I make another grab for the plate. “You’ve had your bite,” I say. “Gimme.”
He chuckles low in his throat, and it’s enough of a shock to pull me out of my carrot cake tunnel vision.
“Did you just… laugh?”
He smiles…smilesat me and shrugs.
My jaw drops. “Did you just laughandsmile? A whole full-out smile?”
I’ve known Roman foryears, and I haven’t once seen him smile. A twitch of the lips? Sure. An amused eye crinkle? Yeah. Asmilethough?With teeth? No. Not at all, not ever. And I live with the man.
He has the same slightly crooked canine as Ruby does.
“You’re being cute,” he replies, like that has anything to do with anything.
“I’m always cute.”
His !! smile !! softens. “Yeah, you are.”
I blink.
He slides the cake to me.
“You’re being weird.”
He rolls hissmilingeyes. “Eat the cake, Elodie, before I do.”
I jolt, snatching the fork out of his hand and hunkering down over my cake. He can be weird and smiley and laughy all he wants, I guess, but he isnoteating any more of this yumminess. A girl has to have a line somewhere.
Thankfully, he doesn’t seem to have any illusions about me sharing, and I’m able to eat my cake in peace while he twirls my hair in his hand and talks to Mars about “the ideal carrot." The ideal carrot being, in my opinion, whichever one you can shred and stick into a cake.
Dessert time ends sooner than any of us would like, and we disperse. Mars goes home to Ceres, who, according to him, “simply cannot go any longer outside of my presence.” Lyra leaves, too, to work at her plant nursery for a few hours, and Jove disappears into his office to “stare at a blinking cursor in a mostly blank document.” Roman and I, left alone with no responsibilities and a world of options, decide to nap.
My second nap in two days. Ruby will be so proud.
I change into a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt in the bathroom, and when I get back to the bedroom, Roman’s changed into sweatpants himself. And that’s it.
Sweatpants.
Without. A. Shirt.
Freckles dust his back, flowing down his arms and up into his hair. They shift when he bends to snap the covers on the trundle back before he climbs in and haphazardly tosses them over his body, only covering a fifth of his exposed torso.
Shoulders. Chest. Stomach. Freckles. All of them so…out. In the open. Staring at me.
“Would you like to cop a feel, too, or just leer?”
I startle, and fire creeps up my neck. “I’m not leering!”
He yawns, stretching his arms above his head. The freckles shift on the muscle of his chest… arms… stomach…
My goodness.
I, unfortunately, leer.
It’s not like I’ve never seen him without his shirt on. I’ve gone swimming with him and Ruby lots of times, and more than once we’ve crossed paths in the hallway at home with him sans an appropriate amount of clothing. I’ve never done much more than glance before, because, yeah, he’s got a seriously appreciable physique going on, but… He’sRoman, the big, giant jerk I know, so ew.
Except. You know. All thatcharacter growthhe’s been doing, making his personality a lot more palatable, which makes his body…
