Teaching Roman (13 page)

“I’m sure that would give my future patients great comfort.” If I ever had patients. If I ever made it to med school. My stomach clenched at the thought. Maybe it was better if I didn’t become a doctor, since I wasn’t even capable of contraception.

“Aren’t you on the pill?”

“Nope,” I admitted. “Do you know how horrible that is for your body? The risks associated with hormonal contraception include...” I rattled off a list of known side effects, but Jillian wasn’t budging.

“I’m on the pill,” she reminded me, “and you’ve never expressed concern.”

“And you’ve been going bareback with Liam for how long?” This time I was the one who rolled my eyes. It made me feel childish, which was a strange combination giving the very adult anxiety I was currently facing.

“Because I’m on the pill!”

There was no point arguing about this. It was as futile as my life felt at the moment. Tears welled in my eyes and I did my best to blink them back. Jillian’s stony expression softened and she wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?” I asked. Not because I wanted an answer, but because I couldn’t fathom how it would be. I was in the middle of prepping for med school entrance exams and weighing my university options. A baby wasn’t part of those plans. Not to mention that I’d ran out on the father, who just so happened to be a freaking instructor at my school. Things were definitely not going to be okay.

“Let’s not worry until you take the test,” she suggested softly.

The problem was that not only was that impossible, but also that I felt like there was no way this was going to work out in my favor. I’d royally fucked up this time. There would be consequences. Decisions I didn’t want to face. Not alone.

I watched Jillian purchase the test, too numb to do it myself. It was an out-of-body experience as though I was floating overhead and watching someone else’s life. This was not Jess Stone. In three years of university, none of us had had a pregnancy scare, and I’d have bet money that I wouldn’t be the first one.

I guess the odds weren’t in my favor.

But when we climbed the steps to our apartment, I realized my reproductive status wasn’t the only surprise I had in store for me that evening.

Roman was standing at our door.

Y
anking Jillian to the side, I tried to pretend I wasn’t shaking. It couldn’t be a coincidence that he was here tonight of all nights.

“What is he doing here?” I demanded under my breath, hoping he couldn’t hear me.

“I texted him,” she admitted. There wasn’t a shred of remorse in her eyes.

“I had no idea you two were so chatty.” I didn’t want to snap, but I felt like a rubber band being stretched across a football field—snapping was inevitable.

Jillian grabbed my shoulder as if she expected me to run. “I messaged him on your phone.”

“You had no right—”

“Turnabout’s fair play,” she said with a shrug.

Dammit. She had me there. I had been the one to call her mother when she was in the hospital, and I’d butted into her relationship with Liam more than once. But she was being childish. “This is different. You were sick.”

“I don’t think it’s that different. He should be here if—”

“This—” I held up the bag from the drug store—“has nothing to do with him!”

“Remind me how women get pregnant again,” she said drily.

If I continued this conversation with her I was going to scream, so I took a steadying breath and turned around to face the Hispanic inquisition. Roman watched me warily, his eyes darting between me and Jillian. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his faded jeans, but he looked anything but casual. He positively smoldered with anger. At me? At the situation? I couldn’t exactly tell.

Jillian nodded her head once at him before she unlocked the door and gestured for him to enter. He followed her inside, leaving me outside in the chill of a Pacific Northwest night. The March night wind cut to the bone this evening. Tomorrow it would be sunny and beautiful—or it would be gray and dismal. I strongly suspected tomorrow’s weather hinged on tonight’s activities. Shivering in the hallway, I forced myself to take a step toward the apartment. I couldn’t avoid this anymore. Regardless of what tomorrow held, the sun would still rise in the morning. I might as well face things.

I couldn’t meet his eyes as I shuffled into the apartment. My best friend had abandoned me with him. The pregnancy test suddenly weighed a million pounds. Jillian reappeared in the living room, tugging her unruly brown hair into a ponytail.

“I’m going to hang out at Liam’s and give you two some space.” She looked to me for confirmation that this was okay, but I couldn’t manage more than a mumble of approval.

