6. Freya
6
FREYA
“Hold on,” Margot says, cocking her head, “you’re saying he left the coffee shop then came back?”
“Yes!”
My best friend and I are holed up in the living room of our shared apartment, sipping cocoa and talking animatedly about what happened today. Ever since Margot came home, I’ve been babbling to her about Roman. She’s a good enough friend to keep listening, even if I must have repeated myself a hundred times by now.
“He brought me my necklace,” I tell her. “Then he left, and about thirty minutes later he walked straight back in with so much…purpose, you know? Like he was really determined to do something. You should have heard my heartbeat, Margot! God, I thought I was going to faint like an old Victorian lady.”
She laughs, her eyes flickering between me and the TV where Hocus Pocus is playing on low volume. It’s one of my favorite Halloween movies, but I’m too distracted to watch anything. My whole body has been thrumming with restless energy ever since Roman left Mountain Brew, and all I seem capable of doing is smiling like an idiot and talking about him over and over again.
“And I’ll never forget what happened next. He looked at me…he has these really intense eyes and they were fixed on me, and he said ‘I want to take you out somewhere. Anywhere. I don’t care where, as long as it’s with you.’ It was so romantic I thought I was going to die!”
Margot smiles at me, but there’s something strained in her eyes. “I’m happy for you. I hope you have a great time tomorrow.”
I bite my lip, my happiness wavering for a moment as I ask, “What’s wrong? Something’s bothering you. I can tell.”
She sighs. “I’m just a little worried, that’s all. I love seeing you so excited, Freya. Really, I do. But I don’t want you to get hurt. You don’t know this guy very well, and I just hope he’s as open and genuine as you are.”
I take her hand and give it a squeeze. Margot is always looking out for me. She protects her heart fiercely, and it makes her nervous that I wear mine on my sleeve so openly. I understand her fears, but there’s something about Roman that I trust. We only just met, yet somehow it’s like I’ve always known him.
“Don’t worry,” I say, smiling warmly at my best friend. “I’ll take care of myself. Promise.”
“You better. Because if this guy hurts you, he’ll have me to answer to.”
She raises her fists dramatically, speaking with so much fierceness that I have to bite back a laugh. Margot is all of five feet tall, and Roman is at least six and a half. But that sure as heck wouldn’t stop her from fighting him if it came to it.
“Thanks, Margot.” I lean over and give her a one-armed hug, stealing one of her chips with my free hand. “And I promise I’ll be just as protective of you if you meet somebody.”
She makes a noise of distaste, wrinkling her nose and throwing a chip at me. “Never gonna happen.”
The rest of the evening passes in a happy blur as Margot patiently listens to me gushing about Roman: his voice, his muscles, his beard. By the time I get into bed, I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve, tossing and turning with excitement until I finally fall asleep with a smile on my lips.
The next morning, I wrap up warm and wait for Roman to arrive, my heart fluttering like a caged bird behind my ribs. When a large truck pulls up, I burst out of the apartment, barely able to contain myself. Roman is already getting out of the truck to open the passenger-side door for me, and despite the chilly morning air, my body fills with warmth at the sight of him. He looks more ruggedly handsome than ever.
“Morning,” he says, reaching out with gentle hands to help me up into my seat.
“Hi.” I swallow hard, nerves buzzing in my throat.
Roman gestures to the cupholder beside me. “I got you a hot chocolate.”
“Thank you! My favorite.” I reach down and take a sip of the sweet, creamy drink, glad for something to do with my trembling hands as Roman gets into the driver’s seat. I feel his eyes on me.
“You look beautiful, by the way,” he says. I suck in a breath, accidentally snorting a noseful of hot chocolate. It burns my nostrils, making my eyes water as Roman reaches for a napkin. “Shit, sorry?—”
I laugh. I can’t help it. If there was an award for making a terrible impression, I’d win it every time, but Roman doesn’t seem to mind my clumsiness. He hands me the napkin, his lips tugging upward as I wipe my face. There’s so much warmth in his eyes that I feel myself relax, my nerves ebbing away.
“Thank you,” I say, still chuckling. “For the compliment and for the napkin.”
Roman nods, still smiling slightly as he turns on the engine and begins to drive us toward the pumpkin patch. I’m starting to think that a small smile for Roman is the equivalent of a hundred-watt grin for other people, and it makes me cherish the slight curve of his lips even more.
We arrive at the pumpkin patch a few minutes later. It stretches out before us, dotted with fat orange pumpkins as far as the eye can see, not far from the corn maze where Roman and I first bumped into each other. When I mention this, Roman says, “It’s all owned by the Thorne brothers. They own the cornfield, the pumpkin patch, and the Christmas Tree Farm.”
“Do you know them?”
Roman nods. “I know one of them. Declan Thorne. See him in the forest a lot.”
Once we reach the entrance, we’re greeted by a tall lumberjack with a grumpy expression. He reaches out to shake Roman’s hand, then nods his head at me, introducing himself as Declan.
“No charge,” he insists as soon as Roman reaches for his wallet. “Friends don’t pay. Good thing I haven’t got many, or I’d be out of a job.”
