He chuckled.
Yeah, he adored Sadie Howard.
“You can stay,” he said. And he meant it.
He didn’t care who knew about the girl who made this visit the best one he’d ever had.
“But I shouldn’t.” She kissed him on his mouth, lingering there. “I’ll catch a taxi. Come by my place when you’re done?”
“I don’t know how long it’ll be.” Hands against her cheeks, his fingers in her hair, he pulled her to him for a longer, lingering kiss.
“I’ll wait,” she said against his mouth when he broke the kiss.
And he’d do everything he could to make sure she didn’t have to wait long.
A quick rap on the beige door drew his attention away from Sadie.
“Roman?” his grandmother called.
“That wasn’t ten minutes,” he said, gritting his teeth.
He glanced at Sadie and she held an expression like she’d just gotten caught with her lips in his fly instead of in the middle of a quick goodbye kiss.
“Roman?” His grandmother tried the handle of the door, jostling it.
“Hang on,” he called.
Then the buzz and clunk of the keycard lock drew his attention to the door.
Who the fuck had given his grandmother a key?
Sadie squeaked. His grandmother pulled the door open, and the elderly woman shuffled inside.
So the timing wasn’t excellent and Sadie wasn’t wearing a shirt. The space in the center of his face went numb. This wasn’t the perfect introduction. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t go smoothly. Sadie was a spitfire and should be able to hold her own against whatever volley of questioning his babushka would throw her way.
“How did you get here so fast?” he asked.
“I vas in lobby,” she said in her thick Russian accent.
He turned to introduce her to Sadie, but Sadie—
Where had Sadie gone? He scanned the room and the small balcony.
No Sadie. It was like she’d been teleported somewhere else.
A movement under the door of the closet caught his eye.
Or, perhaps, she had just decided to duck into the closet. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Then they could both be stuck in the closet together.
“How’d you get a key?” He had a sinking feeling that now that his grandmother had procured a key, he could kiss the rest of his weekend with Sadie goodbye.
His grandmother held up the keycard in question. “I asked.”
He made a mental note to start using the deadbolt and the privacy latch.
“I was just heading out,” he said to his grandmother, doing his best to shoo her back toward the hallway. He kicked Sadie’s shirt under the bed with his foot on his way past.
Babushka wasn’t having it, instead plopping on the edge of the bed and turning on the television.
“Your father, he drives me mad.” Babushka withdrew a peppermint candy from her purse and slowly unwrapped it. The crinkle of the wrapper coming off at the pace of a snail set him on edge. Each little rustle acted as an audible reminder that Sadie was shoved shirtless in the closet.
“He does not understand that I vill be dead soon and he vill feel so bad for being such a big jerk,” Babushka went on, finally popping the candy in her mouth.
Roman knew, he knew, he shouldn’t ask questions when it came to Babushka and family matters. So why he opened his mouth, he really couldn’t say. Yet, he heard his own voice ask, “What did he do this time?”
Babushka sucked hard on the candy, making a slurping noise. “I vill tell you. I find stray on the street. He is sad. I bring him home, and your father, he makes big fight over this.”
Roman glanced toward the closet door, ignoring whatever his grandmother was going on about.
“So I say, no, you vill not tell me to do this or that.”
“Uh-huh,” Roman replied, willing Sadie to find one of his shirts in his bag, put the thing on, open the door, and show herself. It couldn’t be comfortable in that cramped, dark closet.
“Next thing I know, he’s flying around the kitchen. Feathers everywhere. Your father screeching at him to go back outside.” Babushka threw her hands wide.
Huh?
Roman did his best to figure out how his grandmother had gone from point a to point z in her narrative, but somehow, in the ten seconds he hadn’t been paying attention, her story had taken a turn he wasn’t expecting.
Thirty-two minutes later—he’d counted down the seconds as he moved his gaze between his babushka, the clock on the nightstand, and the closet—Babushka’s purse was six peppermint candies lighter and she finally came up for air. “Excuse me now. I must use ladies’ room.”
She shuffled to the bathroom. As soon as the door clicked closed, he grabbed Sadie’s shirt from under the bed and yanked open the closet door to find her crouched in the corner. One of his gray T-shirts covered her small frame, and the contents of his travel bag had been dumped on the carpet in front of her. His socks, underwear, shirts, and jeans were all folded with precision in stacks by her knees. She was counting the contents of two large boxes of condoms he’d snagged at Walgreens into what appeared to be stacks of ten.
The hinge on his jaw seemed unable to work.
She gazed up at him with huge eyes. Realizing the time had come for her getaway, she tried to stand but looked like a baby colt finding her feet.
“My feet fell asleep,” she whispered, clearly willing them to function long enough to escape.
She’d nearly made it up when the door to the bathroom opened.
Sadie grabbed her shirt from his hands. She squeaked like a mouse again, dropped back to her crouched position, and pulled the closet door closed with her fingertips under the bottom edge.
