by Aiden Bates
“Is… Is that a good idea?” Bennet asked, seemingly uncertain.
“It felt like one at the time,” I muttered in a very weak defense.
“What did Silas have to say about it?” Charlie asked.
“No! Nothing. He doesn’t know,” I said with a start. “And, what I said earlier still applies in Silas’s case. No one needs to say a word to him about this. What happened last night between Roman and me isn’t supposed to be emotional. It’s just physical. Silas doesn’t see Roman in any other context but an emotional one. I don’t think he’d understand teasing the two out.”
Charlie nodded along as though he could see the sense in my reasons. “Sure. He might feel how you would have felt if you thought I wasn’t being serious about Jason.”
Ouch. Point taken.
“I completely understand where you’re going with it, and you’re absolutely right. If you’d been less serious about Jason than I thought Jason was about you, then I would have had an issue with it, too. But last night is a different situation. We’d agreed beforehand to be friends, we were both still friendly afterward. I care about him and I wouldn’t ever want to hurt him. It’s just a friends-with-benefits situation, that’s all. I don’t even know if it’ll ever happen again, so it might not even rise to that level.”
“Uh-huh,” Bennet affirmed skeptically. “And Roman knows it’s a friends-with-benefits situation, right?”
My immediate impulse was to double down on the fact that he did. He must have. But the truth was, I wasn’t really the hooking-up type. Every opportunity I’d ever had to dip my toes into being that sort of person had always led to romantic entanglement. This wasn’t my area of expertise at all. Compounding the problem, we’d hardly talked last night, not before we did what we did, not during it, and not afterward. All of that, taken together, made it more difficult to maintain there could be no misunderstanding about it. Maybe I hadn’t done right by Roman in that regard. Maybe, if this is what I wanted, I could have at least made sure we talked about it and gave ourselves time to lay out our expectations and assumptions before we did anything.
I nodded very seriously at them to indicate I could see the validity of their concerns. That seemed to satisfy them enough to allow us to move on to a different topic. As for me, I found that I didn’t regret telling them at all. Their perspective was unique, appreciated, and had felt as right in its own way as Naomi’s ‘go-out-and-get-what-you-want’ advice.
Hmm. Maybe there was something to be said for balancing both the angel and the devil on your shoulders.
I’d never been one to procrastinate on wrestling with a thorny problem though, so after brunch was over and everyone had gone their separate ways, I fired off a quick text to Roman.
Meet up later?
I’d barely put my phone into my pocket when it buzzed back with his reply.
Tell me when and where.
The chill of spring was still in the air as we walked around Eaton Park East in Arlington Square, and now my body temperature had regulated itself, the cool breeze had me keeping both hands firmly in my pockets. We were trading stories back and forth about how strange it was to see Silas and Garret evolve from the people they’d been into parents. We moved on from there to swapping affectionate anecdotes about his nephew and my godson, baby Jason, when he must have noticed my hands wedged into the pockets of the cardigan I was wearing.
Thoughtfully, he slipped his much larger, warmer hand into my pocket and grasped mine, suffusing me suddenly with a heat that couldn’t be explained by the snugness of his grip. It might have been a revelatory reaction if I’d stopped to examine why I melted slightly at his touch. But my focus was on how both familiar and unfamiliar the show of affection was coming from him.
I looked down at where our hands disappeared from view in my pocket and raised my eyes to meet his with a questioning sort of expression. He gave me a smile that was halfway between the easy smiles long-time lovers give each other and halfway the mischievous grin kids get when they know they’re getting away with something they ought not be doing.
For all I was ready to declare a newfound independence from my father, maybe this wasn’t the smartest thing to do in public. Maybe Roman really didn’t care about who might see what anymore. Maybe his lack of discretion was more evidence of his feelings after last night.
Benny’s words materialized in my head almost as if I were hearing him speak them all over again, here and now.
‘And Roman knows it’s a friends-with-benefits situation, right?’
Evidently not. Damn Bennet and Charlie for being so…so…so right.
“Uh…” I stammered as I pulled my hand out of his and out of my pocket a little more quickly than I meant to.
Now it was Roman’s turn to seem confused at why I’d pulled my hand out of his. He withdrew when he sensed his touch suddenly wasn’t welcome. His eyes briefly darted around the perimeter of the park, and I understood he was trying to check for possible gossips and tattletales, probably assuming that was the most likely explanation for my reaction.
Damn it. Damn it all. I’d disoriented him last night. It was painfully obvious he’d been left to his own devices to sort out what had happened and why it had happened.
I closed my eyes and briefly berated myself for it. He had been an asshole while he’d been overseas and I’d been in college, but for the most part, Roman was too sweet, too sincere, too genuinely kind for his own good. What sort of alpha couldn’t just have meaningless sex and then ignore you the next morning?
“You alright?” Roman asked, prompting me for an explanation.
“Yeah! Yeah. I’m just…” Well, I’d come here to clear things up, hadn’t I? I coughed and started explaining. “Roman… I was actually meaning to talk to you. About last night, that is.”
“Okay,” agreed Roman, a touch hesitantly. “What about last night?”
