Careful not to shake the trembling foundation that he hoped like hell they were building, he slid his hand along the countertop behind Sadie. “She was pretty anti-Heather there for a while.”
“And how does she feel about me?” Sadie leaned into his arm like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Roman watched Sadie until she moved her gaze to him. Then he told the honest and raw truth. “She wants me to be happy. You make me happy.”
Sadie’s expression morphed into one that reminded him of the surprise of the woman he’d known when she’d gotten caught sorting condoms into packs of ten in his hotel room closet.
“Do I?” she asked in apparent disbelief.
He hated that she had to ask. “Yeah, Sadie. You do.”
“Rome…I…”
“You used to talk a lot,” Roman said, resting his elbows behind him on the counter. “Now, you seem to mostly think.”
“Which do you prefer?” Sadie asked.
“Both. But in all seriousness, I’ve missed you. All of you. Even when you get inside your own head.”
Sadie fidgeted with her champagne flute like she’d done with her red plastic cup on the truck bed. “Maybe I just spend time there because it’s easier.”
“Maybe you should come out and hang out with me more often.”
“Maybe.” She met his gaze. “I live in a world of keeping things confidential for my clients.” She focused on the surface of her drink once more. “Even if we decided to hang out, the secrets I’ve been told…you can’t know. Can’t know the clients I’ve represented. Can’t know how hard it was to represent them when I don’t understand why they’ve done what they’ve done and I don’t get to have an opinion because of my job.”
“I have my secrets, too.” With the level of clearance the government had given him, he had a whole truckload of things he could never mention again. Things that were best forgotten.
What was happening between the two of them had nothing to do with secrets and everything to do with good ol’ fashioned fear. “You know that just because it didn’t work out for your clients, doesn’t mean it won’t work out for you.”
“It doesn’t mean that it will, either.”
The rest of the room filtered away. Everyone else was focused on Heather and Jase and their soon-to-be new baby—as it should be. But Roman? He focused on the woman who he hoped like hell would be his future.
The tender looks she gave to those she cared for without ever realizing. The solid spine she had no problem wielding. Sadie was so much more than the brown-haired, brown-eyed woman who had captured his interest.
“Right here, right now, what do you want?” Roman asked.
Sadie didn’t respond.
“It’s just you and me here. You and me now,” Roman said as soothingly as he could manage.
“I don’t know what to do with that.” Sadie swallowed hard. “The you and me thing.”
“Let me in.”
Please, let him in.
Roman wasn’t a guy who had ever begged for anything, but he’d beg for this because it mattered that much. The extent of how much it mattered had seeped into the deepest parts of him.
“And if I can’t?”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He hoped that Sadie would see him. See who he was and who she was to him. See who they could be together.
“Does it matter?” she asked.
He clenched his back teeth and pinched his lips into a line, biting at the inside edges.
“Even if we give us a shot, we both know how it’s going to end. We’ve already been there once. It’ll fizzle. Like it did before.” She didn’t get it.
He needed her to get it.
“It didn’t fizzle. I was an idiot who didn’t take a beautiful woman up on her offer when she laid it all out. That’s not a fizzle. That’s the fault of a guy who didn’t have his shit together.”
Her expression remained unconvinced. She sucked in a breath. “You don’t get it.”
He didn’t.
“I’ve seen this a dozen times,” she said. “Maybe more. A relationship fails. They try again. It fails again. It always fails again. This time, between us, it’ll be spectacular and it’ll hurt. It’ll hurt worse than it did the first time.” Her voice shook with pain so evident that it made his heart beat faster, his body begging him to stop her pain.
Sonofabitch. He hadn’t meant to hurt her.
He’d make it his personal mission not to let it happen again.
“What do you want?” he asked.
As much as it would suck, if she said she didn’t want him—actually said the words—then he’d knock it off. He’d let it go and understand that what he wanted was his problem and not hers.
“What I want doesn’t matter,” she said.
Oh, but it did. It mattered to him.
For the smartest woman he knew, she was proving to be dense when it came to her own desires and the fact that they mattered.
“I’d really like to touch you.” His words sounded like a question.
Roman asking permission to touch her? That clearly caught her off guard.
The bubble that had surrounded them in silence seemed to pop as she moved. Facing him, utter confusion played across her features.
“This is your show,” he continued carefully, wanting her to understand more than anything that she was the one in charge. “Everything that happens from here is your call.”
She could call it off at any point.
“But if you decide to let me in, I swear you won’t regret it. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re happy.”
Her top teeth nipped at her bottom lip. He was nearly there. She got him.
“So I’ll ask again, can I touch you?” he asked.
“What does it matter if I say yes or no? You’re a Dvornakov, won’t you just do what you want to do anyway?”
Absolutely not. If she said no, he’d honor it. Because he knew they both understood that they were either making a promise to each other or they were going to move on without each other.
“I had a friend once,” he said, ready to make his case.
Her eyes misted as though she intuitively understood he was speaking of her.
