Chapter 24 Lola
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lola
The Admissions Committee has reviewed your application to the University of Toronto. After much consideration, I regret to inform you, we are unable to offer you a place this year.
The sun grows stronger on the way back into town and by the time I turn onto Main Street the locals are out doing their shopping along with a few early bird tourists.
I wave to Tea as she opens up the bookshop, her pink pixie cut studded with gems, then I stroll up to the coffee shop to find Roman leaning against the window.
Seeing him undoes the knot in my chest and I lean into his solid strength as I twirl my arms around his neck. “What are you doing here?” I ask, smiling up at him.
He stamps his lips against mine and I forget that we’re supposed to be keeping this quiet. I get lost in Roman’s touch, the world and all its threats falling away as my existence narrows to the heat of his lips on my skin, his hands on my hips.
He draws back, stealing the breath from my lungs. “I missed you last night,” he says.
My cheeks hurt from smiling. I lace my fingers through his and go to unlock the door. “Have you got time to come in?”
Roman’s hand tightens around mine. “Always.”
Happy tears prick my eyes, and I look away before he can see them because he’ll think I’m foolish if I tell him that sometimes I still think this isn’t real. That I’m lost in a teenage daydream and I’m terrified of waking up.
I make us some coffee, and we spend the morning putting together the tables and chairs that arrived the other day.
It’s the sort of domestic bliss I never thought I wanted until coming home meant walking into Roman’s arms. We’re just finishing up when the door to the shop pushes open and my dad thunders inside.
He snatches off his sunhat and points his finger at me, distress creasing his face. “Care to explain to me why I got a call from Jonty saying he saw you down by the MC talking to one of those piece of shit bikers?”
I blink at my dad, my mind playing catch up, but honestly this is on me. Six years away had me forgetting how meddlesome small-town life can be. Jonty is my dad’s closest friend and, it just occurs to me now, maybe that’s why I recognized the SUV.
“Dad—” I start, trying to diffuse the situation.
“No.” He slices his hand through the air. “I can put up with you not calling your mother. I can put up with you moving out at the drop of a hat. But this? This is stupid. Why on earth would you go near anyone from that club again? Why put yourself back into their orbit?”
My throat clogs, my cheeks twin fires. I get that he’s scared but the judgements he’s spewing blister over me. Acid my skin.
Roman tries to protect me, stepping between us, but I’ve had enough of the victim-blaming. I move around him and glare at my father. “What happened back then was not my fault,” I tell him, my voice vibrating with the effort it takes to say those words when I don’t fully believe them.
I brush away angry tears with the back of my hand and my father deflates.
“Oh honey.” His fingers scrunch around the edge of his straw hat and he runs his other hand over his graying beard. “I know it wasn’t. I didn’t mean it like that.”
My breath falters as I try to get myself together because I will not fall apart.
Not now. “I am an adult,” I say, my words steady.
“Have been for a while now and you can’t just keep throwing all of your opinions at me.
I had my reasons for going to the MC and you should respect that I know what I’m doing. ”
“Well I don’t!” He hangs his head and pinches his temple. It’s the exact pose he’d take all through my teens every time I messed up and he didn’t know what to do with me.
I hate that we’re still here, that it’s years later and nothing’s changed. To him I’m still just that reckless kid who hung out with bikers and partied more than she studied.
“Going there was irresponsible,” he scolds, “and frankly it’s just more proof to me that you’re not ready for this.
” He waves his hand around the shop. “You were back less than a month before you up and moved out on a whim and leased this place. Running a business is a huge responsibility, Lola, and you are not prepared in the slightest.”
“Enough. She is more than prepared.” Roman’s voice drops low as he steps up beside me and slips his hand into mine.
He tugs me into him and sets his burn-fury gaze on my father. “She graduated top of her class in business management and has the best, most thorough business plan I have ever seen. Not to mention she has years of experience working in hospitality all over the world.” He shakes his head in disgust.
“I respect the heck out of you, Shaun, but I would think very carefully before you speak again because you are the one out of line here, not Lola.” My dad glances between me and Roman, shock frozen in his eyes.
“You’re telling me you’re okay with her hanging around those bikers?”
The tendons in Roman’s neck flex. “I don’t like it, but I trust her, and I will not take your side with this.”
I squeeze his hand as my heart blooms for him, but he’s not done yet and I watch him like he’s a work of art, paint strokes of emotion on his face.
“You are more of a father to me than my dad has ever been, but right now, you are being a shitty father to Lola. I will forever be grateful to you for all you’ve done for me, but I am not okay with how you are treating your daughter and when it comes down to it, I will choose her. Every. Single. Time.”
My dad’s gaze finally drops to our joined hands and understanding ripples across his face. His shoulders drop, the fight leaving him on a sigh. “Well,” he clears his throat, “took you both long enough.”
I sputter.
My dad looks around the coffee shop and takes a breath, his anger draining away. His gaze settles back on me, where I’m now practically clinging to Roman’s arm. His eyes crease. “Why didn’t you tell us you went to school?” The question is tired and ragged but a glimmer of pride shines in his eyes.
I lift a shoulder. “Because I shouldn’t have had to.” I let go of Roman’s hand and look around the shop. “People start businesses without degrees all the time. Either you believe in me, or you don’t. A piece of paper shouldn’t matter.”
My dad sighs. “It’s not that simple, Lola.”
“Well it should be.” I splay my arms out in frustration before letting out a sigh of my own because I don’t want to fight with my father.