“Well, I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea about it, that’s all.” I tried to shrug my words off casually but there was no disguising the guilt and uncertainty in my voice. I could hear it in my tone regardless of the nonchalance I was trying to convey. “Well, let’s start here,” I said, suddenly interrupting the direction in which I was trying to take the conversation. “What do you think last night was about?”
Poor Roman wrinkled his brow more deeply, seemingly at the idea there was possibly more than one way to interpret what had happened between us.
“Um…” Roman replied, seemingly buying himself time to come up with a more articulate answer. He eventually shook his head. “I’m…not…sure? What I mean is, I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking me. Last night seemed pretty straightforward.”
“I just don’t want you to think it meant something it doesn’t. It can’t,” I quickly explained.
The curious look Roman was giving me shifted minutely into something more like disappointment. Roman wore disappointment like a golden retriever puppy that had gotten scolded over something he had never meant to do. I felt guiltier and guiltier about rushing into things as each minute went by.
“Is that all to say you were just trying to blow off steam with me? Or, with like, anyone, really? Like, it wasn’t really about me when it comes dow—”
“No! Jesus, no. The last thing I want is for you to think I was just using you. It’s not that it wasn’t about you. It was about you. About us. Sort of. I don’t know.”
In a show of how hopelessly entangled all this was getting and how over my head I felt suddenly, I lifted my arms out to my sides, and then let them drop. “I don’t know, Roman. It’s problematic because… Well, problematic isn’t the right word… It’s…”
“Complicated,” Roman said, finishing my sentence.
I nodded to show that, yes, that was a more precise word for how difficult I was suddenly finding what was supposed to be a fairly easy situation.
“Well, listen, maybe I can help,” Roman once again offered. “Maybe I can uncomplicate things for you because fr
om where I’m standing, this shit isn’t complicated at all. I love you.”
“Oh my god, Roman. You’re not helping!”
“Seriously, I love you. Always have. Can’t see a way out of it at all. I get the whole arrangement that you’re angling for because, hell, I’ve been there and done that. Things are rough for you at work right now. Things have been rough for me before, too. I get the impulse. I do. If what you’re after is the kind of release you get after a night like last night, I’m down with that. No problem.” Roman casually shrugged. Unlike my studied attempt at nonchalance, his shrug and his words seemed more genuine. He was genuinely unbothered by this.
I’d come to clarify things for Roman, but instead Roman had clarified things for me. He was right. He didn’t seem to think this was complicated. It seemed like the only one of us who did was me.
“Seriously? You don’t feel like I used you or like I’m taking advantage of you or something?”
Roman snorted. “No, Teddy. If anything, I’m happy to be whatever you need. Unlike other people out there, I know I won’t take advantage of you or use you. If you’re happy, I’m happy, and that’s all there is to it for me.”
I supposed I ought to have found the statement comforting. The problem I had originally thought I was addressing—Roman’s confused feelings—seemed to be non-existent. In a neater way than I could have ever hoped for, things had largely been resolved for Roman by Roman, without any need of me whatsoever. Then, what explained the tangled knot of feelings, impressions, and doubts that I was feeling?
Well, if one thing stood out it was that I now thought Roman was misunderstanding me in the opposite direction. All this talk about the arrangement centered on what I was ‘angling for’ and the ‘release’ I wanted. The emphasis was on my happiness. It felt wrong to approach things that way, particularly after Roman had baldly just declared himself in love with me.
“Even so, I don’t want you to think this is casual to the point of aloofness. I care about you, and we said we’d be friends. I’m just as capable of taking advantage of you as you are of me, thank you very much. But I don’t want to. It’s not a commitment per se but it’s also not meaningless. So, what if we went out? Casually? As friends, I mean. Just to catch up and get reacquainted. Then, we’ll just take things as they come, if they come.”
“There weren’t any ‘ifs’ about coming that I remember,” Roman said with a smirk.
“Roman,” I warned.
“You mean like a date?” he asked.
“Maybe not a date, exactly. But sort of. Just as part of the benefits included in friends-with-benefits. No guarantees, exclusions, terms of engagement or anything like that. Just to try it and see if it works. Think of it as an experiment. Or as a recon mission.”
“A recon mission, huh?” Roman arched an eyebrow skeptically. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll see when I’m off next and we can pick a time and place to rendezvous.”
For the first time since we’d started having this conversation, I cracked an involuntary smile at his joke. He smiled back with that crooked little smile-smirk he put on when he knew he was wearing me down and turning something inside of me a little gooey.
Gooey?
Roman quickly, mercifully afforded me the privacy of switching to another conversation entirely, and I listened as he complained about his recruits. Halfway listened, anyway. Truth be told, I was still stuck on the strange feeling his smile had given me, and the suspicious but unmistakable flutter of having just planned a…
Yeah. Okay. I could say it.
A date.
Maybe.
13
Roman
Goddammit. I was never any good at this. I stared at the rack of dress clothes in my closet, trying my hardest to make up my mind about what I should wear. The Army made things so easy. Need to go to inspection? Wear this. Time for combat? Wear this. Dress event? Wear this. It was cut and dried and ready to go. Even though I only had a handful of civilian ties, jackets, and dress shoes, the decision was still paralyzing. Ugh, this was frustrating. I was used to combat and being tasked with executing orders, not with making up my mind about something so inconsequential.
