Page 43 of Forever Fighting
“I can’t ask you to pay for another suite or have you move.”
My lips bounce as I catch the latter part, despite her deadpan tone. “I’d be the one moving, huh?”
“Well…” She pans her hands around. “I mean, yeah. Look at this place. I’m not switching rooms to something less. It’s my non-honeymoon.”
My eyebrows lift. “Your non-honeymoon?”
“I am technically a newlywed.”
I gesture back toward the inside. “So this is our honeymoon suite then?”
“Non-honeymoon suite,” she corrects. “Except I didn’t intend to share the bed with my husband.”
My hands meet the back of my head, my elbows butterflied out. “At least I know you didn’t marry me for my money the way every other woman tries to.”
I get an eye roll. “Your money is one of my least favorite things about you.”
“So what’s your favorite then?” I counter, giving her a challenging eyebrow.
She puffs out a small laugh. “I’ll tell you later after we’re done fighting about this.”
“I can sleep on the sofa.” Though the idea of spending seven nights on the admittedly beautiful but likely uncomfortable couch makes my back twinge preemptively.
She shakes her head. “You’re too big for the sofa. You’ll be intraction, and I don’t want to have to nurse you back to health. I’m off-duty this week.”
“I don’t know what else to do, Braelyn. You’re not going to fit on that sofa either.”
She turns around, her hair that’s escaping her bun whipping in the wind before she unexpectedly marches inside and through the suite to the bedroom. I follow and watch as she jumps backward onto the bed, her arms and legs spread wide like a starfish.
“What are you doing?”
“This bed is huge.” She moves her arms and legs like she’s making a snow angel. “We could probably both sleep here without knowing the other person is there.”
My heart picks up a few extra beats, though I work to keep my expression neutral and the hope simmering in my stomach down. “You’re okay with that? We’ll have to share the bathroom too.”
“Roman, I’ve seen you in nothing but your gym shorts with a split lip and possibly a fractured rib after those ridiculous fights. I’ve held your head and rubbed your back as you threw up tequila on my twenty-first birthday. I also walked in on you fucking… what was her name?”
I huff out a breath and climb onto the bed beside her. “I wasn’t fucking her.”
“You were both naked.”
“I was twenty-three. That was a very long time ago.”
“I know. I was seventeen, and I remember it. You look different shirtless now. More muscles and ink. I’ll manage.”
I prop myself up and stare down at her. “Are you sure?”
“We’re both adults, and it’s just sleeping.”
Disappointment ripples through me, but it’s no less than what I was expecting. Or what I’m used to fighting when it comes to wanting something I’ll never have with her.
“Right,” I agree with an empty laugh. “Just sleeping.”
We stare at each other for a moment, no words passing, but a maelstrom of tension and emotions settles between us. She kissed me in the casino. It wasn’t much of a kiss. Just a hard peck on the lips. The kind your grandmother would give you when you were a kid. But that’s not how it felt to me. She was in my arms with her lips pressed to mine, and I know it was just the excitement of winning, but fuck, I wanted it to be real.
I wanted it to mean something to her.
I want all of it to. The bands on our hands and this time together.