After some wrangling, Roman accepts the gesture with a thank you before we leave Declan behind and enter the pumpkin patch. The sun is climbing higher in the sky, making the pumpkins shine like bright orange jewels.
“It looks so magical!” I say, spinning around to take it all in. “Like something out of a painting.”
“You’ve never been here before?” Roman asks.
“Sure I have, but it’s still exciting to come back! Halloween only comes once a year.”
“Good point.”
I drag Roman from row to row, letting myself get carried away with choosing the perfect pumpkin, explaining all the features that a good jack-o’-lantern needs while he watches on in amusement.
“So,” I say once I’ve built up the courage to ask him something more personal, “you haven’t always lived in Cherry Hollow?”
Roman shakes his head, crouching down to help me cut through a particularly stubborn pumpkin stem. “I was born and raised in Phoenix. Only moved to Cherry Hollow a few months ago.”
“Why did you move?”
“A couple of reasons.” He places the pumpkin in a nearby wheelbarrow and turns to me. “I wanted a quieter life. Wanted to be closer to my daughter.”
I try to hide my surprise. It’s hard to imagine Roman having a child, and my expression must give me away because he adds, “Her name’s Chloe. I adopted her when she was just a kid.”
“Really?” I ask, intrigued. “What made you decide to adopt?”
Roman pauses for a moment. The sun casts shadows on his handsome face, making his eyes dance as he says, “I was a cop at the time. Never planned to have kids, but one day, I responded to a call and found Chloe. Her parents were addicts. She was suffering from serious neglect, malnutrition, you name it. She wouldn’t talk to a single cop except me—she trusted me.” He sucks in a breath, and I can see emotion bubbling beneath the surface. “I couldn’t leave her. So I adopted her. Raised her as my own kid, and now, that’s what she is.”
My heart bursts with affection for him. Roman might have a grumpy exterior, but clearly, he’s a good man and a good father. There’s a lot more to him than I thought, and I ask him more questions about Chloe, listening raptly as he tells me about her growing career as an artist and her relationship with a man named Trace, who once served with Roman back in his military days.
“You served in the military, too?” I ask.
“Only for a few years. Then I left to become a cop.”
I open my mouth to ask a question, but he stops me, curiosity burning in his face as he says, “I want to hear about you too, Freya. Everything there is to know.”
I bite my lip, shrugging. “Honestly, there isn’t much to tell. I’ve lived in Cherry Hollow all my life. Just a regular girl working at a coffee shop.”
I can’t help noticing how underwhelming it sounds after everything Roman just told me, but he’s looking at me eagerly, like he wants to know more. I tell him about Margot and how we share an apartment. We’ve been living together for a few years now, since we’re both perpetually single.
“How?” Roman asks suddenly.
“How what?”
He frowns. “How is a beautiful girl like you single?”
The way he says it makes me shiver with delight. He says it so bluntly, not like he’s expecting me to thank him for the compliment, but as if it’s simply a matter of fact. I never thought of myself as being particularly beautiful, but when Roman says it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, it’s easy to feel like it’s true.
“I…I’m just not the kind of girl guys go for,” I say with a shrug. “A lot of dating seems to be about mind games, playing hard to get, acting cool. That’s just not who I am, and it pushes people away. I can be a little much sometimes, I guess.”
Roman tilts his head, his voice quiet but firm. “I think you’re perfect as you are, Freya. Hell, if someone can’t handle all of you, they don’t deserve any of you.”
His words make my heart swell, and he looks so serious and intense that I can’t help myself. I drop the pumpkin I’m holding and wrap my arms tightly around Roman’s giant frame, breathing in his woodsy scent before hurriedly letting go.
“Thank you,” I tell him, breathing fast. “Nobody has ever said that to me before.”
He touches his chest, where our bodies were pressed together seconds before. Despite his grumpy, stoic expression, there’s a twinkle in his eyes as he says, “You don’t need to thank me. It’s just the truth.”
I beam at him, warmth rushing through my veins. My excitement makes me loud, and I chatter away about Halloween and all my favorite things to do in the fall. But Roman doesn’t seem to mind that I’m babbling. He listens intently, nodding along like everything I say is the most interesting thing he’s ever heard.
“Something I’ve always wanted to do is make my own pumpkin pie,” I say as we continue winding our way through the gourds. “My grandma’s was amazing, but I never got the recipe.”
“I know a thing or two about pumpkin pie,” Roman says, pushing the wheelbarrow ahead of us. My mind goes blank for a minute as I stare at his thick forearms, and it takes me a moment to process what he said.
“You do?”
“I make one for Chloe every year. I can show you how to do it, but we’ll need sweet pumpkins for pie, not decorative ones.”
I follow him to a row of smaller gourds. He lets me choose a couple and bends down to cut them for me, adding them to the wheelbarrow.
“Perfect!” I clap my hands together as I inspect our haul. “Let’s go make pumpkin pie!”
Roman smiles at me slightly. “Want to make it back at your apartment?”
“No, let’s go to your place.”
I’m curious to see where Roman lives, and baking pumpkin pie together will be the perfect opportunity to see his home. There’s so much more I want to know about this rugged lumberjack, and as we head back to his truck, butterflies fill my stomach, dancing inside me like fallen leaves in the wind.