Roman and the Hopeless Romantic (Gulf City High Book 2) Page 8

  “My dad worries about me?” It didn’t fit with the image of the aloof man she had in her mind.

  “And he speaks about you. That is how I know the real Cassandra Carrigan is still in there. Brutally honest. Unafraid. And that is the girl we need to find.”

  “So, what’s today’s assignment for me?”

  “Let’s start with honesty. Stop thinking so much before you speak, don’t consider your words. Just release them. Say what you want to say. You may find it lessens the constraints on your lips.”

  “Honesty.” It was a tall order. Cassie hadn’t been honest with anyone in her life other than Annie in a really long time. But she was tired of thinking and holding everything inside. “I can try.”

  Annie rewarded her with the kind of smile that made Cassie trust her in the first place.

  They finished up their session, and Cassie rejoined Mary for the ride home.

  Mary didn’t stay, she had her own family. As soon as Cassie walked in, Jesse and Roman raced out the door, throwing goodbyes over their shoulders. She checked the time, realizing she’d almost made them late for the game.

  Will and Eli sat at the kitchen table eating dinner. “What did Jesse cook?” Her brother was the only reason their family stayed fed. She peered into the pot on the stove, inhaling the spicy scent of red chili.

  “Wasn’t Jess.” Will stuffed a spoon in his mouth.

  Eli didn’t look up from where he hovered over his bowl. “Roman is a better cook.” His eyes snapped up. “Don’t tell Jesse I said that.”

  Cassie laughed. Her brothers had the kind of honesty Annie wanted from her. She spooned chili into a bowl and loaded it with sour cream and cheese. After taking a bite, she moaned. “You’re right, buddy. So much better than Jesse’s.” She sent him a wink, remembering the canned dinner Roman made for her the night before. Since when did he cook chili?

  After she finished eating, she ushered the boys upstairs into her room where they jumped onto the bed. “Are we watching the game?” Will held his hands together as if in prayer.

  “What else would we be doing?” she laughed. They still had a few more minutes before the game started, so she sat between the boys with her laptop on her knees. Honesty. Maybe it was easiest to start with kids. “You guys make it easier.”

  “Make what easier, Cass?” Eli snuggled into her side.

  She smiled down at him. “Life.” What she’d wanted to say was life without Mom, but she had to start small. Baby steps. Maybe one day she’d tell them how much it hurt.

  But that was a pain she didn’t want them to share. Trying to push it to the back of her mind, she focused on the screen where the team skated out onto the ice. Jesse was first and Roman brought up the rear just like always, the two bookends of the team holding them all upright.

  The Hurricanes won the game, still a novelty in their small Florida beach town. The crowd went wild, and Cassie could almost pretend she was there amid the noise and excitement. For just a moment, she wished she was.

  Then she remembered who she was.

  Girls like her didn’t get to do things like go to a hockey game or celebrate with their friends.

  Or have friends.

  No, she wouldn’t pity herself. She looked to the two sleeping boys curled up on her bed. Everything she needed was right here in her own home.

  Except telling herself that broke Annie’s new rule, her challenge. Maybe honesty started with herself.

  This sucked. There, she thought it. Now, if only she could say it out loud.

  She moved her laptop to the table next to her bed and brushed a hand over the top of Eli’s head as he shifted. “I hate this.” The words were no more than a whisper, but even getting them out was a win. “I want to be normal.”

  She closed her eyes, letting a tear slip through. Annie would tell her no one was normal, that normal didn’t exist. Everyone had their own problems swirling inside them.

  Cassie was ready to move on from hers, to find herself again. She just didn’t know how. Scooting lower in the bed, she wedged herself between the twins, taking comfort from their presence.

  They didn’t see her problems when they looked at her. They were probably the only ones. A tear dripped down her cheek before more followed. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the tears away.

  She didn’t know how long she laid there until the front door slammed below. Footsteps thundered up the stairs before Jesse poked his head in. He smiled when he saw the three of them.

  “Hey,” he whispered. “You watch the game?”

  “Of course. Will and Eli managed to stay awake until the third period.”

  “Did you see my goal?” He sat on the edge of her bed.

  “You mean the one Charlie did all the work for? Yeah, I saw you tap in her rebound.”

  He gave her a tired laugh. “She’s better than me.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Did your talk with Annie go well today?” He rarely called them therapy sessions.

  She nodded. “We’re going to try something new.”

  “You going to tell me what that is?”

  “Brutal honesty.”

  His lips parted into a smile. “Like the old Cass. I like it. Start with me. Bring it on. I can take whatever you want to say.”

  He looked at her with such expectation, such trust, like he knew she wouldn’t say anything to really hurt him. But what if he was wrong?

  “Jess.” She looked away, searching for the lowest hanging fruit, something not too revealing that would help him understand everything. “The porch furniture.”

  Confusion flashed across his face. “Porch furniture?”

  “It was delivered a few days after Mom…” She sucked in a breath. “We’d just picked it out and left the store when it happened.” She needed to say it. “When Mom died.”

