Chapter 20
Twenty
Roman & Stella
Roman
“I can’t believe you’re hitched,” Garrett Hayward says. His disbelieving tone should offend me, but I’m working on smiling. On talking.
“Yeah, how’d that happen?” Tru Kelley asks. He’s forward on and off the field, apparently. “Where’d you even meet her?”
“We grew up together and recently reconnected.” There. That’s true. It even sounds believable.
“Recent? Like, how recent?” Tru asks. “’Cause now you’re married.”
“I’m never getting married,” nineteen-year-old Wade Turner says. “Wait. Is your girl like … pregnant? My mom said if I get a girl pregnant, there better be a ring on her finger.”
“Gah—no. Stella isn’t pregnant.” Impossible.
“But you’re married?” Tru says.
I choose smiling over talking this time. Where’s Lucca? Maybe he isn’t the most obnoxious guy on our team, after all.
Stella
Fran Fairchild grabs a hold of my arm and shakes. “Tell us all about you and Roman.”
“We’re all still soaking in that The Graveyard is married,” Rosalie says.
“I didn’t think Roman left his apartment,” Sarah, Devon’s wife, says.
And if I hadn’t promised Roman to smile and talk, I might scowl at her. What can I say? I’m picking up my husband’s bad habits.
Rosalie takes a quick glance across the room at Zevulun Hayes, whom I think she must be dating. First my wedding day, and now she’s here, at this team meeting, blushing every single time the man looks her way. “You guys have been dating since high school. Right? Long distance.”
“Maybe.”
That answer only gets me some confused stares.
“Yes.” Then I shake my head. “No. Sort of. It’s complicated. Roman …” I say, drawing out his name. “Has been in love with me forever.”
“Forever?” Fran says.
“Forever.” I swallow past the lump the lie has formed. “He tracked me down a month—a year—ah, one month and one year ago.”
“So sweet,” Fran says. “How’d he find you?”
“Ahhh.” The noise hums from my lips. “Work.”
Rosalie’s brows knit. “You work for the Red Tails?”
Oh crap. Come on, Stella. Think before you just let random words fall out of your face!
I clear my throat. “No. Um, my work. He found me at my work.”
“Oh,” Rosalie says. “Where do you work?”
Crap.
“My work one month and one year ago.” I hiccup, licking my lips and keep on going. “I am currently an unemployed ceramic artist.” I laugh, but it sounds as real as I mean it—not at all. “I used to work for a dish manufacturer. Roman needed … plates.”
“Plates?” Fran says, as if the word is too dull. “I thought he came looking for you?”
“He did. Me and plates.”
“Plates,” Rosalie says.
Why is that so crazy? People need plates. Why can’t Roman need plates?
“And he came to the manufacturer?” One of Rosalie’s pretty brows has quirked high on her head in question.
“For her!” Fran says, hands on her heart.
I nibble on my bottom lip and nod. “Yep. That Roman, always skipping the middleman.”
Roman
“What’s she like?” Tru asks.
“Who?”
“Bro, your wife,” Wade says.
“Oh.” I look around. Lucca should be saving me from this conversation right now. But he’s flirting with Candy or Mandy—I never got the chance to ask her. “Um, she’s great.”
“I think he means, does she have hobbies? Does she play ball? What does she do for a living?” Zev says. He’s not even a part of this conversation, but he’s overheard and now he’s adding his two cents.
I smile at him—because that’s my job tonight—and his brows pull together.
He stares at me like I’ve stuck out my tongue and screwed up my eyes.
“Sure,” I say. Stella isn’t working. She was fired.
But does she want everyone knowing her business?
We haven’t discussed it. “She’s an independent artist,” I say.
“She makes pottery.” The more I speak, the more right the words feel.
“If you want something, you let me know. Stella can make anything.”
“That’s fire,” Tru says.
“It is fire,” I say, spying my wife in a group of women. And then I smile at the kid.
Stella
I am a jam sandwich. Rosalie is one slice of bread and Fran is the other. And I am the jam.
I don’t really want to be jam. I’m not even sure I like jam.
But here I am. Jam.
“Is Roman romantic? I just picture him as quiet and brooding, but deep down a total romantic.” Fran sighs.
“Is she serious?” I ask Rosalie with a smile. I’m talking and I’m smiling. Roman cannot accuse me of breaking our deal. I have smiled the crap out of tonight.
Rosalie completely ignores Fran and my question, asking one of her own. “How long were you engaged?”
That’s easier. Sort of. “Well—”
“Wait,” Fran interrupts. “Tell us how he proposed.”
“Oooh, yeah.” Rosalie nods. “I want to hear that story too.”
“Proposal …” I feel my forehead wrinkle.
“Wait. Don’t start without me!” Alice Baxter says. She leaves her current conversation and sits on the floor in front of us, her one-year-old daughter in her lap. Jasmine holds a cloth picture book in her little hands. The little blonde smacks the pages with her chubby fists.
Sarah sits at the end of the couch, her body turned toward us. I officially have an audience. And I don’t have any answers. Maybe I should have allowed Roman to go over those green card questions after all. I’m certain this was one of them.
The thought turns my stomach, though—like, every time Roman brings them up. They are a reminder of how I’ve lied to him.
“We were …” I say, each word slow and thoughtful. “In the woods.”
“Ooo,” Fran sings, to which Rosalie shushes her.
“And there was … a fire.” Woods and fire—those sound like a match.
Alice gasps.
“A campfire,” I amend.
The women around me sigh. I need to work on my storytelling skills.
I also need to end this fairytale—and quick. I clear my throat. “We roasted s’mores. Roman said, ‘Will you marry me?’ And I said, ‘Yep.’”
Rosalie tilts her head, her nose wrinkled in disappointment.
“Did he hide the ring in the marshmallow bag?” Fran says.
“He did,” I say with one dramatic nod.
She squeals. “Did he get down on one knee?”
“Of course!” Yep, I’ll agree to everything. Fran can tell this story.
“Did he—”
“Yep,” I say, jumping to my feet. “He did all those things! Amazing! Is there a bathroom in this mansion, Mrs. Billionaire?”
Yes, I said that …
And Roman never needs to know.
Roman
Zev scratches his jaw, his eyes distant and on the group of women sitting on Baxter’s couch. “How’d you pop the question, Graves?”
“The question.” I clear my throat. “Privately. Very, very privately.” Which is the exact opposite of how I announced my engagement to Stella. “Just me, Stell, and my Bronco. It just felt right. You know?”
Zev snuffs out a laugh and peers over at the women once more. “I might know.”
“I asked. She agreed. The end.”