26. Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Lance
I lay on top of the covers staring up at the ceiling. What in the literal fuck have I gotten myself into? I watch the ceiling fan spin in circles for so long that I start to feel dizzy.
This isn’t what I asked for. I wanted to go back to the literal beginning.
I wanted to start over with Roman and be friends.
What I didn’t want was to see him again and immediately have the desire to climb him like a fucking tree.
I don’t want to talk about how much I’ve missed him, because it’s stupid.
I’m the one that decided we should stop seeing each other.
Was it for a good reason? Sure. Did it need to happen?
I guess. It obviously wasn’t a healthy relationship, or whatever you want to call it.
The problem I’m having now is that just because I decided that I want to be friends with him, that hasn’t stopped my body from remembering how heavenly it felt being more than friends.
It hasn’t stopped me from craving his touch, or from wanting to reach out for him when I shouldn’t.
It hasn’t stopped me from watching his every move and cataloging them like fucking keepsake photographs.
It hasn’t stopped me from second guessing every single thing he says or does.
It sure as fuck hasn’t stopped that ridiculous freaking desire to press my lips to his. It’s stupid. Stupid.
I watched him all freaking day, trying to figure out if he was just ignoring my texts yesterday because he didn’t actually want to talk to me or if there was another reason that he didn’t answer.
I was sure that he would reject me when I showed up at his door, but I didn’t know what else to do.
I couldn’t think of any other way to get through this trip without being the first one to extend an olive branch.
It would’ve been awkward as hell if I just kept my distance the whole time, and we don’t even know how long this trip is going to be, so that wouldn’t have been feasible.
I avoided asking about the texts. I’m not the brightest crayon in the box, but I’m smart enough to know that I shouldn’t throw myself under a moving bus.
It took me until we checked into the hotel room to notice that Roman hadn’t even touched his phone.
In fact, I haven’t even seen it. Which has me wondering if something happened to it.
What if he didn’t see the messages I sent him?
What if he has no idea that I was trying to apologize?
What if I just showed up at his door and he’s completely clueless that I’m trying to be friends now?
I don’t know which option is more mortifying.
Him having seen all those messages and blatantly ignoring them or me showing up when he didn’t even know I was finally texting him? Jesus.
And then! And then, he said something about not talking to his friend since last night.
Which, hello flares. I haven’t talked to SYC since last night either because I told him that I had some stuff going on with work and I wasn’t sure how much time I would have to talk.
So, I was immediately back to thinking about whether or not I could be talking to Roman. Again.
What if last night, when he was going to check on his friend at the bar and I thought I felt Roman watching me... what if that was him? What if Roman is SeeYouClearly and he was coming to check on me? What if all this time, the guy that he’s been obsessed with, what if that’s… me?
It’s absurd. I think to myself. There’s no way.
I toss and turn, trying to get comfortable, but I can’t get the thought out of my mind. I have to find out. One way or another. If I can just find some proof, something that definitively says he is or isn’t, then I never have to worry about it again.
I just have to figure out exactly how I’m going to do that.
The smell of food wafts into the room, and I can’t help myself. Embarrassed or not, I crawl out of bed, messy hair and all, rubbing at my sleepy eyes. What time is it? I feel like I barely got a wink of rest.
The scent gets stronger as I walk down the hall, my stomach grumbling angrily in protest. “I know you did not order food without asking me if I wanted anything fir—”
Before I can even get all of them out, I eat every single one of my words.
I step into the main area and Roman pauses from across the counter where he was setting out two plates of food.
The smirk he sends my way is entirely too smug for my liking.
As I step over to the counter I can’t help but roll my eyes at his confidence.
It’s fucking hot, and I’m annoyed at myself for even thinking that.
Being forced to spend all this time with him is doing absolutely nothing for my willpower.
It’s paper thin on a good day and today is not a good day.
When he pinned me to the counter earlier and whispered in my ear…
sweet heavens. My trembling legs could barely keep me from falling over as I rushed to the room.
It’s like he has a lifetime pass to every single one of my weaknesses and exploits all of them by just fucking existing near me.
Talking? That deep raspy voice has me locked down.
Breathing in my presence? Hot. Working? Could watch him all day long.
Being a domineering asshole that’s promising to worship my body?
He’s got my dick in a damn vise. He might as well have me hog-tied at this point, because it’s not like I was ever going anywhere.
I. Fucking. Hate. It.
If you think for even a second that I’ve been able to get it up at the thought of anyone else since we stopped messing around, you’d be dead wrong.
No matter how many guys I rubbed up against at the bar, it did nothing more than make Roman jealous as fuck while he sat behind his computer screens creeping on me.
My dick was so limp you could’ve mistaken it for a deflated balloon, and I wouldn’t even have been able to get offended.
My dick has his number and some type of emotional attachment to him that my brain is not on board with right now.
I could, you know, take care of things myself, but I absolutely refuse to jerk off to thoughts of him.
The stupid fucking thing won’t work otherwise, so I’m currently weeks into being fully celibate, and having him all up in my space earlier was like balancing on a fucking tight rope.
I’m a rubber band, and one wrong move on my part is going to have me snapping, washing every bit of my resolve down the drain.
Roman reaches out to me, offering a pair of chopsticks.
I take them as I quietly stare down at the plate in front of me, then glance over to his plate.
I’m irrationally irritated that Roman knows exactly what I’d want, and that I also knew exactly what he’d have to eat too.
That doesn’t stop me from choking it down though and also thanking the heavens that he didn’t cook for me, because ever since SeeYouClearly said that cooking is a love language for him, I can’t not think that when people cook something for me.
Namely Roman, because he’s the only person that ever fucking cooks at the prison.
Which is just another reason why he could be— Nope. I’m not doing that right now. I’m not.
“You didn’t really seem like you were in the mood to talk, and I was starving, so I hope that what I ordered you is okay. I can go get you something else, if you don’t want that.” He offers as he shovels a bite of food in his mouth.
My eyes wander up to him, trailing across his chest and arms as he shifts on his feet.
He continues to look down at his food, and I suddenly realize that I don’t get moments like this very often.
Roman seems to always be paying attention to me, and thanks to my nerves or anxiety, or whatever the fuck it is, I tend to shy away from his direct attention.
That doesn’t leave me a lot of chances to admire him the same way he always does to me.
It’s almost weird witnessing him doing something so mundane without anything else holding his attention.
I mean, I’m sure that he’s thinking about something, but his sole focus is on eating.
It makes the man in front of me seem much less like a robot.
It humanizes him in all the ways I was desperate to forget about.
It’s so easy to overlook all the shitty things that use to come out of his mouth when everything else about him is so flawless.
The way his dark hair dusts across his forehead as he looks down, skimming just above his perfect eyebrows that I doubt he even has to shape.
The sun coming from the balcony windows reflect off the brown of his eyes, highlighting the hints of chocolate brown streaking through the cognac-colored iris.
The light freckles that dust across his nose.
Thick veins branch out from the backs of his hands like the limbs of a tree.
I vividly remember what it felt like to press against them and feel the beat of his heart thrumming beneath my fingertips.
The silkiness of his hair as I would run my fingers through it while we lounged on the couch together.
The prickle of his scruff when he would nuzzle against me in his sleep.
The way he would be amazed by some common fact in a documentary.
I can remember his laugh perfectly; God, can I remember that.
His eyes wander up to mine, softening as he notices me watching him, before promptly turning back to his food.
I really wish I had the capacity to accept his attention the way he so openly accepts mine.
I glance back to my food, pushing it around on the plate more than I’m actually eating.
It seems I’ve lost my appetite, or maybe I’m just full now.
Full of regret.