Chapter 13
Thirteen
I peer out the passenger window of Roman’s gray Bronco Sport. My eyes bounce from the outdoors to the black rubber wedding band Roman picked up at some point, to my phone, where Willow is yelling at me over text.
Willow: You call that a wedding invitation?
Me: It was the best I could do.
Willow: So … how was it? You are officially married?
Me: Yes. Married.
Though I don’t feel very married.
Willow: Weird.
Me: So weird.
I glance at Roman. From this angle, I can just see his matching rubber wedding band. Black, just like mine. Black, like the tattoo on that same arm, stretching from his wrist to his elbow.
The rubber rings greatly disappointed Fran, but I told her it’s what I wanted. The truth is, I hadn’t even thought about rings, and I have no idea when Roman did.
Willow: You okay?
Me: He didn’t kiss me, Will.
Willow: Sorry. Confused. Do you want him to kiss you?
Me: It was just odd. The judge skipped the whole you-may-kiss-the-bride part. I’m certain Roman asked him to. It just makes me wonder.
Willow: Wonder what? Do I need to meet you at that cabin with a two-liter?
I peer out the window again, thinking. I know the answer to this question, but it feels painful to say out loud. I can’t imagine that typing it out would be any better.
But I do—because we can’t have Willow showing up to Roman’s cabin with Coke, demanding confessions.
Me: How much he already regrets this.
Willow: Maybe he’s shy.
Me: Maybe he hates me.
Willow: He doesn’t hate you! He married you!
Me: But he wouldn’t kiss me.
Willow: I’m sorry, sweetie. He’s crazy if he had a chance to kiss you and he didn’t take it. LUNATIC. You’ve married a lunatic.
Me: It’s not the kiss.
But maybe it was a little. Kissing Roman Graves has been on my bucket list since eighth grade. Mostly it was about the regret and obligation that Roman so clearly feels.
Fran complained too. She said, “What kind of wedding doesn’t end in a kiss?” To which Roman told her, “A courthouse wedding. I’ll kiss her in the privacy of my own home. We aren’t show-monkeys.”
It was all very romantic.
Or not.
Willow: You just tell that man he’s going to have to kiss you at some point. For keeping up pretenses.
Me: WILLOW. It’s about the regret he feels, not the kiss he didn’t give me.
Willow: Only … it might be about the kiss too. Right?
Dang, she knows me well.
I peer over at my husband of twenty-two minutes. The scruff on his face looks as if it were made to be touched. I’m not saying I should touch it. But someone probably should. I swallow, draw my eyes up from the touchable scruff on his chin to Roman’s lips.
“You might have to kiss me one day,” I say, because I am officially married, and I can’t be the quiet little woman.
“Excuse me?” he says, glancing over at me.
Cabin or not, I need to know that I haven’t completely messed up Roman’s life.
I need to find my comfort space with him again.
Roman was once a very safe place for me.
I need him to be that again. Is that even possible?
It’s been so long. And while we are technically husband and wife, all to help one another, there is this little stumbling block of him thinking I need a green card.
“When we’re with your friends. You may have to kiss me, hold my hand, be a tiny bit affectionate. You know? To keep up appearances.” I just need to hear his answer for this. Regret or no regret. I need to understand.
“Those guys aren’t my friends.”
“They aren’t?” I scoff. “The guys you called to be witnesses at our marriage ceremony aren’t your friends?”
He peers forward again. “Nope.” He’s literally giving me nothing. Maybe Roman is shy. That feels a whole lot better than Stella ruined Roman’s life.
“Then where are your friends, Roman? Why didn’t you call them? I’ve never seen you act so aloof with people before.” He’s been short and cold with everyone but me, so unlike the friendly, charismatic boy I once knew and crushed on.
“I don’t have friends anymore.”
I scoff. I don’t believe that for a second. “Since when?”
“Since the day my best friend left for a UCLA campus tour and never came home.”
A chill falls over my limbs, and my heart pauses just before plummeting. “Oh,” I muster.
Roman squeezes the steering wheel with both hands. “I’m sorry, Stell. I didn’t mean to—”
“I don’t mind talking about Brice,” I say, my tone quiet and my eyes downcast.
“Yeah? Well, I do.” He swallows, his eyes never leaving the road. “I can’t be the same person I was back then.”
“None of us are. You can still talk about him. It might help. Mom always said it helps sharing memories of him.”
“Not when they’re cruel like that. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry,” he says.
“It was honest, Roman. It’s okay to be honest.” My throat aches with unshed tears, with the irony of my words.
“Are you sure about that? We have literally entered into a dishonest marriage. One that requires lies at all times.”
I breathe out a humorless laugh. He has no idea how spot on he is. “Instead of lies, can’t we just say that this arrangement—”
“Our marriage,” he says, glancing over at me.
“—is for the benefit of both of us. To provide us and our loved ones with help and happiness. Isn’t that why anyone gets married?”
“That’s one way to spin it.” He smirks.
I release a shaky breath, staring at my new husband. “You already regret it. Don’t you?”
His brows lower. “No. I don’t.” He gives me one small glance before returning to the road.
And that’s all I’m going to get.
“Speaking of our arrangement,” he says. “I’ve been doing a little research. We’ll need to learn everything we can about the other.”
“Once upon a time, I knew you. And you knew me,” I say, because it’s true.
“Favorite color?” he asks.
I sigh. “Blue. Just like you.”
His lips twitch. “You remember that?”
I remember a lot about Roman Graves, but I don’t say as much. My reasons for marrying Roman did not include entrapping him.
“Favorite food?” he asks.
“Pancakes.”
He waits one second. “Do you know mine?”
“You used to down a bag of hot Cheetos like it was a shot of water.”
He laughs. “That’s true.”
And I remember that he always had a lemonade with him wherever he went. And he always stayed for dinner, but he’d take home leftovers whenever Mom made enchiladas. I play it cool, though. “It was hard to forget. You and Brice grossed me out eating those.”
“Hey, Brice is the one who spent ten minutes licking his fingers after.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Ew.”
“And while I still enjoy hot Cheetos, my favorite food is Mexican. Probably enchiladas. Okay, what’s your five-year plan?” he asks.
But my five-year plan currently consists of picking myself up off the ground, keeping a job for more than a year, obtaining the ability to pay rent, and not completely disappointing my parents. I am their only living child. There are expectations to meet. Ones I am currently failing at.
It’s not the five-year plan I had a month ago. It’s a shiny, new, make-you-want-to-cry five-year plan. One I don’t feel like sharing with the pro athlete sitting next to me.
I nibble on my lip. “How is any of this useful? What’s the point?”
“The point is we need to know each other’s likes and dislikes, plans and goals. We need to know one another as if we’re in love,” he says. “We’ll have to do some studying, Stell. Some practicing. For immigration services.”
I puff out my cheeks, guilt and anxiety filling up my insides. “See?” I say, fueling all that emotion into sass. “You’re going to have to kiss me one day.”