“She taught me that the fine print matters.” He looked into the depths of her eyes, trying to see what he should say. “So, yeah, I’d say it matters if you want this or not, nohchnaya babachka.”
A gasp pulled his gaze away from Sadie. The audible inhale from his babushka broke the moment.
“Vhat did you call her?” Babushka asked, eyes big with her fingers pressed against her pink-painted lips.
Roman had seen that look on her before. Generally, it was the look the preceded him getting dressed down. “Um…”
General Babushka marched toward him and smacked him upside the head.
“Ow.” Roman rubbed at the spot.
“Roman Dvornakov, why on earth would you call her that?” his mother asked, the words soaked in shock.
“It means butterfly. At night.” That was the translation. He may be rusty on his Russian, but he was confident here.
“Does it mean something else?” Sadie asked.
“It means that you’re my butterfly. Like the moths at the movie theater?”
She seemed to rack her brain. “The moths?”
“The moths you thought were butterflies,” he reminded her.
“It does not.” Babushka’s words were firm and her eyes flashed with anger. “You alvays vere bad vith the Russian vords. How could you call her this?”
Sadie’s eyebrows fell together. “It doesn’t mean nighttime butterfly?”
“Oh, it means nighttime butterfly, all right,” Jase said. “If you use the direct translation. But in reality, it means prostitute.”
Roman’s heart dropped. No, it did not.
Sadie gasped.
“That’s not true,” Roman said. Absolutely not. He wasn’t calling her a prostitute. His Russian might’
ve been rusty—he stopped practicing around the time Dedushka died—but he knew enough to know this was abso-fucking-lutely not the case.
“You’ve been calling me a prostitute?” Sadie asked, the whites of her eyes growing with each word.
The entire family had gone silent sometime during their conversation. Everyone had moved their attention from Heather and her baby to his private conversation—emphasis on the word “private.”
Not that there was much privacy among his family. Usually, they tried to pretend they weren’t the invasive species called Dvornakov.
“I taught you better Russian than this. Your dedushka, he rolls over in his grave,” Babushka admonished, making him feel about two centimeters tall. “You disappoint me.”
Sadie was shaking.
Shit, he hoped he hadn’t made her cry with his inability to translate.
But this wasn’t that kind of shaking, Not the crying kind. “Are you laughing?” he asked, the numb from the shock melting out of his body as her chest racked with the apparent hilarity of his fuckup.
“You’ve been calling me a hooker this whole time?” She wiped a tear with the back of her hand.
“This is not funny.” Babushka’s tone was the same one she had used on him when he was a kid and had accidentally dyed her favorite Persian cat green with food coloring.
“It’s a little funny.” Heather held up her thumb and pointer finger, illustrating that little dash of funny.
“More than a little.” Zach’s words came out on a wheeze. Apparently, Roman was the entertainment for the evening.
“In my defense, I didn’t realize the definition wasn’t…appropriate.” He settled on that last word even though it didn’t really fit.
No words—not a sound—came from his mother’s lips. His father stood completely still.
And then, his mother did what he never would have expected. She started to laugh. Hard. The doubling over was a touch excessive.
“You’ve”—Sadie jabbed him with her fingertip—"been calling me a hooker?”
“I forbid you use Russian ever again.” Babushka slashed through the air with her hand. “Vhere is my purse. You vill swear on your grandfather’s image you vill never utter another Russian vord.”
“I’m not swearing that.” He’d just start practicing again, that’s all.
“Don’t make him do that. I kind of like the butterfly thing. What’s he going to come up with next?” Sadie pulled herself together enough to get through that whole sentence without laughing. “Whew.” She fanned her face with her hands in that way girls did when they were trying not to laugh anymore. “What are you thinking?” She squeezed his arm.
“I’m thinking I’d really like to touch you,” he said, holding his hands near her shoulders but not quite making contact.
She gulped.
He waited.
Finally, she nodded. “You can touch me.”
With permission granted, he ran his index finger along her cheekbone and leaned in to brush his lips against hers.
The kiss wasn’t erotic—they were in his parents’ kitchen and his entire family was present. He kept it simple, chaste, but she tasted like he remembered, and he wanted more.
“Jase, you’re going to let him tie you to the fridge,” Heather mock whispered. “I think it’s your turn.”
Roman broke the kiss. He smiled against Sadie’s lips.
Yeah, Heather was Roman’s favorite sister-in-law, forever and always. She’d just sealed the deal.
“Are you crushing on my brother right in front of me?” Jase asked, feigning disgust.
“Little bit.” Heather crinkled her nose and Jase kissed the tip.
“You want him to call you a hooker, too?” Zach asked.
“I’ll allow it only because you let me knock you up,” Jase continued. “But the fridge thing? That’s never going to happen.”
Oh, it’d happen now that Roman was on his game. He was just going to take his brother by surprise.
Heather’s expression went dreamy. “You should ask if you can touch me.”
Shit, Roman was never going to live that down.
“We got married, isn’t it implied?” Jase continued mock whispering.
