Chapter 26 Roman
TWENTY-SIX
ROMAN
My cell phone vibrates on my office desk.
For the last three months, every time it lights up with a call or text, a tiny whisper of hope grabs me by the throat.
I pause in my rifling through the file folders in front of me, and glance at the screen.
Like every time before this one, the hope dies swiftly, and I bury it as best I can until the next time.
If I had any sense of self-preservation, I’d toss the thing in the Chicago River and never look back.
Austin’s name and picture are the ones staring back at me instead of hers.
I hit the button to send him to voicemail and go back to what I was doing.
I’ve done a stellar job of avoiding everything in life other than work or working out, which has given me the excuse I need to avoid Austin without raising too many questions.
I know I can’t do it indefinitely, but I’m not ready to hear that he swept in and scooped up what I tossed away.
Regardless of it being my fault that things ended the way they did with Addison, it would feel like a betrayal knowing one of my best friends is with her. I wrote my own mother off for less than that. Confronting him—and the ugly truth—will be a complete shit show, and I’m not ready for it yet.
“Goddamn it,” I mutter then punch the intercom button on my phone. “Maggie, where are the Newberry files?”
“On top of your file cabinet, sir, where you asked me to put them this morning.”
“No, they’re—” I swivel in my chair and sigh in exasperation at my own idiocy. “Right where I asked you to put them. Sorry about that, Maggie. Thank you.”
“No problem at all, sir.”
The woman is sweet to lie for my sake. I’ve been nothing but a problem since Addison left. I can’t fucking think, I drop the ball on shit, and any time her name comes up in professional circles, it’s all I can do to keep my mask of apathy in place.
“Do you need anything else before I head out for lunch?” Maggie asks politely, though I’m sure she’d rather tell me off.
I grab the Newberry files and drop them onto the only clear space remaining on my desk. My organizational skills have gone to complete shit. It’s no wonder I can’t find anything. “No, that’s fine, Maggie. I’ll be fine, thank you.”
She signs off, and I hear the distant click of the front door to the suite closing behind her.
It’s the Wednesday before New Year’s and the office isn’t even technically open this week.
Coop is on a cruise in the Cayman Islands, and Martin is in California visiting family for the holidays.
But when Maggie caught wind that I was coming in, she insisted on working, too.
I agreed only on the condition that she gets paid double-time.
For what she’s had to put up with from me these past few months, the woman deserves double her pay on a daily basis.
Blowing out a deep breath, I get up and pour myself a couple of fingers of whisky before resuming my place behind my desk.
Unmotivated to pore over the dissolution of the Newberry marriage and splitting of assets, I turn my chair to face my windows and stare at the wintry cityscape with my favorite brand of self-medication in hand.
We haven’t had much snow this season, and what we have gotten disappears almost as soon as it touches down, but everything else is just as it should be for late December in the Windy City.
Freezing temperatures, blustery wind blowing off the lake, bare trees, and brown grass.
The world is temporarily numb, waiting patiently for the spring thaw to breathe life back into the city once again.
I keep telling myself that’s what I’m doing. I’m dealing with the numbness and eventually it’s going to be replaced with sensations and feelings. Eventually I won’t be waiting to live again, I’ll actually start to feel alive. I just have to wait it out, to get through this winter in my life.
Christ, I had no clue what living was until I met Addison.
I’d merely existed in a small tidal pool, happy in the shallow world I’d created for myself.
Without even knowing she did it, Addie encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and showed me what it was like to live in the beauty of the ocean… the beauty of her love.
But at the same time she was teaching me how to open up emotionally, I was teaching her to open up physically, because that’s what I thought I needed. I thought I needed to share her like I’d needed to share so many others. My first mistake was lumping her in with every woman I’d been with before.
Addison is the most unique woman I’ve ever known.
She has two sides to her coin, just like I do.
She can sound crass and obnoxious, or professional and intelligent.
She can look like a sexy librarian in her work attire, or dress herself up like a Playboy bunny attending a mansion party.
