Chapter 14
Roman
I open the restaurant door for Iris with a wink. “After you.”
After a morning helicopter tour of the island, I’m taking Iris to lunch at a restaurant recommended by our pilot—one he called a “hidden gem.”
“So chivalrous,” Iris replies flirtatiously, batting her eyelashes as she glides into the restaurant.
Amazingly, it already feels like her factory settings have been reset.
Indeed, the happy, relaxed woman practically floating past me bears little resemblance to the frazzled woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown who crashed into that bathroom yesterday.
The hostess smiles as we approach. “Do you have a reservation, sir?”
“For two, yes. I asked for a quiet table with an ocean view in the back. The name is Roman.”
Iris doesn’t know my last name, and I’d like to keep it that way. That’s why, when I booked today’s helicopter tour, I told the guy on the phone I’d throw in a thousand-dollar tip for the whole staff to split, as long as nobody uttered my last name today or asked me about football.
The tactic worked. Nobody called me anything but “sir” all morning long, and nobody said a single word about football or the Crusaders, either.
Will my luck run out at some point this week?
Probably, given that I’m planning to go out in public with Iris quite a bit.
But I’m having so much fun being Roman the Gym Owner from Delaware, I’m determined to at least try to keep my last name out of Iris’s ears for as long as possible.
“Yes, sir,” the restaurant hostess chirps, looking up from her screen. “I’ve got a perfect table for you. Right this way.”
As we follow the woman toward our table, Iris puts her head down and raises her palm to her face like she’s a movie star trying to avoid paparazzi.
She’s so damned cute. I love that she has no idea the supposed gym owner walking behind her is exponentially more likely to be recognized than a viral flavor of the week.
We make it to our table in the back without anyone giving us a second glance. To my relief, our table is exactly as described to me on the phone: tucked away in a quiet, secluded corner with a fabulous view of the glittering sea.
“This is so romantic, Roman,” Iris gushes as I pull back her chair. “You’ve pulled out all the stops today.”
“I figured you could use a little TLC.” I take a seat across from her. “The fish here is supposed to be amazing, if you like fish.”
“I do, and I’m hungry.”
We look down at our menus, but we both keep peeking over the tops of them to grin at each other like teenagers.
“Are you always this romantic?” Iris asks.
I’m surprised by the notion, because I don’t consider myself a romantic person in the slightest. Back home, I don’t have the time or inclination to invest in romance.
I’m way too busy and focused on my job to allow that sort of distraction into my life.
But here with Iris, I’m feeling uncharacteristically inspired to play the part of her white knight.
It’s only one week of my life, after all, and her excitement is infectious.
“I’m not normally as romantic as this,” I confess with a smile. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”
“Well, I’m grateful for whatever it is.” She lowers her menu. “Please, don’t worry that I’m misunderstanding the nature of the situation here, simply because I used the word ‘romantic.’ Despite all the swooning I’ve been doing today, I promise I’m crystal clear this is a no-strings fling.”
I bite back a chuckle. “Thanks for clearing that up.”
Iris blushes. “What’s funny?”
“Nothing. You’re just cute.”
“Shoot. Do people in the midst of flinging not talk about the fling being a fling? Is that what’s funny?”
I can’t keep my wide grin at bay. “It’s normally just kind of assumed a fling is a fling, I think. But that’s okay. No harm in making it clear.”
She laughs and raises her menu again. “I wish I had a handbook or something. The learning curve on this is pretty steep.”
An amused smile spreads across my face. “Nah. You’re doing great.”
The waitress arrives, and after some back-and-forth, we order cocktails and three appetizers and agree she should come back later to take our orders for the main course.
When we’re alone again, Iris and I chat about the hiking trail I’m taking her to this afternoon. But eventually, when that topic runs its course, I ask if she’s always wanted to be a teacher.
“I’ve always dreamed of working with kids,” she replies.
“But not necessarily teaching in a classroom. Growing up, my best friend’s family owned a horse ranch near Orchard Blossom, and I worked there every summer and on weekends, mostly giving trail rides and riding lessons to kids.
That’s when I started dreaming about one day combining my two passions—horses and kids—as an actual career. ”
“In what way?”
“One day, I’d love to provide equine therapy to kids.”
I ask her to explain what that means, and it turns out equine therapy is exactly what the name suggests: therapy administered through the care and/or riding of horses.
“Why not get a job in equine therapy now? You light up when you talk about it. Life is short.”
“It’s hard to break into the field, and I’ve already got a great job I love that pays the bills. Maybe someday. I’m still in my twenties, so I figure I’ve still got lots of time to work my way toward that goal.”
“Of course you do.”
The waitress returns with our cocktails and appetizers, and we dig in.
“What about you?” Iris asks. “Do you have any ‘maybe someday’ dreams you’re still chasing, or is the gym your ultimate dream fulfilled?”
Shit. It was one thing to tell a simple lie about my profession to preserve my anonymity with a one-night stand I thought I’d never see again; but the more time I spend with this woman, the more I’m liking her as a person, which, in turn, makes lying to her harder and harder.
“I’ve still got some dreams I’m chasing. When a person stops dreaming, they might as well be dead. In my book, anyway.”