“Vhy don’t you stay at home vith family? Hotel is not comfortable,” Babushka said. “You come home to see family. Then you stay in place like this. You come home but don’t even come home.” Babushka started to settle back into her spot on the edge of his bed, but he caught her arm before she could plop down and get comfortable.
“You spent the past half hour illustrating exactly why I stay at a hotel.”
“Next time you visit, I’ll book the room next to you,” Babushka huffed.
He stealthily shooed her to the door. “What if I come over later tonight? Help calm things down with Dad?”
Then he could get all his goodbyes in at once and get back to Sadie.
Babushka patted his cheeks. “That vould be lovely.”
With a quick glance toward the closet, Roman escorted his grandmother to the door. Once she was safely in the hallway and on her way, he flipped the privacy bolt.
Roman’s arms. Nope, there wasn’t a much better way to wake up than wrapped up in all that was him. The muscles of his thick biceps flexed as he pulled Sadie closer to him.
The two of them tangled in her bed—Sadie and Roman. Those names went perfectly together. He’d taken her hand sitting on the tailgate of Eli’s truck while they talked. They’d had an amazing weekend. After a tumble in the hotel sheets, he’d visited with his family for goodbyes, and then met her at her place. They hadn’t left.
Today was the Mondayest Monday that ever Mondayed. This morning, his breath came in small puffs against her forehead. Ever since night one, they’d been doing a heck of a lot more than just holding hands.
Sadie had never had a fling before.
And today her fling was leaving.
That was the deal. She’d known it going in. It wasn’t a surprise. Not a shock. Their time had been leading right there to that moment—the moment when he would maybe ask if she might be willing to do the long-distance thing.
She was.
Maybe he’d ask if she might be willing to come visit him on base.
She was.
Maybe he’d suggest they could actually turn this thing between them into something.
God, she wanted nothing more.
But he had to ask. She couldn’t ask. Couldn’t p
ut herself out there. By the end of the first night, she’d been all in with him. She’d laid out every bite on a trail of breadcrumbs that led to forever. He had to be the one to start the path.
“You’re too quiet,” he mumbled, rolling her onto her back. “Are you thinking about escaping to the closet again?”
She chuckled and spread her legs to cradle him there—his thickness still semi-hard from their last round.
“It worries me when you don’t talk,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because when a woman with a brain as brilliant as yours doesn’t talk, it means she’s thinking. I’ve discovered that often doesn’t work out well for me.”
She gave a little right-hook nudge to his shoulder. “Hey.”
“I have a sister, a mother, and a babushka. Quiet scares the hell out of me.”
Sadie grinned, but her smile fell as quickly as it came. “What do you want me to say?”
Neither of them had officially broached the subject of what came next. Life had been easier before she’d hid out in the closet organizing condoms and socks.
Since the closet incident, she’d hinted more than a few times about the future. He hadn’t responded to her hints.
That meant that what came next was that she would go to law school and live her life, and he’d be deployed to wherever it was the government would send him and live his life.
Her throat clogged at how life would go on without her Roman. Her heart seemed to shrink at the idea that he’d go on without his Sadie.
“Never heard you go this long without an opinion.” He nuzzled the curve of her neck with the tip of his nose.
Fingertips tangled in his short, clipped blond hair, she raised his face to hers. “You’re saying I like to argue?”
“I’m saying you’re going to be a force in the courtroom.” The way his voice made her nerve endings fire…the guy could probably rock a session of long-distance phone sex.
He rubbed the tip of his nose along the line of hers. She smiled. The nose thing was their thing. She’d never done that with a guy before.
“Don’t nose-fuck me when you’re making me angry,” she muttered.
“Is that what this is?” Roman asked, continuing.
Sadie laughed.
It would’ve likely been weird with any other boyfriend she’d ever had. But with Rome? It came so naturally. Was just part of who they were as a them.
She trailed her fingertips up along his spine, living in the now. For that moment, they were cocooned together at her apartment.
“See, you’re quiet.” He pressed up over her so that they were eye-to-eye. “This is where you explain to me that you won’t be a force in the courtroom for some reason that I won’t totally understand but will find cute when you argue the point.”
“Why would I contradict you when what you say is the truth?” She winked even though she didn’t feel one ounce of humor that morning. She glanced at the clock. They had approximately forty-five minutes before they had to leave to get him to his flight from Denver’s international airport.
He hadn’t said where he was flying to, and she hadn’t asked.
Something in his expression stilled. Changed. Hardened. “It’s time. I’ve gotta get gone.”
“Big date with Louise,” Sadie said with a mock sigh of exasperation.
“What can I say? She keeps me company.” There was not a hint of humor in his words and not a centimeter of space between them as they spoke.
“You realize she’s an it and it is an inanimate object, so it can’t keep you company,” Sadie said.
That got her a smile. “Now you’re just picking a fight to pick a fight.”
“I guess if you’re gonna cheat on me, it might as well be with your camera.”
His body tensed and his smile fell, but he didn’t say anything.
Oops.
“I mean, not like you’re cheating on me, because that would imply that we’re together together, and I know we’re not together. Not like that.”
