by Geneva Lee
“Merry Christmas! I know how you love books,” she said with a wink as she deposited a paperback onto my bed. “I bet you didn’t do anything but read.”
I shook my head, trying to bite back a smile—and failing—as I read the title: How to Survive After Being Robbed.
“Where on earth did you find this?” I asked, thumbing through the pages.
Jillian plopped down. “Online. You can find a book on anything thanks to the digital revolution.”
“Thanks.” I added the book to my bedside stack. “I’ll be sure to read it if I show symptoms of PTSD.”
“It’s not fun when you go all Doctor Jess on me,” she said.
“Speaking of, how are you?” I asked, sitting beside her. “Meds? Liam? Tara?”
“Promising. More promising. And hopeless.”
“Two out of three ain’t bad.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
“How was Mexico?” Somehow she managed to ask this innocently, but I knew better. Cassie and Jillian had spent the whole trip texting minute-by-minute details of what was happening between Roman and I.
“It was fun,” I said, adding, “while it lasted.”
Jillian wrinkled her nose and swung a pillow at my head. “It doesn’t have to end. Unless…”
“Unless?” I prompted.
“You’re going to make up with Brett.” She sounded like she was gagging on her tongue as she spoke.
“You know, he isn’t a disease. You and Cassie could have mentioned that you hated him before.”
“It’s not that we hate him. We nothing him,” she explained. “It’s impossible to feel anything toward Brett, because he’s so boring.”
I sighed, and flashed her the five missed calls on my phone. “I’m not planning on getting back together with him.”
“Does he know you broke up?” she asked, grabbing it and hitting my voicemail button. Normally I would have stopped her from listening to my messages, but I couldn’t bring myself to listen to what Brett had to say. Someone might as well listen. Maybe he was dying. It would explain his willful refusal to get the message that I didn’t want to hear from him.
Jillian erased each of them and screwed up her face. “He definitely doesn’t know.”
“He’s in denial,” I said. “I was very clear with him. I did not lead him on. Things were over—”
“Chill,” she stopped me. “No judgment from me, although it sounds like you feel guilty about something.”
“And boom goes the dynamite,” I said, falling back on my bed. She’d given me five minutes of peace before nosing around for the dirt on Roman.
“Come on!” She popped onto her knees and shook her folded hands. “Please!”
“You don’t see me asking about your sex life.”
“One, that’s not true. You were on my ass as soon as Liam and I started dating. Two, you still owe me for not kicking him out when I asked—”
“Hold up,” I stopped her. “I think that worked out for the best.”
“Whatever. Chicks before dicks!” she said. “And three, you can hear my sex life. You know it’s fantastic. But if you want the dirt, I unwrapped my present early under the Christmas tree. Three times.”
“Merry Christmas to you,” I said.
“And a Happy New Year!”
“I suppose this means you two will be celebrating here next week,” I said.
Jillian wagged a finger at me. “No way, Jess. You aren’t going to get away with changing the subject. I want the details.”
“Fine!” I threw my hands in the air. “We had a fling and it’s over now. No big deal.” But even as I said it, a few more pieces of my heart shattered.
“You aren’t fooling me,” she said, taking my hand and holding it tightly.
Cassie sauntered into the room, carrying several bags of ornaments.
“Tree’s in the car. It is fake, so its beauty will never fade, like mine, and all ornaments were 75% off. Target for the win.” She stopped when she saw Jillian and I still clutching hands. “Who died?”
“No one,” I said, pasting a smile on my face. “We were just catching up. Did you know Jills and Liam did it under the Christmas tree?”
“I did,” Cassie informed me. “I had more time to text on our trip that you did. That story is why I bought a fake tree. I’m hoping Santa brings me my own boy toy, but without the accompanying rash.”
I planted my hands on my hips and gave Jillian my best what-the-fuck look. At least, the urge to cry had been usurped by curiosity.
“Pine needles are sharp, especially when you’re naked and getting slammed against them,” she explained in an innocent tone that fooled no one.