Still, it was better to focus on this than the other thought in my head—that Master Sergeant O’Rourke would be…unhappy if he got the slightest whiff of this. One week. That was all it had taken for me to fall into bed with Teddy. One week and I’d broken my promise. But what was I supposed to do? It was Teddy. The only reason I’d thought I would ever be able to keep that promise was because I thought Teddy wouldn’t want anything to do with me. Even if it did make Master Sarge angry, there was no way I was going to give up this chance.
Finally, I gave up trying to decide for myself and called in the big guns.
“Hey Roman, what’s up?” Silas looked into the screen and I held up two ties.
“Mayday?”
“Oh my god, Roman, you’re a grown man. Can’t you figure this out for yourself?” Silas asked. He was smiling when he said it though, so I could tell even through his exasperation he was amused.
“Come on, which one?”
Silas rolled his eyes but responded. “The blue one. Brings out your eyes.”
“Right. And because the tie is blue I should wear the…” I looked up at him again hopefully.
“You should wear the light-yellow checked shirt with the navy blazer.”
“Of course, that’s exactly what I was going to say.” I nodded, peering over at the shirt that was buried behind the others.
“Right. I’m sure you were.”
“I was!”
“Uh-huh. Which is why you called, naturally.”
I moved to grab the clothing Silas had described, and then stood in front of the mirror to pull the shirt over my shoulders, knowing the angle of the phone allowed Silas to see what I was doing.
“What’s all this for?” Silas asked.
I worried my lip for a second, not sure if I should fabricate a reason or tell the truth, but I never told lies to Silas. Not if I could help it.
“I’ve got a date tonight.”
“Oh, with who?”
I took a breath. Here we go. “With Teddy.”
“Teddy-Teddy? Teddy O’Rourke, Teddy?”
I nodded as I buttoned up the shirt. Though the motive for this date was between Teddy and me, I still knew Silas would have an opinion.
“Wow, that’s…unexpected.” The change in his tone caught my attention. Before, he’d been all teasing amusement, but now he sounded serious, maybe a little unsure. If anything, I thought Silas would tease me even more unmercifully about me getting back with my high-school sweetheart. I turned to face my phone. Silas was looking at me with a worried expression.
“It is? Why?” I asked, but to be honest, I knew why. Teddy allowing me back into his life in any capacity was…unexpected, like Silas said, but why did Silas think that?
“You weren’t here, Roman. You didn’t see the fallout.”
“Fallout?”
“He took it…hard when you left. He was young, and he wasn’t ready for it. It messed with him more than he would admit, more than he was willing to show. Look, just take it easy with him, okay?”
I turned back to the mirror while I thought about what he’d said. I hadn’t really considered it like that. When Teddy’s letters had slowed to a trickle and eventually stopped, I’d assumed Teddy had become furious with me, and then decided my silence was a good enough reason to hate me, break up with me. My lack of communication had to have pissed him off, and he had every right to think he deserved better than that. I’d never imagined his withdrawal could have been from sadness, from desperation or worry. I stopped knotting the tie at my throat and looked back over at Silas, his worried look now stemmed from whatever expression my face must have been showing.
“You know,” I said in a desperate attempt to lighten the mood. “It’s weird for my own little brother to be giving me the ‘hurt him and I’ll bust your knee caps’ spee
ch.”
“Oh, Roman. You know better than that,” Silas said, giving a small huff of unwilling laughter. “I’d aim higher.”
I made it right on time to Teddy’s building, not that it was much of a drive—I could have technically walked. I was about to knock on his door, when it swung open to reveal him.
Wow. He looked nice. I never noticed those sorts of things about people, but looking at him now, his dress shirt open at the throat, made me want to mouth a line from his jaw all the way down as far as he’d let me.
I must have let my gaze linger just a second too long because Teddy’s tone when he greeted me was amused. “Hello, there,” he said.
“Hi. Wow. I mean, you look amazing.”
“Not half-bad yourself, Carpenter.”
I shot him a small smirk. “Oh, this old thing?”
“Silas came and dressed you, didn’t he?” No way I was going to fool him. Teddy knew full well that if I’d gotten dressed myself in an attempt to look good, I would have ended up failing spectacularly.
“No,” I said.
Teddy raised his eyebrow.
“That’s what cell phones are for these days, after all.”
Teddy’s laugh echoed through the stairwell as we headed to my truck. We loaded up and went to the Five Star Grill in Arlington Square. I’d had to bribe and charm my way through three separate hostesses before securing the reservation. Even though it was Sunday, this place was popular.
“Is this where we’re eating?” Teddy asked, surprise obvious. “I’m impressed.”
“Well you ain’t gotta sound that shocked about it,” I said, a little stung.
“No! No, it’s not that. It’s just. It’s really nice, and it’s nice you thought of it, is all.”
I was glad to see him pleased with me. I’d spent so much time disappointing him that it felt great to be in his good graces. They seated us toward the center of the dark-paneled room, and once settled I looked up at Teddy across the table to see him giving me a small smile.