She has her hard exterior—her honey badger persona, or what I considered her wildcat side—and yet she showed me her tender and vulnerable interior.
Then I used it against her like the fucking asshole I am, all because she turned into the woman I’d coached her to be, and I couldn’t handle it. For that, I deserve a lifetime of numbness.
Clutching my glass until my fingers blanch, I raise it to my lips and drain the contents, reveling in the burn as it slides down my throat.
“A little early to be drinking the hard stuff, don’t you think?”
I flinch at the sound of Austin’s voice so close behind me, and the blood rushes in my ears as my pulse races. “I’m busy, Massey. If I were able to talk, I would’ve taken your phone call.”
“Yeah, you look real fucking busy staring off into space while you enjoy a liquid lunch. Why don’t you cut the shit and face me already? I was hoping you’d come around on your own, but apparently fifteen years of friendship means fuck-all to you.”
Indignation burns through me as I spin my chair around to see Austin in one of the guest chairs in front of my desk.
I must have really been lost in thought not to hear him come in, much less sit down mere feet from me.
“Friendship means fuck-all to me? That’s rich coming from the man who was fucking my girlfriend. ”
“I told you she was different, Roman. That the games we were playing weren’t going to be enough for her. I fucking told you, man, and you didn’t listen.”
“Yeah, you also told me that if I didn’t give her what she wants, someone else would. However, you failed to mention that someone would be you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? The only time I was ever with Addie was with you. At your instruction, I’d like to add.”
“Really,” I say, my tone laced with sarcasm. “So you were never with her outside of our arranged times?”
“Fuck, no.”
It only takes seconds to pull up the picture of them on my phone and hold it up for him to see. I tried deleting the pictures and video at least a hundred times, but for whatever sick reason, I’ve never been able to pull the trigger.
Surprise casts shadows in his eyes, and he drags a hand over the lower half of his face, releasing a heavy sigh. “That’s not what it looks like, brother.”
I scoff and drop the phone carelessly to the desk as I lean back in my chair. I don’t really care to hear his backpedaling or bullshit excuses. “Whatever.”
“I was getting her legal advice, Roman. We met a couple of times to discuss things, and she drew up some paperwork for me, but that was it. I swear.”
“I find that hard to believe. I’ve been handling your legal affairs since before graduating college. Now you’re saying that you suddenly needed Addison’s help and couldn’t even tell me about it?”
“Yes, damn it, that’s what I’m saying. I couldn’t go to you, not with this. And I needed someone I could trust beyond just the attorney-client privilege shit. She wanted me to at least confide in you that I was asking for her help, but I made her promise not to tell you anything.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew if I did you’d ask questions—”
“That’s what I’m doing now. I’m asking why you couldn’t come to me with whatever you needed.”
Austin scrubs his hands over his face then gets up to stalk over and pour himself a drink.
“Refill?” he asks, holding the bottle up.
I nod. He brings it over and splashes some of the amber liquid into my glass before setting the bottle on a stack of files and sitting back down.
“I needed a contract and NDA drawn up to protect my reputation as a civil servant.”
My brows draw together. Firemen, along with other city employees, can get in big trouble—even fired, depending on how bad the situation is—if their reputation comes into question.
Discretion is something we take very seriously with our guys at P4H, for that very reason.
Austin is only known by his nickname, Rowdy, and he doesn’t do gigs in the same district as his firehouse.
In five years, he’s never been recognized by a client, and chances of it ever happening are slim to none. Unless…
“Did someone recognize you at a job? If so, that still doesn’t explain why you didn’t come to me.”
He’s shaking his head before I even finish. “This doesn’t have anything to do with P4H, Roman. It has to do with my personal life.” That explains jack shit, so I continue to stare at him. He sighs. “My sex life.”
Hearing him refer to his sex life in conjunction with Addison only serves to piss me right the hell off. “As you can see by the shit all over my desk, I have work to do. Maggie’s at lunch, but you know the way out.”
“Goddamn it, Roman, it’s a sensitive fucking topic for me. Is it so hard to believe that there might be something I can’t discuss with you?”