Vick looked mortified. “If he’s coming tomorrow, you can’t just drink yourself into oblivion! And Jay’s premiere is coming up. You have to—”
“She doesn’t have to do anything, Vick.”
A glaring contest ensued. Would it have been wrong to just let them fight it out and sneak to the back room with the bottle?
“I have my alarm set, Vick. I’ll be ready.” I sounded like I was going to war.
Who was I kidding? I was going to war and it would be bloody.
Both of them looked like they wanted to say more. Instead, I turned up the TV and let it fill the silence. Then, I shrugged and took another swig.
Vick’s eyes bulged. “You’ll look like crap tomorrow if you keep drinking.”
Rome chuckled. “Who gives a shit?”
“She does!” She pointed at me.
“No, I don’t!” I yelled back, now just as pissed as her.
“Now, now,” Rome chided as if we were his two children. “You’re both drunk. Vick, go sleep it off. I got this.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll just bet you have it.” With that, she whipped around and stalked out of the room, her long blonde hair waving behind her furiously, as if to show me how aggravated we’d had made her.
I sighed and slumped down into the couch.
Rome threw his arm on the back of the couch and rubbed his thumb up my shoulder. No spat with Vick ever really phased him. Instead, he flicked through some channels and settled on a rerun of House. We watched in silence as House cracked another case, saved another life, and went on playing the piano.
On a commercial, and after handing the bottle back to Rome for another swig, I announced, “I wish I had a physical illness that House could cure rather than a broken heart.”
Roman laughed quietly. “You’re an idiot, Brey.”
“What? It would be easier. Someone else could just figure out what was wrong with me, and poof, I’d be cured. Instead, I know what’s wrong, but no one can cure me.”
I leaned my head onto his shoulder.
He smoothed my hair like he wanted to soothe away my pain. “It takes time.”
“Is that really all it takes?” I was alluding to Rome’s demons, and I felt his muscles tense under me.
You see, he and I were one and the same. We didn’t trust easily, and when we did, we trusted with our whole soul. It was the reason I couldn’t get over Jax. I trusted him with everything. My whole fucked-up life, my whole fucked-up self, and he’d abandoned me.
He’d abandoned me just as Rome had been abandoned after he’d shared his fucked-up life with someone too.
When I looked at him, his eyes were inviting me into their abandoned void.
I licked my lips.
He whispered into my hair, “Walk to my place with me?”
He caught my eyes flicking to the back room where Vick had disappeared to.
“She’s passed out by now. Don’t let her take-no-shit attitude fool you. She’s small as hell, and the shots she had at the club tonight would have brought her to her knees had I not taken her home.”
I smiled a little. “That why you came home so early?”
“That and I knew you’d be here to fuck.”
I should have said no. I should have told him it was wrong to sleep with someone without your heart being involved. I didn’t really believe that though.
We’d complicated things so much already by sleeping together for so long, because what else does a person do when they’re broken? They find solace in another broken person. Misery loves the miserable.
That I believed with all the broken pieces of my heart.
I took Rome’s hand and followed him out the door. My blood was already rushing just knowing I could get lost in someone other than Jax.
I’m sure Rome’s was rushing for the very same reason.