11. Roman
Roman
“It’s been too long,” Natalia purrs near my ear as she wraps her arms around my waist, drawing me close. She stands up on her tiptoes, leaning in close to my lips.
I angle my face on pure instinct at the last moment.
Her mouth lands awkwardly on my jaw instead of my lips, and I gently push her off of me.
“Fuck, Romik,” she says, looking at me with wide eyes, holding her hands up. She gives me a wary smile. “I’m only saying hello.”
Tate is standing just past Natalia and I look up and catch his eyes on me.
We just walked into Capp’s Diner to find that Maks wasn’t alone. Natalia was not someone I thought I’d be seeing today.
I turn to greet Maks, giving him a tight hug.
“Nata was just on her way out,” Maks says. “We had a late coffee.”
“And Maks didn’t even tell me you were on your way,” Natalia says, lifting an eyebrow at him. “Romik’s been avoiding me.”
The sound of her using that cutesy little nickname for me burrows under my skin, bothering me in a way it never has. Natalia’s always been affectionate with me, even in a platonic way while she was dating other men.
We’ve never fucked.
She’s desperately wanted it a few times in the past, and certainly wants it now.
I can smell it on her, and she isn’t exactly trying to hide it anyway.
“Not avoiding,” I tell her, and it’s mostly not a lie. “I’ve been occupied.”
She reaches out to squeeze my arm. “Too busy to come to your father’s Sunday dinners. Well, we all miss you, and…” she turns toward Tate, then back to me. “Kto etot blondin?”
“Ask him yourself. In English, Nata.”
She spins to Tate again. “Well, so. Who are you, cute blondie? Do you speak?”
Tate immediately gives her his wide, warm smile. The way Nata asked about him was fucking rude, but Tate… Tate is good with everyone. His face opens up brightly like it always does, even though I want to put a muzzle on Natalia right now.
“I’m Tate,” he says, holding out his hand to shake hers.
“Pleasure.”
I watch Nata’s eyes roam over him. Tate has on one of his usual tank tops, this time a light olive-toned one that brings out the radiant green in his eyes. He’s always actively trying to show off his body, and she notices it.
Suddenly I wish I’d marked him earlier.
Bitten him down his sides, or sucked a fat, dark mark onto his neck for her to see. While she’s looking at him, it feels like she’s looking at something of mine.
And now Tate’s not watching me at all. His eyes sparkle as he looks at her, because he gives everyone his full attention.
“Your dress is fucking awesome,” Tate tells her. “Margiela is my favorite designer.”
“You know of him?” Nata asks, sliding her hands over her tight black dress that has a gothic-style look, with a few thin chains embedded directly along the waist.
“I have a custom mulberry Margiela suit. It’s my favorite thing I own.”
“Ooh, fancy fancy,” Natalia says, glancing back over to me to waggle her eyebrows. “I like him.”
“Are you Roman’s cousin, too?” Tate asks.
She lets out a laugh. “Family, no. Romik and I have been very close friends for life.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yes.” Nata reaches out to touch me yet again, stroking her fingernails over the center of my chest where an hour ago Tate was laying kisses along my skin.
Fuck.
My body tenses. Her touch feels fucking nothing like his.
Whatever took over Tate after he came… after I made him come—was so raw and magnetic it was impossible to resist.
And I still don’t understand how Tate’s goddamn mind works.
He hates me.
He wants to get rid of me, his bodyguard, his jailer. I feel it radiate off of him in potent waves every time I try to lay down a rule or a boundary.
But it’s always at odds with his physical need for me.
That’s what it is. When I actually fucking look at it, head on, and don’t push it down like I do with every emotion in my life, I see so clearly that Tate could hate me until his last dying breath and he’d still want me to fuck him.
My skin heats as Nata and Maks break off into a quick conversation and say their goodbyes to each other. I’m in a simple white T-shirt and the material still feels like too much, too cloying, like my entire body is still overheating from the memory of what we did.
Finally Nata is gone.
Maks, Tate and I sit at a corner booth, sliding onto the semi-circle. The moment I sit down next to Tate, I slide my palm over his thigh, gripping it under the table.
I’m comfortable in Capp’s Diner.
It smells like fresh ground coffee beans and bacon grease.
Right now, the register and countertops are adorned with fall-colored wreaths and garlands, and there are pumpkins dotted along the upper shelf.
This place also feels like a second home to me.
The light blue Formica countertops are worn in places.
The waitresses know me, but they never ask questions.
It’s not the most popular place in town, and that’s a good thing.
I sit back on the comfortable leather booth seat and watch Tate browse the dingy plastic menu that I’ve long since memorized.
