“Bye, Roman.”
Swallowing hard, I grab my suitcase and stride through what feels like molasses to the front door. But before turning the doorknob, I turn to look at Iris’s beautiful, sweet face one last time. “I’m sorry if I’ve added to your pain. I only meant to help.”
Iris smiles thinly and nods through tears. “Thank you for everything.”
With a gigantic lump in my throat, I slip out the front door and immediately start striding with purpose toward my rental car in the parking lot. I’ve got a whole new life awaiting me in LA—one I couldn’t be more excited about. And yet, with each step I take away from the bungalow—away from Iris—I feel increasingly like I’m walking away from the great love of my life.
Chapter 26
Iris
“Any minute now,”Harper, my longtime bestie from Orchard Blossom, whispers.
She’s been matching my fidgety, scattered energy all day, when what I really need is for her to calm me down. It’s not that Harper gives a crap about some star quarterback she’s never met—especially one who doesn’t play for her beloved Seagulls. It’s that she cares so freaking much about me,and how much I’ve been second-guessing my decisions since parting ways with Roman in Hawaii, that she’s vicariously feeling all my pain and regret.
The Thunderbolts have scheduled a press conference at 3:00 pm Pacific Time, so Harper and I came here—Darcy’s Drinkhole, Orchard Blossom’s biggest sports bar—to watch it together. Roman said football fans would have a huge reaction to today’s announcement, and I want to see for myself in real time if he was right about that. Orchard Blossom is devout Seagulls country, but even so, the sports fans who congregate here tend to be diehard and knowledgeable about football in general. So I’m thinking they’ll be a good barometer for the significance of today’s announcement.
I’m so glad I came to Orchard Blossom to process everything that’s happened to me in such a short time. Everyone has been so good to me. So supportive. Granted, everyone other than Harper thinks I’ve been depressed and off-kilter since I got home because of what happened with Brandon. But of course, that pathetic sack of shit hasn’t even crossed my mind. No, it’s Roman who invades my waking and sleeping thoughts. Romanwho makes me ache, yearn, and constantly wonder,What if?Turning him down in Hawaii felt right in the moment. But ever since, I can’t stop wondering if I’d be happier by his side in LA, even on his less-than-optimal terms.
“Two minutes,” Harper murmurs.
“No countdowns, please,” I mumble. “I already feel like I’m going to barf.”
Her lips pursed in sympathy, Harper pats my hand on the bar while calling out to the bartender, Darcy, an Orchard Blossom fixture who loved my mother like a sister. “Hey, Darcy,” Harper shouts above the din. “Will you turn up the sound on that one?” She gestures to a TV immediately above Darcy’s head.
“You bet,” Darcy calls back. She grabs a remote, and suddenly, the words coming out of the talking-head sports guys on TV cut through the wall of background noise in the bar.
I take a long guzzle of beer, readying myself to behold Roman. Not in past photos or videos online—but live and in real time. When I see Roman on that screen in a couple minutes, I’ll know he’s existing in the same moment—albeit a thousand miles away, and in a city where he doesn’t think about me, even though I can’t stop obsessively thinking about him.
All of a sudden, the scene on TV cuts from the talking heads to a press conference. And there he is.Roman Maguire.Sitting behind a long table with two older gentlemen—one with a salt-and-pepper short-cropped Afro and the other with combed-over white hair—in front of a bank of microphones. Behind the three men, the backdrop is covered in thunderbolts—the logo of Roman’s new team.
I take Harper’s hand and squeeze it, feeling physically ill. You’d think Roman’s gorgeousness wouldn’t bowl me over anymore, after all the internet stalking I’ve done of him over the past ten days—but seeing him on air and knowing that’shimin the present moment is like seeingmyRoman again. The man whorolled around with me in bed, naked, for the better part of a week. The man who generously planned date after romantic date and kindly held me close when I cried.
To this day, I don’t know whyRoman did all that for me, especially now that I know he was never interested in pursuing an actual relationship. But the fact remains he did, and it was swoony as hell.
On TV, the older gentleman with the white hair welcomes everyone to the press conference, while a chyron identifies him as the owner of the Thunderbolts. He makes some introductory comments about his organization’s commitment to winning, to their fans, to the city of Los Angeles.Blah, blah, blah.Until finally, the man says the words I’m dying to hear: “Which is why I’m thrilled to introduce the Thunderbolts’ new quarterback, Roman Maguire, and our new head coach, Otis Hardy.”
Everyone surrounding me in the bar explodes with exclamations and reactions. People are variously clapping, hooting, booing, and cursing.
I look at Harper, and she looks taken aback by the sheer intensity and loudness of the reactions all around us. Before coming here today, I finally told another living person, Harper, the secret I’ve been keeping since Hawaii about Roman’s new team. I also told her what Roman said about the football world losing its shit over the news. But even with that forewarning, I don’t think either Harper or I could have anticipated the reactions happening around us. If a bar full of Seagulls fans in a Podunk town in Washington are reacting to Roman’s bombshell news like this, I can only imagine how diehard football fans in both Baltimore and LA are reacting.
“Are you kidding me?” a guy behind us at a table booms. “How is anyone gonna beat the T-Bolts now?”
“With a solid defense,” someone shoots back. “Which is exactly what we’ve got.”
“I’m happy for Roman,” a man to my right says. “The Crusaders never deserved him.”
“When they brought in Coach Keller,” a woman says, “that had to be the final straw for poor Roman. Who’d want to play for an egomaniac like that?”
Someone else chimes in to say, “‘Poor Roman’? Please. You should be pissed the Seagulls weren’t smart enough to nab him.”
A man from a different area of the bar shouts, “Fuck my life. With both Roman Maguire andCoach Hardy, the T-Bolts are going to be unstoppable this season.”
“No, they’re not,” another man spits back. “Roman’s gonna choke, like he always does, whether he switches teams or not. The guy is washed up. A total loser.”
Several men agree enthusiastically with that sentiment.
“Jeez,” I whisper to Harper. “They’re so mean.”
