“I did,” she grits out, tightening her grip on her bag as she peers into his pinched expression.
He scoffs. “What? One time?”
“Well, fool me once.”
She moves forward, reaching her boiling point, her mind racing through her confrontations with her dad. With Micah. Jackson. Him.
“You’reallthe same. You show up when you want to, do what you want to, go through life casually, never having to worry about anything, never considering other people. Everything is handed to you while others have to break their backs to even get half of what you have, to even be given a fighting chance.”
His jaw clenches, and for a moment, she wonders if she’s projecting.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, his tone low as he steps forward.
His features become clearer. His left eyebrow has slightly more hair. His jawline is sharper than she realized.
It throws her off-kilter.
How obnoxiously handsome he is.
“Sure, I do, Roman.” She steps closer, pointing a finger at his chest. “I’ve been dealing with people likeyoumy whole life.”
“People like me?” He repeats as he steps closer, causing her finger to brush his chest.
“Yes,” she hisses. “Guyswho like to cruise on by without a care in the world. You put in just enough effort because, let’s face it, nobody’s putting the heat on you?—”
“What—”
“No matter what you do, you’ll be great. You’ll shoot, you’ll score, and the crowd will gowild.”
He shakes his head, rubbing his jaw. “There you go again, making all these crazy assumptions about me. What is your problem?”
She rises on her toes, leaning closer as his face lowers slightly.
“You’re my problem, Roman. You keepplaying me. You think everything is a joke, that we can just laugh away our problems.You asked for my help, and I’mhere. I’m showing up and you’re not.”
She’s close now, and he has to tilt his head to look down at her. Her nostrils flare, and the air shifts around her, sharpening in an instant. It’s confusing what it does to her. So confusing that she draws in a ragged breath. There’s a faint hint of what smells like clean laundry and lavender, and something else. It’s the kind that wraps itself around you, settles deep in your bones, and makes your heartbeat just a little faster—like it belongs in a place where she’s never been, but would happily lose herself in. It’s intoxicating and grounding.
Heat travels up her stomach when his eyes flicker to her mouth. For a moment, she loses herself.
Because for some unhinged reason, she wonders what would happen if he closed the distance between them with his mouth. She wonders what it would feel like and if he’d be assertive yet gentle or fast and reckless. Jahlani doesn’t say anything for several seconds, and something flickers in his gaze before he steps back. She instantly feels her body simmer down at his retreat.
She wonders if she’slosing her mindbecause how can you go from wishing you’d never met a person to wanting that exact same one to pull you into their chest and press you firmly into a wall.
The look that he gives her is closed off. Far away. Not the usual expression she’s used to seeing on Roman.
She knows she let her emotions get the better of her, and so she opens her mouth to apologize, but his next words make her freeze.
“Look, whatever guy has you all twisted up and bitter inside, take it up with him. I’m not the problem here.”
He doesn’t say it with an edge in his tone. There’s no sneer or fever behind the words. He just sounds exhausted.
And for some reason, that disturbs hermore. She could’ve handled it if he had said them in the heat of the moment, but his voice isn’t loud, and his lungs don’t tremble, and she knows that hemeansthat. He must see that he’s hit a nerve because he starts to reach out, but she steps backward with her hand raised.
“Jahlani,” he says, his voice strained and desperate. “Do you remember when we first met? You asked me if someone was sick.”
Taking a shuddering breath, she blinks rapidly, all of the energy seeping from her body.
No, she thinks to herself.That can’t be it. She can’t have been that wrong.
