“Hard to tell in the water, either a hammerhead or a bonnethead.” I shrug. He’s smiling so big, I can’t help but smile back. I wonder if I was smiling so big from earlier that it made him smile. By the end of the day, I’m sure my cheeks will be sore from the amount of smiling I’ve done today.
“What made you bring lunch today?” I ask.
“I hadn’t heard from you in a few days. Not really since we talked in the kitchen,” he says. I know he doesn’t mean to, but bringing it up transports me back to that night. Laying in Ares’ bed reading that message, the way the air was sucked out of my lungs. The way Roman walked me through my breathing.
“Yeah. I just needed a couple days to turn my phone off and sit at home.” I sigh. “The whole Tyler thing has been really overwhelming.”
“Have you considered talking to someone about it?” A piece of me wants to snap at him for bring it up. The hesitation in his voice stops me though.
“No. I don’t want to.”
“I don’t mean like Ares, I mean like a therapist.” The words come out like he’s testing the waters, and I feel guilty that I’ve made him feel like he can’t say these things to me, especially when I know it’s out of concern for my well being. I know it’s what I need, but I just can’t risk someone else knowing.
“I just don’t think I can,” I say quietly. It’s partially to keep my privacy, but mostly out of shame.
“I looked into it for you—I hope that’s okay. Everything you tell a mental health professional is confidential. You’d be able to talk to someone and get some help without worrying about Tyler knowing you told someone,” he explains.
My heart warms as tears fill my eyes in the best way. I can’t remember the last time I cried joyful tears.
“You looked that up for me?” I ask, wiping a tear from my cheek. Before I can reach for the other, he wipes it with his thumb.
“Don’t cry, pretty girl. I just wanted to help.”Pretty girl.Butterflies flutter in my stomach. I don’t know what’s going on with me today, I’ve never thought of him this way before. Something has changed though, I know it from the front flips happening in my abdomen. I also know that now is not the time for me to be feeling this way. I shouldn’t be thinking about how sexy he looks or how good the words ‘pretty girl’ sound coming from his mouth.
“That’s just the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” I gush. Maybe that’s where these feelings are coming from. At least that’s what I tell myself.
“You deserve nice things done for you.”
* * *
The restof lunch is nice. It’s the perfect addition to an already great day. Roman leaves when my lunch break is over and I have a few hours of work left before I’m done for the day. I spend about as much time doing my paperwork as I do thinking about everything. Mostly, I think about the way things felt with Roman today.
I feel more myself with him than I have in years. Every time I see him, I find myself wishing for more time together. But when we’re together, there are those split seconds where I’m thinking about him in a way that I absolutely should not be, and I have to wonder if more time is a good idea. How can something so good and so perfect be a bad idea, though?
I also think about his suggestion to speak to a therapist, how I might bring up everything with Tyler in the first place. Fortunately, my thoughts are halted when Maryanne walks in my office.
“So, who’s the boy?” she asks, raising a brow at me. It’s funny seeing her waltz into my office looking to gossip about boys when she’s pushing sixty-five years old.
“You remember Ares?” I ask. She nods her head. “That’s his brother,” I add.
“So you’re dating his brother then? How’s he feel about that?”
“Oh, no. We aren’t dating—just friends,” I say, throwing my hands in the air.
“That poor boy is in love with you and you’re walking around calling him your friend?” she teases.
“What?” I pinch my eyebrows together. “No he’s not. We’re just friends,” I state again.In love with me? Yeah fucking right.Surely if Roman was in love with me, I would know about it. I would at least know he has feelings for me. Which I don’t. So he can’t.
“Honey. That boy looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky.”
That can’t be true. Idefinitelywould know if he looked at me like that. But then again, maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’ve been too wrapped up in all the Tyler stuff and my own pain, that I failed to notice him.
“I don’t think so…” I say, dismissing her claim.
“Well, if you say so.”
She shrugs me off and walks out of my office. I think about Roman and if there’s something I’m missing.
I think back to the night Ares and Ravyn took me to that party. How he didn’t think twice before leaving the gorgeous girl on his arm to take me home. Then there’s all the hugs and shoulders to cry on over the last few weeks. The panic attack I had in his kitchen and the way he talked me through it.