“How are the pancakes?” Tate asks me.
I squeeze his thigh. “You will love them. Lots of strawberries.”
Fuck me.
I even love the way Tate browses a goddamn diner menu, his eyes gravitating to anything that has the fruits he loves, and the way he bites his lower lip and smiles when he sees the picture on the back of a particularly well-photographed malt milkshake.
“Oh, damn, they have protein shakes too.”
I furrow my brow, reaching for the menu. “They do not.”
“They do,” Maks tells me from across the table. “They’re new. I’ve had them. They’re actually great.”
“Malted protein shake and strawberry pancakes it is,” Tate says. “Roman, I assume you get black coffee, steak & eggs, and a side of bitterness and maybe vodka?”
Maks is grinning.
“That is my order, actually,” I admit. “Other than the vodka. You know I like Cognac more, anyway.”
Once we order, our food is out within minutes.
As we eat, we explain everything to Maks for the next half hour.
I order a second refill of coffee, then another, as I bring Maks to speed on the name Lucian Farina. Maks has contacts in the city who can discreetly gather information for us.
The diner is nearly empty the whole time we’re there.
Thank fuck.
It’s long after lunch, but not dinner time yet, and by the time we’ve explained everything, the only other customer in the place is an old woman doing crossword puzzles in a booth across the restaurant.
After we get the check, Tate stands up to go use the restroom.
As he walks off, I turn my head to watch him walk over, staring at the exposed sides of his torso and the way his pants hug his ass.
Finally he disappears into the bathroom.
“You are fucking him,” Maks tells me the moment I turn back toward the table.
He’s looking at me like he just told me something obvious.
The sky is blue.
Pigs can’t fly.
You’re fucking Tate Landrey.
“No,” I say, reaching down to stir my coffee even though there’s absolutely nothing to stir. I pause for a long while, and pressure grows inside me, then suddenly blooms, cracking open in my chest. “I have not fucked him yet.”
“Yet,” Maks says.
“And when I do fuck him, it will be my business, not yours.”
Maks is fully smiling now, leaning back on the booth and putting his arms up on the top edge. “I knew it when I saw him sitting in the front of your car. Weeks ago.”
“There was nothing to know.”
He clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “I’ve fucked enough cute jocks to know you wouldn’t be able to resist. Those tank tops, Romik…”
I reach over the table to shove him as he laughs.
“I’m not like you,” I tell him.
“I’m aware of that. If it were me bodyguarding for Tate Landrey, I would have fucked that perfect ass the moment I knew he wanted it. You had to be convinced by that greedy cock of yours...”
“Quiet. You’re a dog.”
“I know. It’s different with a man, isn’t it?” Maks says, looking very pleased with himself.
“It is.”
“Better?”
I take a slow sip from my mug. “No one is like Tate.”
Better.
Of course he’s better.
It doesn’t even have anything to do with him being a man, although it’s less and less possible for me to care that I thought I was straight until him.
Tate just seems to have direct access to everything on Earth that turns me on.
End of story.
He’s a better person than the others I’ve been with, too.
“Enjoy,” Maks says with an encouraging nod. “Careful he doesn’t fall in love with you, putting that monster inside him.”
I shake my head. “He will fall in love with my cock. But he knows who I am, and that we don’t fit.”
The words feel like a lie as they leave my mouth.
We do fucking fit, when it’s just us.
But then there is everything else.
The world I was born into.
The life I would never bring him into.
When Tate returns to the table, I don’t bother hiding it from Maks anymore when I touch him. I run my hand over the back of his neck, massaging it softly, then let my arm rest on his shoulders.
When Maks leaves, and it’s just me and Tate in my car, he’s acting strange.
He’s looking at his phone, tapping away at it, and at first he looks happy, then his expression starts to fall.
“Say what you’re thinking,” I tell him, not starting the ignition in my car.
He tilts his phone over so I can look at it. “I got a message while we were in there. It’s from Kian, the guy in my French class. You think I can trust him?”
Kian
Meet up with me at the festival tomorrow?
Tate
I’ll be there!
Fuck yes. I’ll win you a prize. What’s your favorite animal?
I don’t know… a wolf?
If they have a wolf plushie, it’ll be yours. I can get us drinks, too.
My friend Ollie is bringing some liquor.
Even better. It’s a date.
Bitterness swirls in my chest as I read each message.
“You like this guy?”
Tate nods. “He’s nice. Everyone here has been really nice to me.”
“And this is the boy who told you he was gay?”
“He’s definitely gay.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Why do you say it like that?”