“I agree completely.” Iris looks at me expectantly, like she’s waiting on me to elaborate on my big dreams. When I don’t, she shifts in her seat and says, “Did you always want to own a gym and train athletes?”
Fuck. “No, I just kind of fell into it.” I clear my throat. “My biggest dream growing up, like every other kid who played football, was to play in the NFL and win the Super Bowl.”
Iris juts her lip in sympathy. “I’m sorry little Roman didn’t get to experience that. But at least you got to play in college, right? That must have been pretty close to the same thing for your inner child.”
I nod my agreement, feeling desperate to end this line of conversation—even though, in reality, as any NFL football player would undoubtedly agree, playing college ball doesn’t compare to being in the pros and couldn’t possibly fulfill any player’s dream of winning a Super Bowl.
I mean, the Super Bowl thing is supposition on my part, due to my own three Super Bowl losses.
But Marco’s won the Big Game, the lucky bastard, and I know for a fact my cousin feels like that win was the pinnacle of his long and storied career.
The waitress arrives to take the rest of our order, interrupting the current topic of conversation, thankfully. When she leaves, Iris asks, “Were you voted prom king in high school, by any chance?”
“Homecoming king. Why do you ask?”
She’s got a sparkle in her blue eyes. “You played football in college for a well-known school, so I figure you must have been a superstar player at a big high school. You give off extreme big-man-on-campus energy, and I’m dying to know if I’m right.”
I laugh. “Pretty close.”
“That’s how it always goes in movies: The star football player gets voted homecoming or prom king—although in movies, it’s always the star quarterback, not the star tight end, and . . .”
She’s still talking, but I’m too freaked out by her sixth sense to hear the rest. As Iris’s mouth moves, I take a drink of my water and pretend to listen while trying to snuff out the pangs of guilt I’m feeling for lying.
“What about you?” I ask, when I’m able to regain my composure and it’s clear Iris has finished talking. “Were you part of this Hollywood script in high school, too?”
Iris snorts adorably. “Not even close. My high school was so small, we didn’t even have a football team or dances, let alone kings and queens.”
“No dances?” I ask, like it’s a mortal sin. “How are the kids supposed to know who’s crushing on who, then?”
“We had festivals where we figured that out. Not the same thing, but close enough.”
“Not close enough if you ask the kids, I’m sure.”
Iris laughs. “That’s life in a small town for you. We took what we could get.”
“You must have had culture shock when you went off to UCLA.”
“Oh my gosh. In the best possible way, though. I loved everything about my new, big school. Also, about LA in general.”
My stomach clenches at her mention of LA, even though I know I’m the one who brought up UCLA. I’ve been talking to Cameron so much about wanting to make Los Angeles my new home base, I’m worried my face is now somehow giving me away.
“You certainly can’t beat the weather in LA,” I say vaguely, before taking a long sip of my drink.
“Thanks to the good year-round weather,” she says, “there’s always something fun to do. I especially loved going to the beach when I lived there.”
I slide an oyster down my throat, telling myself to take a chill pill. “So, why’d you move to Denver instead of staying in LA after graduation?”
“My ex is from Denver. He wanted to work for his father’s insurance firm, and since I didn’t have a job lined up at the time, I followed him there.”
It’s plain to see the topic is taking the sparkle out of Iris’s blue eyes, so I change the subject. “The great news is, now that you’re single, you can move anywhere you want.”
Iris nods. “My two best friends from college stayed in LA after graduation, so that’s definitely a ‘maybe someday’ kind of place for me. For now, though, I love my job in Denver, so I’m going to keep working hard and saving money for a possible move one day.”
Why is my heart sinking? Why do I care if my fun little vacation fling will live in Denver or LA or Timbuktu when she goes back to reality?
I need to slow my roll and stop assuming it’s a done deal I’ll wind up in LA.
For all I know, Cameron won’t be able to get what I’m worth there and I’ll wind up in Minnesota or Tampa or God-knows-where.
Also, even if I do wind up in LA, I wouldn’t have time for a romantic relationship with Iris or anyone else. I’d have a new system to learn. New teammates to bond with. And most of all, my son within driving distance for the first time in his young life.
“What about you?” Iris asks, chomping on a crab cake. “Do you like living in Delaware? Is that your final destination, you think?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Delaware was a necessary lie, since even my first name, standing alone, is synonymous with Baltimore and the Crusaders.
Surely, if I’d told the truth, Iris could google “Roman” and “Baltimore,” and my name, face, and bio would pop right up.
Just because the lie was necessary, however, doesn’t mean I’m not feeling guilty about telling it.
“I’ve actually been thinking about moving,” I admit. “Not sure where yet. That’s TBD.”
“Well, like you said, you certainly can’t beat the weather in Southern California. But the cost of living is really high, so many not.”
“Maybe. Yeah, I’ve still got some moving parts to figure out.”
Iris pauses, apparently expecting me to provide further details. When I don’t, she picks up her drink, and says, “If you do wind up moving, would you relocate your gym or open another location?”
Holy hell. My web of lies is becoming exhausting. “Not sure yet.”
Iris pauses again. And when I don’t say more, she takes a sip of her drink and murmurs, “Well, I hope all the moving parts work out for you, Roman. Exactly as you’re hoping.”