,” he muses. “A match made in heaven.”
I laugh, shaking my head. It makes my cheek press into his palm, and I lean into the moment.
He tilts my chin up and then presses a kiss to my lips.
Chaste. Sweet, even.
“I promise not to kill you if you promise to follow me around for the rest of my life,” he murmurs.
He smiles against my mouth and my heart clenches like it’s trying to claw its way through me to get to him.
“That’s a very dramatic way to ask me out, officially,” I tease, trying to lighten the moment so I don’t drown.
He doesn’t pull back, just shifts his face up until he’s looming over me, his arm resting above my head on the wall.
“Would you say yes?”
The elevator dings again and the doors slide open. I take the opportunity, slipping beneath his arm and heading out onto the open level of the top floor of the garage.
Roman doesn’t move right away. He lingers in that breathless space between us, like he’s trying to cement the moment in his memory.
Finally, he follows me out, an easy grin pasted to his perfect face. He reaches for my hand. “Come on.”
He leads me down the length of the garage. It’s just a rooftop really; flat concrete with a low ledge and the quiet hum of silence. But when he takes me to the very edge, my breath catches.
My stomach drops when I look out, realizing how high up we actually are.
“You’re not seriously about to climb up there, are you?” I ask when he lets me go to step toward the ledge.
He flashes a boyish grin and moves beside me before jumping on top of the barrier and swinging one of his legs over until he’s straddling the concrete.
“Be careful!” I snap, my arms flying out like he’s about to fall.
He chuckles. “Funny, coming from someone who was lying upside down on a rock that hovered over open air when we first met.”
“That was different.” I cross my arms but realize that maybe I’m overreacting.
“I’m sure it was.” He watches me, a question in his gaze. “What were you doing then, anyway?”
Sighing, I lean against the pillar and look out over the scenery. I wouldn’t call it pretty, but it’s peaceful in an odd way.
I ignore his question, looking at all the buildings. “Is this a ghost town?”
He shakes his head. “Just industrial. Not much pedestrian traffic.”
I chew on my bottom lip while he waits for me to answer his first question.
“I was looking for Lance when we met,” I finally say. “He wasn’t there, obviously, but leaving meant I had to go back home, that I had to be…”
“The girl who plays piano and speaks four different languages?” he finishes smoothly.
I stare at the ground. “Yeah, something like that.”
He pats the space next to him. I look at it and then back to him, my chest cramping, but I move forward and climb up the ledge to sit anyway. A small hit of adrenaline flows through me, and I break into a grin. “This is kind of fun. I feel like a kid.”
He smiles and leans against the concrete wall at his back, one knee bent, his forearm resting over it like this is just any other conversation. I can practically see the tension rolling off him like steam, coiled under his skin.
And he’s watching me like he wants to save me from something.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap, crossing my arms.
His brows rise. “Like what?”
“Like you’re judging me for how I do what my family wants, even if they do terrible things.”
He sighs, his head hitting the concrete wall at his back. “I’m not judging you. It just kills me.”
That makes my facade of anger fall away. “ Kills you?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Watching you pretend to be what they want. Being on the sidelines and not able to do anything while you tuck yourself into a world where you’re silent and on the arm of some fucking prick named Preston.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. My heart thuds loudly in my chest. “That’s not fair,” I finally say.
He chuckles, dark and deep.
“You think I don’t get it?” he whispers. “I sold my dignity, my name, my freedom, all for a sister who hates me for the choice.”
“Roman…”
He leans forward, his hand palming my cheek until he’s pulling my face to his. Our foreheads brush, and his voice is so low I can barely hear him.
“I wake up every day and try to remind myself you’re off-limits. That you’re a Calloway, and I’m a Montgomery, and it’s not possible for me to touch you, or want you, or imagine how good it would feel to wake up next to you.”
My eyes burn and my fists clench at my sides. “So why say it, then? It just makes everything harder.”
He exhales slowly. “Because I’m tired of pretending like I don’t feel you in everything I do.”
The words are soft, but they land like thunder, and a chill creeps up my spine, although I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s from how his face hardens like he’s trying to steel himself against something.
I lick my lips, to say or do…I don’t know what…
but before I can, a noise breaks through the air, like a storm rolling over the horizon.
At first, it’s just a low, rhythmic hum.
A vibration that you feel before you hear.
But then it grows into a rumble, metal wheels clattering against rails in a cadence that echoes off the concrete buildings.
He moves his hand away, and I lick my lips like I’ll be able to taste the remnants of him.
“Watch,” he says, pointing toward the oncoming train.
Quirking a brow, I wonder what the point of all this is, but I listen and do what he says.
I watch.
Even though my body is hyperaware of every movement he makes.
A train comes racing along tracks on a hill in front of us, a high-pitched whine layered over the deep growl of the engine. The air whooshes like it’s being pushed forward, and there’s a faint hiss of brakes as it comes hurdling past.
And at first, I don’t notice anything…but then I do.
A burst of colors, sprayed along the boxcars. Brilliant, bright, and intricate. It speeds along, and I soak it in, every sharp line, every blasted edge.
It blurs past in strokes of the rainbow, and then I see it: a mirage of pink and peach, with thorny edges jutting from the shadow. It’s a rose, I realize. Twisting, and bleeding from the petals. Like it’s wilting mid-bloom. Across the stem, in jagged letters, it says: “And with her kiss, I die.”
My chest seizes and then my gaze snags on the corner.
RMO.
My breath lodges in my throat.
I try my best to tamp down my reaction, but the tears spring to my eyes anyway, because that felt like a love letter. One written in tragedy.
“Is that…” I cut myself off, not sure if I want the answer.
Roman’s not even looking at the art. He’s too busy watching me. And when he speaks, it sounds soft. Final, even.
“I told you, Juliette. I’m going to paint you into everything.”