I lean against one of the tables we just built.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” I say. “I just, I knew you’d have opinions, and I wanted to do it my way.
So much of my life has been filled with judgement and I know I deserved a lot of it, but I wanted to get away from all that. ”
I watch the pain scrunch on my dad’s face. “Lola…”
I don’t have to explain myself to him, but I realize I want to because even when I was screwing up, he was there. Picking up the pieces.
“I meant to tell you, I really did,” I say.
“When I enrolled, I wasn’t even sure business was what I wanted to do and if I started and then changed my mind, I knew how that would look.
And then I wanted to wait until I was sure I’d pass.
Everyone already saw me as a failure. I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire. ”
Next to me, Roman scowls but it’s my dad who steps forward and plants his hands on my shoulders. “Enough of that now. You are not a failure. Everyone doesn’t think that,” he presses. “Your mother and I do not think that.”
I stand up. A tear ignores my stubborn brain and slips through. “I’m a loose cannon. I know that. But I can do this. I can make the coffee shop work. And I can turn around in six months and say I told you so, but I don’t want to. I want you to believe in me now.”
“Oh, Lola.” My dad shifts his hand to the back of my neck, the callouses he gets from marking papers rough on my skin.
“I’m sorry. I do believe in you. Sometimes the worrying just gets in the way.
” He breathes in through his nose and presses a kiss to the top of my head.
“You save a cup of coffee for me, okay?” he says as he draws back and the tightness in my chest releases.
He bends down and picks up his hat. “Top of the class, eh?”
My teeth scrape my lip, not quite believing I finally got to tell him that. Or well, that Roman got to tell him that. “Yep.”
My dad’s eyes sparkle. “You get that from me,” he jokes, and I smile. Then he says, “I’ll leave you two love birds to it then,” and I groan.
My dad grins as he tugs his hat back onto his head before pointing at Roman. “You keep her safe, you hear me?”
Roman dips his chin. “Yes, sir.”
I grumble that I can keep myself safe, but no one pays me any mind.
That’s okay though, because a lightness is floating in my heart and little bubbles of excitement fizz in my body.
I’m not sure I realized how much my parents’ disapproval was weighing on me until right now, but I should have known my relief was premature.
As soon as the door clicks shut, Roman pins me with a dark gaze. “You went to the MC compound?” he asks, his voice calm. Too calm.
I jut out my chin. I know going there by myself wasn’t the smartest idea, but I refuse to be chastised for it. “Yes.”
Roman prowls forward, backing me up against the wall of T-shirts. “Why?”
I wince, knowing he’s not going to like what I say next. “Rob Carson is out of prison.”
“What?” One sharp word.
“I saw him yesterday.”
“Lola.” Shrapnel eyes. His hand curls into a fist. “You should have called me.”
“I know, but I panicked.”
Roman sighs. “And the MC compound?”
I run my tongue around my mouth. I should tell him. About the threatening messages. About why I needed to talk to Max.
If there was anyone in the world I could tell it would be Roman, but I chicken out.
I’m not proud of everything that happened six years ago. Roman already discovered one secret I had about that night, and I can’t bear the thought of how he would look at me if he knew the other.
I fiddle with the tarnished silver button on his shorts. “I just needed to see whether Rob was back permanently, but Max said he’s living over in Mount Bush.”
Roman’s jaw ticks. “Still too fucking close.”
“I know. Believe me I know.” I let my head fall back against the wall and Roman softens a little.
“You still should have called me. I would have gone with you.”
I shrug a little. “I didn’t want you to worry. Or you know, go all psycho and beat him up.”
Roman’s laugh is harsh, a rumbling sound as his gaze cuts to me. “Oh, sweetheart, there is nothing you or anyone could do to stop me from doing whatever the fuck I need to keep you safe. Leaving me in the dark won’t help.”
The storm in his eyes is far too attractive and I squeeze my thighs together when he plants one hand above my head and towers over me.
“I meant what I said to your dad,” he murmurs. “I will always be on your side. But if you put yourself in danger like that again, you and I are going to have problems.”
“Problems?”
“Yes. Problems. The kind where you find yourself over my knee.”
My core clenches, a hazy breath slipping from my lips. “Doesn’t sound much like a problem to me.”
His chuckle, low and dark, rolls over my skin. “It will after I’ve played with your pretty little cunt and then left you throbbing. Bad girls don’t get to come.”
My stomach twists. I want to play along but him calling me bad rankles because I may have finally got my dad on side but there was a reason he doubted me.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been good, and I can claim all I want that I’ve changed, that I’m all grown up, but I’m still standing here, lying to Roman when all he’s ever done is protect me.
I drop my gaze to his chest. “What if I don’t know how to be good?”
“Lola, hey.” Roman lifts my chin with two fingers and inspects my face.
I don’t know what he finds there, whether he sees how deep my question goes.
Whether he realizes that every wild, stupid act I did is carved into my bones.
That every time someone called me irresponsible it scraped away the marrow until all that remained is this fragile skeleton I cover up with pure bravado.
I’m so desperate to prove to everyone that I’ve changed but honestly, I’m not sure I have. And today was a reminder I did not need.
Whatever Roman sees, he doesn’t look too happy about it. “Okay, you’re done for the day. I’m taking you home.”
“I am home.”
He shakes his head and twines his fingers through mine. “I’m taking you to my home, Firebird.” He pulls me towards him and his chest rumbles against mine as his lips brush the shell of my ear. “I’m going to prove to you just how good you can be.”