Jahlani sighs softly. “Soon.”
Jahlani wakes to the sound of her phone ringing. She answers, blinking sleep from her eyes.
“Take a look at that,” Roman says, his voice filling her quiet apartment. She gives the screen a bleary-eyed squint.
“What’s this?” she asks through a yawn, her voice thick.
“You tell me,” he says, unable to hold back his smile. She stretches her arms over her head before looking back at the screen more closely.
“Two plane tickets to … Los Angeles.”
“For?” he presses, raising his eyebrows.
She squints again. “Roman Hayes and Luc—oh my God. When did they clear her for travel?”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “This morning. Why are you crying?”
She covers her face with her hands, wiping her cheeks.
“These are happy tears.”
They lie parallel under his sheets. She watches his chest rise and fall evenly, tracing small, delicate patterns across the length of his arm.
“Roman,” she whispers, sitting up to rest on her elbow, the covers falling from over them, exposing the mess they made a few hours ago. The room is dipped in darkness, the curtains drawn, shielding them from having to return to the outside world. The reality in which she only gets to wake up in his arms sparingly.
She hates it.
“Hmm.”
His eyes remain closed, and she lowers back down so that her head rests on her arm.
“I don’t want to leave you anymore,” she says in a hushed tone. Her stomach dips at her confession, the weight of her words slicing through her.
His eyes fly open, and he lets out a soft laugh, drawing her to his chest. “Oh, well. Thank God,” he says, his voice muffled by her hair. “Here I thought we were holding pretty steady. Guess I was mistaken.”
Jahlani pulls back to look at him, shaking her head softly.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?” he murmurs against her cheek, dropping a swift kiss to it. She inhales sharply, her body molding into his warmth, like a flower bends to light.
“They’re opening a new branch,” she sighs, threading her fingers into his hair. “And they want to hire internally. It’s been more than six months, and the salary is double what I make now, and I …” She loses her train of thought when his mouth travels to her neck next and spends a deliberate amount of time there with his teeth and tongue. “Ro,” she breathes. “You’re not listening to me.”
She pulls at his roots, drawing his eyes to hers and he looks at her, his forehead bending as he frowns.
“I’m always listening to you.”
Jahlani rolls her eyes and attempts to push him away, but he tightens his grip on her.
He nods and presses a kiss to her other cheek. “Go for it. It sounds incredible.”
She nods, swallowing. “It is. Incredible.”
He tangles his hand against the back of her neck, pulling it back to press an open-mouthed kiss to the column of her throat.
“When’s the interview?” he asks.
Her nails press into his arm when his mouth sucks.