  He didn’t move, didn’t breathe, for a long moment. “That’s why you and dad pull it inside during every storm.” He rubbed his eyes. “Why Dad won’t even sit in it. Heck, you rarely go out back. Cass…” He reached for her hand. “Roman told me we had a gator back there last night.”

  That brought a smile to her face. “It was just Nippy.”

  “But you were scared.”

  She nodded. Of course, she was. An alligator came up from the pond and confronted her while she was pulling her dead mom’s furniture in out of the storm.

  “It was kind of bonkers.”

  His smile widened. “That’s an old-Cassie term.”

  “I guess it is.” She settled back against her pillow.

  Jesse stood and scooped Eli into one arm and Will in the other. “Night, sis.”

  As soon as they were gone, Cassie missed her brothers. But she wasn’t alone for long. She looked up at Roman standing in the doorway wearing plaid pajama bottoms and no shirt.

  “Have you been crying?”

  Jesse hadn’t seemed to notice her red eyes. Honesty, Cass. She lifted her chin, meeting Roman’s gaze. “Yes.”

  “Oh. Are you okay?”

  “I’m not sure.” The words came out easier because she didn’t think about them ahead of time.

  Roman shuffled his bare feet. “Do you… can I help?”

  “Maybe. But not tonight.”

  He nodded, his shoulders deflating. “Sweet dreams, Cass.”

  “Roman,” she called to his retreating back.

  He froze, probably not used to hearing her call for him. “Yeah, Cass?”

  “Good game tonight.” He’d played just as well as he always did. Nothing could stop Roman out on the ice.

  He met her eyes once more. “Thanks.”

  She nodded, letting him walk away. Crawling out of bed, she flipped the lights off and laid back down. Her fingers found her Kindle under the pillow, allowing her to escape into someone else’s love story once more.

  As she tapped the screen, a smile curved her lips. Honesty. Not thinking. She could do this.

  Why couldn’t the real world be like a novel?
The characters had it so easy. They spoke to each other with candor and emotion, nothing holding them back. That didn’t work in real life.

  But maybe it could.

  Cade moved in, wanting to feel, to taste. To him, a kiss was more than a simple action, it was a promise.

  “Promise,” Cassie scoffed to herself in the dark. She loved romance as much as the next girl, but tonight something in her hated how they glorified a simple act. She’d seen her brother kiss a lot of girls, but none of them meant anything before Charlie. A kiss was just a kiss. A single moment in time. It didn’t foretell the future or promise good things to come.

  She sighed. They were so going to kick her out of the hopeless romantic club. Not that there actually was a hopeless romantic club, but it would be cool. More poor fools like her who’d been taken in by these sappy books and duped into thinking they meant something.

  Whoa… was this that honesty thing working on her? She laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea. She’d never lied to herself, and she couldn’t explain why her favorite book suddenly irritated her so much.

  Maybe she was just sick of living in a fantasy.

  Her stupid anxiety and stupid-stupidness (give her a break, okay?) kept her trapped in this cage with only romance novels as her way out.

  But what if she wanted to be the person in love? What if she wanted someone to kiss her as if there was no one else who could make the world spin around her?

  Anger burned through her, and she flung her Kindle across the room. It hit the wall with a crack and thudded to the ground, followed by one of her pictures from the wall.

  Cassie scrambled from the bed and felt her way to the wall in the dark. Narrow streams of moonlight filtered through her window, courtesy of the full moon hanging in the clear sky outside.

  She needed air. Now. Pushing the window up, she inhaled the fresh air, reveling in the post-storm feel of it. Storms caused a lot of destruction around them, but they left behind a feeling of calm, a beautiful world with a clean slate.

  She glanced up at the moon, wishing she could see the stars through the filtered streetlights. At the beach, they’d shine overhead.

  Cassie smiled as she remembered her mom waking her up every year in the wee hours of the first day of summer while the world still slept in darkness. They’d drive to the beach and sit in the sand, gazing up at the stars with the waves crashing on the shore.

  Those were perfect days.

  Light reflected off broken glass on the floor, and Cassie bent to pick up the frame, careful to get each shard and thankful none of it shattered. She didn’t know what had come over her when she threw her Kindle.

  The picture in her hands was of her mom grinning by the pond in their backyard. Once upon a time, people exclaimed how much Cassie looked like her. She touched her smile. They had little in common in terms of looks, which was why those people stuck in her mind. Where Cassie’s hair was darker, her mom’s was fair. Where Cassie’s skin lacked color, her mom’s had it in spades.

  But the smiles… those had been the same. And they’d both used them any chance they got.

  “I’m trying, Mom,” she whispered. “But I’m going to try harder.” For her. Because she’d want her to.

  She set the broken frame on her dresser and retrieved her Kindle, her eyes scanning Cade’s words on the screen. He claimed a kiss was more than an act. Well, she’d prove him wrong.

  No thinking, that was what Annie prescribed. Somehow, Cassie didn’t think this is what she meant. But it didn’t matter.

  She threw the Kindle on her bed and padded out into the hall. The door next to hers was cracked open, allowing her to push her way in.

  Roman lay on his side, the blanket tangled around his legs. His bare torso shone in the dark. How many of the girls she’d known in school would kill to be in his room right now?

