Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
The Indy race is four days after I find out why Lana and Demi are really here, and I spend each hour nervously anticipating it.
It’s a strange mix, knowing I’m going back to the circuit I love most for the first time since being suspended, but I’m not doing it as a driver.
I spend every moment I can practicing, racing, fucking Lana, or helping Demi sort through files in any way I can.
Anything to distract myself from what’s coming.
But now the time is here, and there’s no more avoiding it.
When the time comes to head out, I walk over to Lana’s hotel room, hearing her and Demi cackling through the door.
Despite the nervous energy in my chest, I find myself smiling.
Lana insisted on getting ready with her friend, claiming she needed to make sure she knew what to focus on for the mission.
Still, I think it’s because I’ve been consuming a lot of her time, and she wanted some time to hang out with her girlfriend, something I willingly gave her and mentally promised to figure out how to give her more of.
All thoughts of that leave my mind when she opens the door, a wide but tentative grin on her lips as she steps back to let me in.
Unlike before the big reveal of her role here, I’ve been in this room a bunch lately, so the mess and the murder board don’t scare me anymore.
But the version of Lana before me has me staring at her in utter awe.
Lana is gorgeous—there’s no way around it.
Whether she’s in her race suit, a tee and shorts, pajamas, or my shirt, she’s undeniably beautiful.
But I’ve never seen her outside of her casual self, and now that I have, it’s utterly heart-stopping.
The outfit is still relatively casual: a fitted light purple sundress with frilly edges that stops right above her knees, paired with white sneakers.
Perfect, since at the end of the day we’re headed to a racetrack.
But her hair is down in loose curls at the ends of her golden tresses, and her face is done up with makeup I’ve never seen before, making her lips fuller, her eyes wider, and her cheeks a pretty flush.
She’s wearing jewelry as well, including a few layered necklaces I’ve never seen before, a pair of twisty hoop earrings, and some bracelets and rings in a mix of silver and gold, as if she just threw on whatever she had.
It’s a bit chaotic, but also so perfectly Lana.
“Wow,” I say in awe, and Lana grins.
“She cleans up nice, huh?” Demi asks, pride in her voice as if she were the mastermind behind it all. “I tell her she needs to do it more, keep people on their toes.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, she’s perfect the way she is.
She doesn’t need any help keeping anyone on their toes.
I have enough trouble keeping my feet flat on the ground as it is.
” Lana rolls her eyes, reaching for her bag, as if annoyed by our back-and-forth, but her lips tip up into a small, contented smile.
“Oh, he is good at this. Unexpected, but shockingly decent at the boyfriend thing,” Demi says. Strangely enough, a sense of pride rushed through me, a light blush burning on my cheeks.
“Okay, come on, lover boy,” Lana says with a small laugh, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the door.” Let’s get out of here before Demi inflates that big head of yours so you can’t make it through the door.”
“Have fun, kids,” Demi yells. “Stay safe! Rome, she has a midnight curfew, and don’t you try any funny business.” I laugh as Lana pulls me into the hall. The door slams behind her with a loud thud.
“She drives me up a wall,” she grumbles, and I twine her fingers with mine.
“She’s fun. I like her.”
“That’s the problem,” Lana says with a sigh.
“She likes you too, and the two of you together are a disaster.” I laugh, then shake my head before leading her down the hall.
After a moment, I stop short, then pat my chest as if I’d forgotten something.
It’s a planned reaction, but Lana doesn’t know that.
“Shit, I forgot something in my room. We have to go get it.” Lana looks at me skeptically as I guide her in the opposite direction from my hotel room.
“We don’t have time to fuck, Roman.” I waggle my eyebrows. There’s something about Lana that makes me feel endlessly playful in a way that’s both new and comforting. In the past, if I were playful and goofy, I was often made to feel stupid or childish, or told I should grow up and be more mature.
In contrast, Lana has never once made me feel silly for being myself, which is why I find myself doing it more often.
“Roman,” she chides, and I can’t help but falter, tugging her into me and pressing my lips to hers.
“When you say my name like that, it makes me hard.” She rolls her eyes, but she gives into the kiss, not nearly as annoyed as she’s trying to make herself seem.
“We don’t have time, Rome,” she murmurs, and for a moment, I regret not making time. “Don’t we have to get going to make it by three?” I sigh with disappointment.
“Yeah. We’re not going to do anything in my room, though. I really just need to grab something. If I need to fuck you that badly, there are a million places at the track we could find.” Her eyes go wide, and she gasps, slapping at my chest.