“Ick!” I stuck my tongue out. “Are you okay?”
“I’m spectacular,” Jillian said. “Believe me, I have no complaints.”
I thought of Roman and the jalapeños.
“What’s that smile?” Jillian asked. “I have to know, Jess.”
“An inside joke.” But even though I tried, I couldn’t wipe the goofy grin off my face. That story was staying between the two of us. It would have made my friends laugh, but there was something far too personal about it to share.
“Fine. Don’t tell me. But answer this. Does he use I-statements in bed?”
My cheeks reddened. I wasn’t the type to spill details about what happened behind closed doors, especially considering they both knew Roman as somewhat of an authority figure.
“He spanks her,” Cassie said.
My eyes found the floor as my blush deepened. I was fairly certain it would never go away again. So much for respecting authority. I’d be getting naughty school girl memes for weeks. Months. Possibly the rest of my life.
“No freakin’ way.” Jillian clapped her hands, bouncing up and down.
“Or she spanks him. All I know is that somebody’s ass is getting smacked.”
“I would never spill on what I heard coming from your bedrooms.” The words trembled out of my mouth.
They froze, only daring one quick glance at each other.
Jillian stretched toward me and grabbed my hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just hard not to want the details. I mean–you slept with Markson.”
“He isn’t Markson to me, and it wasn’t some conquest,” I said, looking to Cassie. “And I thought you knew that.”
“Let’s decorate the tree,” Jillian suggested.
“No thanks. I’m not feeling very festive. I have clothes in the wash.” I darted toward the washing machine before either of them could stop me.
But she wasn’t so easy to lose. She followed me in and took up residence on the dryer. I wondered if they’d drawn straws as to which of them had to handle mopey friend duty. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“What’s to talk about?” I asked, shoving freshly folded laundry into a basket. “It was a fling—a week of boycatching. That’s all. You know the rules: catch and release. We messed around, but I can’t get involved now, even if you’re not playing anymore.”
Her lips twisted into a grim smile. Jillian had coined the term, which might have been the reason that she was the first one of us to really fall victim to her own game. Cassie and I had never really played. I’d preferred the safety of monogamy and Cassie had been looking for the one. But that’s what I’d been doing with Roman. I’d known all along that I had to give him up.
“A week, huh? That’s more than enough time to get caught.”
“I’m not caught!” What was meant to be a stern proclamation came out a little too hysterical to be believable. What the hell was happening to me? Oh yeah, I wanted someone who was absolutely off-limits. Whoever said it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all was either a masochist or had a heart of steel.
“You care about him,” she said softly. Pushing her wavy hair back, she stood and walked to me. “These things have a way of working themselves out.”
My jaw clenched as I held back tears and the urge to say something hurtfu
l to my best friend. Things had worked out for her and Liam, but that was a totally different set of circumstances. He was available. Jillian was available. We weren’t. I wasn’t sure why she couldn’t see that.
“I just want to be alone,” I told her.
Jillian didn’t fight me on it, but she stopped and looked at me thoughtfully. “That’s the problem. You don’t want to be alone. You want to be with him.”
Chapter 18
Eight weeks, three days, and about three hours and twenty minutes later, I’d made an art out of avoidance. It wasn’t like pre-med was a cakewalk. I’d had plenty to keep me distracted—study groups, MCAT guides, and to-do lists. The girls recognized that bringing him up was taboo. Cassie even stopped teasing me about all the embarrassment I’d endured in Mexico. But all the careful scheduling, planning, and care-taking couldn’t account for the one thing I couldn’t control: geography.
Particularly my friends’ geography. I couldn’t control where Jillian and Cassie went in Olympic Falls, what buildings they had classes in, or when they had to be in the communications department. Still, when Cassie arrived in my apartment and announced she’d run into Roman, it felt like a punch in the stomach. It sucked the air from me, but I tried to hide it. I failed.