But as she headed toward the door I caught her arm and leaned in to whisper, “Did you tell him why he’s here?”

She nodded and my heart sank. Part of me had wanted to lie and get him out of here as quickly as possible. But if he knew why Jillian had called him there was no way that was going to happen. The other part of me didn’t want him to go. Thankfully there was no choice in the matter. He wasn’t going to leave, but that didn’t make my confusion any less acute.

The door clicked shut behind her, and I closed my eyes, trying to locate my center of gravity.

“When were you going to tell me?” Roman asked in a quiet voice.

I spun to face him, the balance I’d sought slipping away. “I’ve only known for about two seconds myself!”

“How far along are you?”

My mouth fell open. He thought I was pregnant. Suddenly I felt like the girl who cried wolf. Fan-fucking-tastic. “I’m not pregnant.”

Roman’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “But Jillian said—”

“I might be pregnant,” I added, before he could get comfortable with the idea that he’d dodged a bullet. “I haven’t taken the test.”

Holding up the bag from the store, I waved it in front of him. Both our gazes fell on it, knowing it held an answer that neither of us might be ready to see.

“We should take it,” he said simply.

“I doubt you can take it,” I snapped, then sighed. Why couldn’t I keep my bitch at bay?

“You should take it,” he corrected himself, “and I’d like to hold your hand while you wait.”

Part of the icy numbness I’d felt all evening melted at his words, and tears pricked at my eyes. I tried to blink them away but they escaped, rolling down my cheeks in salty torrents I couldn’t control. “I’m...I’m...”

“You’re going to be okay,” Roman said, “and I’m going to be right here. No matter what happens.”

He led me toward the bathroom, leaning against the wall while I went in. My heart sped up as I ripped open the foil and pulled the stick out. My hands shook as I read the directions, even though I was pretty sure it didn’t take a rocket scientist to take a pregnancy test. After some trial and error, I sat the test back on the sink and opened the bathroom door.

“How long?” he asked me.

“Three minutes.” My voice sounded foreign to me, small and distant.

“Jess.” He paused and cupped my chin, directing my eyes to meet his. “Whatever that test says, I need you to know something. I love you. I want to be with you. You ran before, and I should have come after you. Maybe things between us are complicated. Maybe they’re going to get more complicated. But I don’t want to face another second without you. And I know this is happening fast, but I’ve spent the last month thinking about you, wishing that I hadn’t let you walk out that door. I told you I don’t want easy. I want sleepless nights and lazy Sundays. I want to watch you go to med school and miss you when you work late hours. I want you. Always.”

And for the first time that line from Cassie’s favorite movie made sense to me. Because I’d realized who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and now I couldn’t wait for the rest of my life to start. My throat was too raw to respond, though, so I simply nodded. I couldn’t say the words back. Not because I didn’t feel them, but because he’d stolen my breath from me.

Searching my face with his penetrating brown eyes, he finally leaned in and brushed a soft kiss over my lips. It said everything I needed to hear and everything he didn’t need to say. What had happened between us was more than a simple fling or an infatuation. It was a living, breathing, vital part of my life from this day forward. I’d been scared with Brett to make plans a week in advance, but I couldn’t see an end to being with Roman.

I didn’t want to.

He pulled away and took my hand “Shall we take a look?”

The closest I hope I’ll ever come to walking the green mile is walking into that bathroom. The test sat on the counter and looked like it was a million miles away. I picked it up, glancing to Roman for reassurance. I sucked in a breath and looked down.

One line.

One line.

One line.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“It means...I’m not pregnant.” All the feelings I’d kept trapped inside for the last few hours flooded through me. Joy. Relief. And something that strangely felt like disappointment. I shook my head as if to clear the swirling confusion from my body. It didn’t help.

Roman didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask me to explain or how I was feeling. Instead he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in close. Usually this proximity to his body sent me into a horny spiral from which there was no return, but this time I relished the security of his embrace. It was where I was meant to be.

“About what I said before,” he whispered against my ear, “I meant every word. Tell me what you want—what you need.”