“Roman!”
I grin, then step away, grabbing her hand once more.
“Come on, heartbreaker,” I say, leading her to my room.
My heart pounds as I move toward the door, fighting not to bite my lip nervously.
I swipe my keycard to unlock the door, then pull her inside, stopping at the entrance, my surprise sitting in a place of pride on the small table.
It took two days to find and one more to get here, and I’ve been eager to give it to her since then. The perk of Lana getting ready with Demi today was that I could set up this bit of chaos. But as she stares at it, dumbfounded, I wonder if maybe this was a bit stupid.
“What is this?” she asks softly, taking one step closer and inspecting the white and red item skeptically, as if she isn’t sure whether an illusion.
“It’s yours,” I explain simply, stepping back and watching her take it in. Slowly, as if she’s afraid it will disappear if she moves too quickly, she reaches out to grab a small animal in one of the rooms.
“Is this a Calico Critters house?”
“Yeah,” I say, grinning wide. “It’s yours. I know it’s not the huge, impressive one, but I wanted to make it somewhat reasonable for you to travel around with it.”
“You got me a Calico Critter house,” she murmurs, more a question than a statement, as she squats to look inside.
It came with a few small pieces of furniture and a little rabbit in a dress, though I couldn’t resist getting a couple of extras—a squirrel and a giraffe sit upstairs, as if waiting for her arrival to bring them to life.
She looks at them, gently touching the squirrel’s head, then looks at me.
“I didn’t get it for me,” I say.
“Why did you do this?”
“You said you always wanted one,” I said with a shrug. For a moment, I worried this was stupid and wrong, but the look of awe on her face confirms that it was a good idea, that this might have been my best idea. Her face goes soft, then a bit pensive, before she speaks.
“But I’m an adult. I don’t need a Calico Critter house, Roman.” She says it gently, as if giving out information she thinks I don’t have just yet.
“I know. But when you were little, you wanted it. And a part of you still does.” I step forward, and she stands, letting me pull her into my arms. “A part of you still wants it, is still the little girl who was too embarrassed to ask for a Calico Critter house. So I made it so you didn’t have to ask. ”
“Rome,” she whispers, her voice tight with unshed tears that both warm me and tighten my chest. It’s strange when Lana cries: it’s both an honor and something I desperately want to fix. I won’t ever tell her that, but I love these tears—the small, vulnerable moments she’s usually ashamed of.
They’ve been a source of embarrassment for so long, and now she’s comfortable enough to share them with me.
“I want to take care of all the sides of you. This is for the little girl version who pretended like she didn’t want girl things.”
“Rome,” she repeats, her voice cracking as a tear slides down her cheek. She shakes her head, but I press my lips to the tear, stopping it in its tracks before it gets too far. “My god, I can’t believe I’m crying again.” I shake my head.
“Do you like it?” I ask.
“You know, for someone who said he’s never been a boyfriend, you’re really freaking good at this,” she says with a sniff, and I grin wide.
“Yeah?”
“Oh yeah,” She looks back over her shoulder at the house and the pile of little characters and sighs. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“Whatever you want, I’m going to give it to you.”
“I guess I should be more careful about telling you things, then,” she laughs. “You seem to take them literally.”
“Never. Never hide from me, Lana. I just want you to have everything. To be everything, to be free with me.”
“I want the same for you, too, you know,” she says. Her body is against mine. On instinct, I slide a hand down her dress, resting on the small of her back.
“You give me everything I want and more, Lana.” I mean it in multiple ways—a soft space for me to be myself, the comfort to be myself, the courage to try more, but she takes it differently, her lips going lax as she moves something closer, her arms looping around my neck.
“I could give you what you want right now,” she teases.
“It’s the least I could do. A thank you, if you will.
” I groan, pulling her hips into mine. My dick twitches, waking up at the mere suggestion.
It makes no sense considering I’ve spent more hours buried inside her every night than not.
She even woke up in my bed this morning, letting me fuck her hard and deep before she went back to her room to get ready.
I should be utterly sated, but somehow, I still want her.
I wonder if I’ll ever not want Lana Carson.
Looking over her shoulder at the perfectly accessible bed, I contemplate it for just a moment before shaking my head.
“No,” I say, the word filled with regret. “No, we have places to be, mysteries to unravel.” She smiles up at me, beaming and full of promise.
“After?” she asks.
“I’ll hold you to it. Now let’s get out of here before I change my mind.” Then I grab her hand and lead her out of the room and out of the hotel to introduce her to my past—and what I hope is still my future.