Cassie’s eyebrow arched up as she took in my shock. Tossing her purse on my couch, she asked, “Do you want to know what he said?”
I nodded. Then shook my head. Then nodded again.
“You look like a fucking bobble head,” she told me, dropping onto a barstool.
I nodded once more.
“You have chosen…wisely,” she said, playing with a crocheted potholder. “He asked how you were.”
I waited, but she didn’t continue. “And?”
“And what?” she asked. “He asked about you.”
“That’s hardly noteworthy.” I fought against a surge if disappointment. What had I expected him to ask her? In my fantasies, I imagined running into him myself. I imagined him showing up on my doorstep. I imagined I hadn’t gotten on that plane. I imagined a lot of things when it came to Roman.
“Well, that’s all he said. How he looked was a different story.”
I threw my hands up in frustration. Getting the whole story out of Cassie was about as easy as catching a greased pig. “Are you enjoying this?”
“I am. Thank you for asking.” She shot me a coy smile.
“Spill.”
“He looked hopeful and sad, and then he started to say something else, but he hesitated.”
“That’s it?”
“I know what he was going to say,” she said with a shrug.
“Oh, you’re psychic now. We’ll have to set up a hotline. How’s your Jamaican accent?” I crossed my arms over my chest. Then uncrossed them and dug a to-do list out of a stack on the coffee table.
“Chill, ‘mon,” she said in the worst fake accent of all time. “You’re deflecting.”
“Did you learn that in freshman psych?”
“I am a psych minor,” she reminded me. “He misses you. He was going to say he missed you.”
“Okay.” I pretended to study the list, but I couldn’t quite ignore the way my heart leapt when she said those words. Suddenly Olympic Falls didn’t seem so big or safe or far from the one thing I had to stay away from. Roman missed me, and I missed him.
I wasn’t sure how I ended up standing in the hall of the communications building the next day. I’d been on my way to the union to grab lunch. Now I was hungry, nervous, and in the wrong place. Staring at the gleaming tile floors, it hit me. Roman was here. He was in this building. The thought left me torn between happiness and fear. Happiness that I might actually run into him. Fear that I would run into him. Happiness that he was so close. Fear that I’d crossed the line into stalker territory.
If I walked down the hall and turned left, I would be standing in front of his office.
I didn’t do that.
Mostly to prove to myself that I wasn’t a stalker.
Also because I was chicken shit.
I needed to go—to get out before I got caught. What did I think would happen? I’d go to his office and he’d sweep me into his arms? So, he had asked Cassie about me. That was called being polite. It was definitely an unwritten rule of etiquette that you pretend to care about how someone you slept with was doing. If I ran into Brett’s friends I’d ask about him. That was expected. Yesterday had meant nothing.
“Jess?” A familiar voice asked behind me, raising goose bumps on my skin.
I turned slowly to face him, but when I did, my breath caught in my throat. I’d expected I’d find a clean-shaven, sweater vest clad Roman, but he was anything but. His sharp jawline sported a five o-clock shadow that I could almost feel scratching against my thighs. Usually he gelled his hair back when he taught, but today it fell across his forehead and over his eyes. He had on a black button-down shirt that was tailored to skim his muscular upper body and a pair of jeans that hung off his hips in a suggestive way. At least it was suggestive to me—but who was I kidding, everything about him was suggestive to me.
“Hi,” I breathed, unable to come up with anything interesting or profound—or coherent.
“Every day I spot a blonde in the hall, I hold my breath, hoping it’s you,” he confessed. “It never is.”
The confession emboldened me, shooting fire through my veins and awakening part of me that I thought I’d left in Mexico. “I hope you don’t call my name out every time. That could be embarrassing.”
“I never do,” he said. “I always know deep down that it’s not.”
“And today?” So much hinged on his answer. I could feel it. The tension between us was palpable in the air. I could drag my finger through it. It made it hard to breathe.
“Today I knew,” he answered simply. He waved me along to his office and I followed him, ignoring the tiny voice in my head that said it was a bad idea. That was Jess, and right now I needed to be Jessica. His Jessica.