I closed my eyes and buried my face in his shoulder, letting go of all the logic and lists. “I need you to stay.”

I didn’t have to ask again.

I
pushed the lid shut on the pizza and slid it a few feet away, rolling over so I wasn’t lying on my newly full stomach. Pizza on the floor of my room surrounded by stacks of books was quickly becoming our Friday night routine. As in Roman and me, because we were officially a couple even though we weren’t spending much time on dates or hitting the bars. Between Roman’s upcoming dissertation defense and my MCAT next week, we’d had to resort to study dates if we wanted to see each other at all. March had passed us in a blur, both of us trying to keep up with papers and classes while finding time to be together. Memorizing viral life cycles while your boyfriend refined his argument on communications dynamics in social media relationships wasn’t exactly romantic to most people, but it worked for us.

Roman glanced up from his laptop and grinned at me. “Full?”

“Stuffed and happy,” I said, patting my stomach. “I think I could take a nap.”

“That sounds amazing. Is it terrible that my own research makes me yawn?” he asked.

“I think that’s the nature of academics.”

“What are you working on?” Roman leaned over to eye my book, which was open to diagram that detailed the attachment of viruses to host cells.

I gave an overdramatic yawn of my own. “Nothing sexy. Basic stuff I need to know.”

“Not sexy, huh?” His hand crept toward my stomach, slipping under my shirt to massage deep strokes across my abdomen. “You make it look sexy.”

My back arched up to meet his touch, but I forced myself to pull away. “I have to be able to nail this material before I can nail you.”

Roman’s mouth curved into a smirk at my announcement and he grabbed for my book.

“Hey!”

He wagged a finger at me, pushing up to sit against the wall. His hair was tangled from running his fingers through it as he read and his jaw was peppered with the stubble he ignored starting on Friday morning. By Monday he’d be clean-shaven Markson in his khakis and button down, doing his best to not draw any more unwanted attention from his female students, but right now he was Roman—my Roman—in his thin, white v-neck and jeans. Later his five o’clock shadow would scratch teasingly across my skin. I could almost feel the delicious tickle of it now, and it was very, very distracting.

“I think we should find a way to make studying sexier,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow, already up for the challenge. “Interesting plan.”

“I thought so. I will quiz you on viral life cycles and for every answer you get wrong, you have to take off a piece of clothing.” He waggled his eyebrows at me, his grin widening.

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared him down. “So this is sexy studying for you.”

“I’m wounded.” Roman feigned a pout. “I’m a feminist, Jessica. I’m all about equality.”

“You are, huh?”

“If you get the answer right,” he said, “I’ll take off a piece of clothing.”

“How many questions are there?” I asked, straining to see the page he was looking at.

“Twenty.”

“So we can’t possibly lose.” I stretched my arms over my head innocently, pretending I didn’t notice how his eyes lingered on the neckline of my tank top.

“I’m pretty sure we’re on the brink of a revolutionary discovery about learning,” he said, flipping the pages of the book. “Ready?” There was a challenge in his words. One I was eager to meet. “An autoimmune disorder which attacks and destroys the villi of the small intestine would have which of the following impacts on digestion?”

“Inefficient nutrition absorption,” I answered without batting an eyelash.

“That sounds terrible.”

“Stop stalling,” I said, snatching the papers out of his hands, “and strip.”

Roman’s mouth crooked into a grin. “You want me to start with the socks?”

“I think you should reward me with something more...substantial.”

“Lady’s choice then.”

I watched as he grabbed the back of his shirt. He paused, waiting for my okay, which I gave him with an eager nod. Roman pulled the shirt slowly over his head, aware that he had an audience. Inch by inch he revealed his smooth, toned abs, each one a new reward for me. Reaching for the paper, he settled back onto his heels with a smug smile plastered on his face. I rubbed my hands together, realizing I knew this stuff backwards and forwards. That meant I could take a break tonight. It didn’t hurt that I could show off for my boyfriend
and
get him down to his birthday suit.