I smoothed out my leggings and took a deep breath, hiking my gym bag onto my shoulder. Roman was… he made me feel…
We stood there staring at each other for the longest moment. No, I had never felt this way before, but nobody had ever made me feel the way Roman did. Being with him was dangerous and oh-so-exciting.
He didn’t leave me in the yard alone, like he did at the school. Instead, he glanced down, clenching his hands into fists. “What’s this?” Roman asked, noticing and grasping the keychain on my bag. In a moment of realization, he widened his eyes. “My mom’s keychain? You still have it?” His face contorted into one of strain.
I gave him a shy smile and looked down at it, a feeling of warmth washing over me. “Yes.”
It seemed like it was yesterday when she thrusted it into my palm, curled my small fingers around it, and told me not to tell anyone because this keychain was our little secret.
He curled his lips into a small—a very small—smile and stayed quiet for a long time. “You know that she always loved you.” He looked as if he wanted to say something more about it, but then he shook his head. “Even more than me sometimes.” He chuckled to himself and looked down at his feet. “Always told me to take care of you.”
“Of me?” I asked, brow raised. “Only me?”
“Of everyone, Isabella.”
“But especiallyme?” I teased.
He gazed at me, eyes lighting up. “Especially you.”
After another moment of silence and a torn expression crossing his face, he grabbed my hand. “Come on. I want to bring you somewhere.”
Chapter 5
Isabella
He held his hands over my eyes and led me through the woods, making sure that I didn’t bump into any twigs or trees.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to peek around his fingers.
“Patience, Isabella,” he said. We walked for five more minutes with me in complete darkness. And then he suddenly stopped.
When he peeled back his hands, I gasped. “You brought me back to the cave?” I asked, walking around it. We hadn’t been here since we were pups, when Luna Raya would invite me on playdates with Roman and we’d get lost in the woods.
It had been so long. So fucking long.
Moonflowers hung from the top of it, growing through rocks and dirt and twinkling softly. I grinned at them, bringing one to my nose and inhaling its scent.
“Roman,” I said breathlessly.
He stared at me, trying to suppress a grin, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you remember this place?”
“Of course, I do!”
His grin widened, and he walked to one sides of the cave, drawing his fingers across the stone and over the stupid little drawings that we used to create in here. “My favorite part about coming here was drawing these things.”
I walked over to him, gazing over his shoulder, and sighed softly. “Is that a turtle?” I asked, trying to make out the disfigured animal carved into the rock.
“You tell me,” he said. “That was your drawing.”
“Was not!”
“Was too!” He walked a few feet forward to the last drawing that we ever made here. Though they were all ruined just a little, this one was clearer than the others. “This one is mine.”
It was a beautifully detailed carving of a full circle—representing the moon—and a silhouette of a woman in front of it. I stared at it for a long time and smiled. “The Moon Goddess.”
He tensed and stared down at me, parting his lips to speak but no words came out. Instead he leaned down, picked up a small rock, and handed it to me.
“You want to draw another one?” I asked.