“How have you been?” I asked, feeling suddenly awkward as he shut the office door behind us. This man had seen me naked, so why did I feel like a giddy teenager trying to talk to a boy for the first time? I ordered myself to stop. I was a grown woman. Someday I would be a doctor. I just had to survive the next five minutes.
“Busy,” he admitted, running his fingers through his dark locks.
The simple gesture sent a jolt of desire burning through me. For a split second I imagined pulling him in for a kiss and tangling my hands through his hair. I missed the feel of it against my palm.
I forced myself to say something—to say anything. “Students are a handful?”
I was trying too hard. I sounded like I thought we were colleagues, but we weren’t and that was the problem.
“Always, but actually I’ve been busy wrapping up my dissertation. I defend it near the end of the semester.”
“That’s awesome. You’ll be a professor then.” This brought a genuine smile to my lips, and he returned it with one that lit up his whole face—and broke my heart.
“I’ll have to start looking for jobs.”
“You won’t stay here?” I asked too quickly. Tamp it down, girl.
“Probably not. That’s the problem with becoming a professor. You have to go where the jobs are.” The happiness that had warmed his face a moment before had vanished.
“Oh.” It was all I could manage to say as a lump formed in my throat. I’d spent the last two months avoiding him at all cost, but I’d known he was here. There had been something comforting about that. The idea that he would be gone in a few months, moving on with his life, had stolen my ability to speak. Hadn’t I planned to move on, too? Would I have thought of him as I considered where to go to med school or do my residency? But wasn’t the sheer act of going through the motions and checking off my to-do lists proof that I was always thinking of him? I felt hollow, as though a breeze could blow me over.
It was then that I realized I had never really accepte
d that Roman was gone from my life forever. If I had, this revelation wouldn’t be killing me now. And then he locked the office door. My heart skipped with the sound of the click.
“Jessica.” He turned to me, my name a question on his lips, and the longing I’d been holding at bay shattered.
I nodded once, giving him the answer he was waiting for. The answer that would change everything between us again. His hand slid around my waist with slow purpose as my entire body ached for contact with him. I missed him. I needed him. Now. We’d said we wouldn’t do this, but that was before.
Before we’d tried to live without each other.
Roman drew me to him and my eyes closed, savoring the delicious agony of the moment before his lips closed over mine. His mouth moved softly, parting my lips and then stroking his tongue across my own. And in his kiss I felt the pain of our separation, the desperate need, the inevitability of this moment.
“I don’t want to stay away from you any longer,” he whispered against my lips.
“Don’t.” I ran a finger down the scruff on his jaw. “I need to feel you.”
“We shouldn’t,” he breathed, and a vice grip twisted my heart when he released me and took a step back. “Not here.”
I shook my head, and unfastened my jeans. “I have spent the last eight weeks going through the motions, because I couldn’t feel anything. Seeing you proved to me that I don’t want to live like that.”
I slid my jeans off and tugged my sweater over my head, ignoring the tremble of my hands. I wasn’t scared of getting caught. I was only scared that he’d make me wait longer. I continued to strip until I stood naked before him. He didn’t try to stop me, and when I stepped forward and began to unbutton his shirt, his eyes closed. Running my hands over his chest, my touch lingered over his heart. When his eyes opened, they blazed with a hunger that sent a shiver of anticipation running through my body.
Then he scooped me off my feet, cupping my ass as I wrapped my legs around his waist. His lips were on mine, on my jaw, my neck, nipping at my ear. I was lost to his touch, unraveling around him, as we kissed recklessly. I found his pants and fumbled with the button. Roman’s fingers shoved mine aside and he undid them with one swift motion. I pushed them past his hips with my heels and he slid into me, drawing a gasp from my lips. I clung to him, bracing myself as he thrust inside me. He whispered poetry in my ear. I didn’t understand the words, but their meaning unfurled in my soul.