Chapter Twenty-Six
Heheheheheheh.
Roman
“Sol!” Elodie squeals, running around the counter at the tiny Sweet & Salty café in the seriously tiny town of Bandera, West Virginia.
I can see the entirety of the town’s shopping district from the sidewalk out front, save for the Walmart, which I’m told is on the edge of town near the turnoff for the interstate.
It’s so… little . My parents live in a small town, but not like this.
Their small town might as well be a metropolis compared to Bandera.
The only thing missing here is small-town folk interactions, but I think that’s less because they don’t happen and more because they don’t happen around Jove .
“Ellie!” Sol scolds with a laugh, smiling an apology at the customers he’s serving at the counter. “Sorry, guys. My sister is visiting from out of town.”
“That’s okay, Sol!” a young, starry-eyed teenager giggles, elbowing her friend. “We’re happy to wait for you.”
I press my lips together to contain a snort. I just bet they’d wait for him. Unfortunately for them, Sol’s not going to wait for them… to hit legal age. Much sorrow, I’m sure.
Behind me, Jove clears his throat, gaining the attention of…
everyone, pretty much. An older couple seated by the window jolts, then scurries for the door.
A man sitting at a high-top table along the back wall stands, realizes he’ll have to pass Jove to get to the door, squawks , then sprints past us, head down and whimpering.
The teenagers at the counter hesitate, twisting their thumbs as they look to Sol, who is still greeting Elodie, before ultimately deciding that they, too, should scram.
One throat clearing, and the place is ours.
I love this guy. Sure, he slashes tires for fun, but his family is safe from danger, annoyances, or merely unwanted lookers-on without him having to so much as utter a single word. What peace he must feel knowing that he doesn’t have to worry— that his existence alone will keep his people safe.
I consider, momentarily, taking up the hobby of slashing tires and bleaching people’s lawns.
Then Elodie laughs her fairytale laugh, and I remember that I am not a man who loves a woman in a tiny town where everyone would know that I’m the one slashing tires and bleaching lawns and know to stay away.
I’m a man who loves a woman in a big city surrounded by strangers and dangers too many for me to even consider them all, let alone for them to all know who I am. I’m a man who lov…
I blink.
I’m a man who what now.
I play the tape back and blink some more.
Yeah. I thought that. In my mind. Casually. As if it is a fact that everyone knows, first and foremost me.
Elodie’s tinkling giggles penetrate my WTF IS GOING ON IN MY HEAD, and my heart… my heart says it knows exactly what’s going on in my head, and it quite agrees. We are, it says, in love. With Elodie, specifically.
I gulp.
That is just…
That’s…
Really obvious, huh?
I topple into a cushioned wooden chair, eyes fixed on, apparently, the love of my life as I contemplate the last several years.
Elodie showing up in my life, beautiful and sassy and with far too little care for her own safety.
Me losing sleep over not knowing if she was okay or not—if she would be okay or not.
Fighting with her, sometimes picking the fights just to watch her eyes spark and her cheeks heat.
Feeding her my food, and her begrudgingly enjoying it.
Seeing her in my shirt that time I flung sour cream onto hers.
Watching her with Ruby, how she always treated her with respect beyond what even Will did.
When she moved in and the adjustment was nowhere near as bad as I expected it to be.
We fought, sure, but not over chores or bills or who would do what, just the same stuff we always fought about.
When she called me from the bridal shop, and I thought she was hurt.
When we got there, and I was more worried about her than my own sister.
When I passed care of Ruby to Will so that I could check on Elodie.
When we went to the restaurant, I couldn’t calm down until I had her wound around my hand, a physical connection to remind me that she was okay.
When I found out that she’s been going to school, working, and planning Ruby and Will’s wedding without complaint, despite the fact that she was doing it all on her own.
When she let me take her on this road trip, trusting my plan and letting me care for her while we follow it through.
When she let me feed her carrot cake while I rambled about it, when, in hindsight, she’d definitely had it before.
When she went to take a nap and I missed her so much that I drove to Walmart, got what we needed for dinner, then spent the next several hours cooking so I wouldn’t be tempted to interrupt her rest.
When I interrupted her rest anyway, not because she couldn’t eat later, but because I selfishly wanted her to eat then, with me.
When I stared at her in a lovesick daze long enough that her cousin had to say my name four times before I heard her.
“What?” I ask, then clear the gravel from my throat. “Sorry. What?”
She beams, resting her head on her hands as she sits beside me. “Elodie’s pretty great, huh?”
“One could say that,” I reply, rubbing a hand over my stubbled jaw.
“Would that one be you?”
“Maybe,” I allow. “Did you lose your husband?”
Smooth subject change, Roman. Did the love eat your brains?
“He went next door to talk to Brandi, his tattoo artist. I wanted to stay here to talk to you, my future cousin!”
No subject change for Lyra, then. Because what I want to do first thing after finding out I’m in love with a woman is talk about it with her cousin while said woman stands twenty feet away, gabbing with her brother.
“Do you have many cousins?” I ask.
“Just Elodie and Sol,” she answers. “Their mom is my mom’s only sibling, and I don’t have a dad, so no cousins on that side.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She shrugs. “I’m not. Having an absent parent can sometimes be better than having a present one.
Besides, I’ve never known anything different than him being gone.
I don’t usually think about it at all.” A mischievous grin, like a baby kitten’s, lights up her face.
“What I do think about is my dear, sweet Elodie, and how much she deserves a happily ever after with, as she would say, a total hottie. Any thoughts on that from you?”
If I weren’t newly aware of the state of my emotions, I’d find Lyra hilarious in her adorable ploy to matchmake. As it is, I am reeling from shock and finding it hard to fully appreciate her efforts.
“She does deserve a happily ever after,” I agree, “with a total hottie.” AKA me.
Lyra hums, sighs, and kicks her feet beneath the table, eyes glazing as she stares at me. I can practically see the wedding bells ringing in her eyes, Elodie and me beneath them.
“Roman!” Sol’s voice, close, grabs my attention and alerts me to the fact that he and Elodie are right there .
I stand, offering Elodie my seat. She stares at the four other empty chairs at the table.
I grunt.
Sol laughs, poking her into the wooden chair before turning his angelic aura on me. His teeth glimmer, and his hair shines under the fluorescent lighting as he opens his arms to clasp me within them. I… did not know that we were this friendly.
“Hey, Sol.”
“Thank you for keeping my baby sister safe,” he says, pulling back. “I’m glad she’s got someone looking out for her.”
Oh. I see. We are that friendly, then. Good. All the easier for when I make him my brother. Which is not a sentence that kicks my heart rate into hyperdrive or anything.
Sol lets go of me to greet Lyra, and I sit down in the seat next to the one I gave Elodie.
The table shakes, and I grimace, bringing my fist down on my leg to stop its trembling.
“Are you okay?” Elodie asks, squinting at me. “You look ill.”
“I feel a little ill,” I say.
After all, lovesick is a type of sickness… surely.