  How many of them hoped for just one look, one word from the way-too-attractive hockey player. It didn’t help that he was actually a nice guy.

  But this was to prove a fictional character wrong. Nothing more.

  That even sounded dumb in her head. Turning on her heel, she realized she couldn’t do this.

  But the low timbre of Roman’s voice called her back. “Cass?”

  She froze, turning slowly.

  He rubbed a hand over his face as if wiping the sleep from his eyes. “What are you doing?”

  Excuse. Excuse. Excuse. “I want to kiss you.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. That was not an excuse. She wasn’t a blurter, but the honesty of her statement threw her into a fit of giggles. This was ridiculous. She was ridiculous. “I’m… ah… going to go.” At least she got the words out. Another giggling fit hit her as she stepped toward the door.

  “Wait.” Roman scrambled from his bed. “What’s going on here?” A wry smile curved his lips. “I’m a bit lost.”

  She tamped down on the chains threatening to wrap around her tongue and prevent her from answering. It was Roman. Her old friend. A guy she’d barely spoken to in two years but someone she trusted. That was why it had to be him.

  She mustered up enough honesty magic to make Annie proud. “I’ve never kissed anyone.”

  His eyebrows shot to his hairline.

  She continued. “So, there’s this book, and it talks about kissing like it’s this monumental thing, but I don’t believe it. How could I know if I’ve never tried it though? Cade thinks one kiss can change your life, and I need to prove him wrong. It’s just lips and doesn’t last very long. He can’t be right.” Her chest heaved from babbling out more words than she’d said to anyone in a long time.

  Roman flipped on his light and faced her. “Okay, first—who is this Cade?”

  “Cade Williams.”

  He pursed his lips. “I don’t know the guy, but if he’s such an expert, why can’t you do this experiment with him?” Anger entered his voice, and Cassie took a step back.

  “I’m sorry. It was a dumb idea. Of course, you don’t want to kiss me. Can we please just forget about it?”

  “Cass.” His eyes burned into hers. “Who is Cade Williams, and why are you talking about kissing so much?” He clenched his jaw, reminding her how he and Jesse used to act toward any boy on the playground who liked her when they were younger. There was a reason beyond her current struggles that Cassie was still a kissing virgin.

  Her cheeks heated, and she focused her gaze on his chest, anywhere but his eyes. “Um… he’s… yeah… a guy inmybook,” she said, her words running together.

  It took a moment for Roman to catch up, and his entire body relaxed. “Look, Cass… you’ve always been obsessed with these romance novels, but they aren’t real. Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss.”

  She lifted her chin, her words freer than they had been in a long time. No anxiety zipped along her skin, only wild recklessness like she’d once loved. “Then show me.”

  His eyes blazed for only a moment before he took a step back. “You should go to bed, Cass.”

  Her entire body deflated, and the nervous energy she’d known for two years returned in force, stopping any further words from moving past her lips.

  As she walked back into her dark room, she heard his words in her mind. “Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss.”

  Then why wouldn’t he kiss her? She stopped in front of the mirror, only seeing parts of herself in the dark and trying to see what Roman saw.

  Before her was a once strong girl, now broken. A thrill-seeker, who now spent her days hiding.

  She straightened her spine. No, she wasn’t that girl. He’d said no, but she’d spoken to Roman, been honest with him.

  Her journey wasn’t about giant leaps. Instead, steady, measured steps kept her moving forward.

  “I am not my anxiety,” she whispered.

  And it was not her.

  12

  Roman

  How was Roman supposed to sleep after finding Cassie in his room asking for a kiss?

  For the first time in too long, she’d looke
d so sure of herself, almost like the girl he’d feared was gone forever.

  And what had he done?

  Said no.

  Man, he was a chump—or a dude as Cassie called idiot boys. He groaned as he rolled onto his side and slipped an arm under his pillow. Two years ago, when they were just friends running amok and driving Jesse crazy, he’d have given anything to kiss her, to be her first. They were everything to each other. Friends, pseudo-siblings, confidants. They fought and watched out for each other and laughed until it hurt.

  But they never crossed that line. Fourteen-year-olds experiment, but Roman found other girls to be his firsts. He assumed Cassie would have kissed at least one of the boys who’d been in love with her back then.

  She was never an easy girl to stay away from. Even in the two years of silence, there was a magnetism about her.

  “I want to kiss you.”

  The brazen way she spoke made him smile even as his chest tightened.

  “Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss.” It wouldn’t be. Not with her. Not in her family’s house, a house they’d been nice enough to share with him.

  His phone lit up, and he pulled it from the charger to read the text from Hadley.

  Hadley: Good game tonight.

  Those words didn’t send warmth through him as they had when Cassie said them. Just knowing she’d watched made him smile.

  He typed out a response.

  Roman: Why thank ye, miss.

  Hadley: LOL. You’re odd. Good thing I like odd.

  If he didn’t know her, he’d think she had a crush on him. But he knew better than that now. She just wanted a friend—like him.

  Hadley: Missed you at my party.

  He shook his head. She probably had a line of people wanting to spend time with her.

  Roman: I needed to stay home.

  Hadley: You’re a good guy, Rome.