Heather glared at him, but the tilt at the edges of her mouth implied that it was all for show.
“Let’s go outside.” Mom already had the French doors pushed open and was doing her best—God bless her—to get the family to start moving toward the table she’d set up by the pool on the back patio. “Everyone.”
No one moved.
“Now,” Mom said with a pointed look toward Roman. “You stay. We’ll give you a minute.”
If Roman had his way, they’d need a lot more than a minute.
Sadie’s cell rang. She glanced at the screen and her eyebrows furrowed. “I need to take this. It’s a client.”
She moved through the entryway into the living room.
“Babushka?” Roman called his grandmother, who was mid-chip dip.
“Vhat?”
“Your services are no longer needed.”
She shoved the chip in her mouth and chewed.
He waited.
“I have no idea vhat you are talking about,” Babushka replied.
“The thing that I asked you to do? You’re off duty.”
“Okay.” Babushka shrugged.
Huh. Well, that was easy.
Everything looked to be sunshine and daisies, but that tickle in his gut insisting nothing was as it seemed turned into a full warning bell. What had he gotten himself into?
Sadie’s emotions surrounding Roman were tied in knots that she couldn’t seem to untangle. The more time they spent together, the tighter the tangle became. Roman’s ease with her made her seriously ponder her previously held beliefs on not trying one more time.
But that was how a girl got sucked in. She was positive.
She’d believe that it would work and then, boom, let the heart stomping commence.
Dinner had been fun. But the fun was temporary, and she had to get out of there before she got so entrenched with Roman that she wouldn’t be able to extract herself.
The comfortably cool air of Denver’s summer evenings brushed over her as she walked briskly to her car. The blue sky with the sun setting behind the mountains of the Front Range was totally gorgeous. Like the time she’d spent with Roman’s family.
Tomorrow, though, the monsoons would come again and the rain would cover it all.
This was the metaphor of life.
“Sadie…” Roman jogged after her. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Sure.” She tried to smile, but all she could see was how messy it would be when the braided knot unraveled and dropped her onto the concrete.
“Babushka mentioned earlier that you need some photos taken for your office?” he asked.
“Actually, that’d be great. I haven’t had a moment to get any done. Do you want to do them—”
“Yeah.” He was like an eager puppy.
An eager puppy built like a tank, but still.
“Now?” he asked. “It’s still early and I don’t have plans.”
If they were alone tonight, she had a hunch they’d end up tangling sheets and the knot of emotions she was trying to sort through. Which meant—
“Not tonight.” She bit at her lip to keep herself from saying yes. “I’ve got to get home. Maybe I’ll even stop and check in on Luke.”
“Do you want company?” he asked. “Luke is one of my favorite Howards.”
She shook her head. “Not tonight.”
“You’re doing the nose-scrunch.” So, so carefully, he cupped her cheek. “Don’t nose-scrunch me tonight. Not when things are going great.”
She kicked at a loose asphalt pebble with the toe of her ballet flat. “Can I be honest?”
“I like honesty.” He dropped his hand.
“I can’t do this. The us thing. I want to. I just…” She didn’t know what to say. This hurt now
, which was all the more reason she had to end it before it became anything.
“If you want to, then why resist?” He reached for her hand, pressing it in his own.
Interlacing their fingers, she embraced the way they felt so good entangled together. Why couldn’t it always be like this?
New. Fresh.
This was a singular moment, though, a snapshot in time. It wouldn’t last. Not on a do-over.
“I’m sorry, Rome.” She dropped his hand, took the final steps toward her car, climbed inside, and refused to look back.
Chapter Sixteen
Sadie was dodging him.
He studied the bottom of his beer mug. All that remained inside were air and a few frothy bubbles. The atmosphere of the dive bar began to work its way under his skin.
The bar itself wasn’t bad. His buddy Brek had acquired it while Roman had been away. Any other time in his life, he would’ve appreciated the live music and flowing booze, but tonight, Sadie wasn’t with him and that made everything itchy.
If she remembered like he remembered, then there was no way she would be so willing to continue pretending nothing had happened and allow the extent of their relationship to be working down the hall from each other.
Where was the woman who had asked if she should wait for him? Where had she gone?
And why did it hurt so bad that he’d fucked it up with her?
“You look like you’ve been chewed up, spit out, and chewed on again,” Brek said, hanging out behind the bar and slinging drinks.
More apt words had never been spoken.
“Something like that,” Roman replied.
“You want something to eat?” Brek asked.
“Yeah, I’ll take the soup.”
Brek raised an eyebrow. “It’s a bar, man. We don’t serve soup.”
“Bourbon with ice croutons then?” Roman grinned at his own joke.
“That would be the special of the day.” Brek chuckled and slid a glass tumbler with ice beside Roman’s empty mug. He poured three large gulps of bourbon inside.
Roman had known Brek since they were younger. Brek was good people. The kind who listened decent and poured heavy. In other words, he made an exceptional bartender.
Do Me a Favor: A second chance, hilarious rom com! (Mile High Matched Book 4) Page 17