“Not like that.” He echoed her words, but his expression stayed distant.
A quick peck of a kiss and he dismounted from the bed, pulling on the jeans he’d tossed against her chair after he’d come by the evening before. He’d said goodbye to his family, and then he came to say goodbye to her. Their goodbye took all night.
She propped herself up on her elbow, pulling the sheet up to cover her naked torso.
He held her gaze, his expression softening. “I don’t do long distance. I don’t get home enough to make any relationship work. We have what we have and that’s all I can offer.”
Not all he could offer but all he would offer.
“All good. I get it.” She plucked at a fray on the cheap bedspread covering her used twin bed that she’d picked up at a yard sale.
“Maybe we can catch up when I do come home.” He shoved his clothes into the backpack he’d brought along. “If you’re around and I’m around—”
“When do you think that’ll be?” She wouldn’t let herself hope that he’d be coming home again soon. But maybe, just maybe, he’d be home before the end of the semester. They could catch up then and see where things took them. Maybe then he’d be ready for her.
“No idea. I’ve got a mission coming up that’ll keep me deployed for fifteen. I’ll come back for a spell afterward.”
“Fifteen.” She couldn’t help but grasp the bedspread harder. “Months?”
He nodded, his entire focus on folding his things and packing the bag. “Yeah.”
Fifteen months.
I’ll wait… The thought slid through her mind without any resistance.
Willing herself to get out of bed, she stood to dress and figure out something other than yogurt and cold cereal for breakfast. Because it’d be at least fifteen months before she saw the man she’d inadvertently handed her heart.
She’d ask for it back, but to do that, she’d have to admit it was his.
Stubborn was a trait born into her that wouldn’t allow that kind of admission.
Breakfast conversation stayed at a minimum and the easy banter in the car on the way to the airport remained absent. He’d already turned in his rental car after she’d offered to drop him off herself.
She pulled her small two-door sedan to the curb at airport drop-off, let the car idle—they wouldn’t be there for more than a moment—popped the trunk, and stepped out of the driver’s side to meet Roman at the back. He unloaded his stuff. Two bags—one held Louise and all of her extras, the other his clothes and personal stuff.
“Don’t move,” he said, pulling Louise from his bag. His sly grin slipped back into place as he turned a dial at the top. “Smile for me?”
Sadie nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat. She should grab her phone and take her own picture of him. Her fingers itched to open the car door and snag her cell. If she didn’t, all she’d have when he left were mental pictures of their time together. But just until he came back. And he would come back. She knew it.
Traffic crept by them as he fiddled with the camera settings and then finally raised it to his eye and cradled the body of the camera like it was irreplaceably fragile.
Like he’d held her.
“Do I say cheese or something?” Sadie asked, striking a material-girl Madonna pose. He could get his picture and then she’d get hers.
The shutter clicked.
“Just be you, Sadie.” His voice was rough. For the first time since the bedroom, his mask slipped and he was Roman again.
“Should I wait for you?” Sadie whispered so quietly she wasn’t even sure he’d heard her.
Apparently, he heard, sucked in a breath, and then his expression went blank. His entire face said nothing. She’d never seen him go blank. His expression harden? Yes. Happy? Sure. Annoyed? Absolutely.
Vacant? No.
“I want it all. The career. The guy. If that means I have to wait, I will,” Sadie continued.
He didn’t say anything.
No “yes.” No “no.” He just tucked Louise back in her case and stepped toward Sadie.
A car honked, the long echo bouncing through the interior of the drop-off area. Neither of them gave any attention to the world still turning around them. That moment contained only them.
Sadie’s breath wobbled when she pulled it in.
Everything.
They could be everything.
She would give him everything.
“I can’t ask you to do that.” He shook his head. “I won’t ask you to put your life on hold for me. Keep moving forward. You want it all? You’ll have it. I believe that.”
Sadie’s knees felt like they were going to give out.
He leaned down, pressed his lips against hers, and then he pulled away.
There was more meaning in that kiss than she’d ever felt in any word, ever.
And then he slung his rucksack over his right shoulder and walked through the doors of level six at the Jeppesen Terminal and out of her life, dropping her heart behind him. She never even got that goodbye picture.
Shaking, she scooped up her heart where he’d dropped it on the sidewalk, climbed into her car, buckled her seatbelt, and drove home.
Chapter Three
Present Day
Ten Years Later
Sadie Howard didn’t believe in blue eyeliner, letting a man touch her boobs on the first date, or second chances.
The first two points came from an abundance of trial and error. Mostly error. The third, well…that came from being a divorce attorney.
If there was one thing Sadie hated more than a divorce, it was a wedding.
Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the total truth.
She loved to look at a radiant bride and hope like heck she’d stay radiant forever. Hope that the wedding would lead to a lifetime of happiness.
But from a whole load of experience, she just knew that didn’t happen for everyone—like the client currently on the phone.
Do Me a Favor: A second chance, hilarious rom com! (Mile High Matched Book 4) Page 3