Page 63 of The Billionaire Benefactor

Chapter 19

Roman grunted, setting down his dumbbells on the rack of the home gym in his mother’s house. “Tell me again why you’re making such a big deal about this,” he asked Blake.

Roman had been home two weeks and just started feeling like he could exercise again without pain shooting through his skull. The doctor said he could do physical activity—not football, of course—according to how he felt. Lifting weights was about the extent of it and he was already feeling a mild throbbing behind his eyes.

“Because, dummy. I know stuff you don’t know—or don’t remember. I’m trying to help Roman now connect with Roman then.”

“They said I might not ever remember.” He hated the way his voice laced with bitterness. He didn’t want to be that guy. But it sucked not knowing, even if his memory loss was just the one area. Just Jenny.

“Say you don’t remember ever. Okay. But you, Roman, fell for this woman. You’d fall for her again.”

Roman shook his head, picking up another set of weights. “Maybe. But I have to say, this doesn’t sound like me: a widow with two kids. Who also told me she didn’t want to date me, apparently, then shows up in my hospital bed. What am I missing?”

Blake sighed, hands on his hips, and hung his head. Then he walked out of the room, probably to go to the bathroom or get water from the kitchen. Roman didn’t care if he took his time. Blake was driving him crazy.

Roman hadn’t left home. Not to go to the training center or the games. A few of the coaches had come out the first few days he’d been home and the conversations had been light, talking around the fact that Roman wasn’t coming back. No one said it out loud. They’d just smiled fake smiles and talked vaguely about the future. Only Blake kept coming by, kept pushing him to come back and at least support the team. The team he wouldn’t be able to play for again.

Roman appreciated it. But he wished Blake would leave this Jenny business alone. He considered it lucky—he couldn’t remember just one portion of his life. But it was a small portion. He hadn’t known Jenny that long and hadn’t officially even been her boyfriend. The only thing that really bothered him was the hurt he’d seen on her face when she ran from his hospital room.

Blake had talked to her once or twice and explained. She hadn’t realized that Roman didn’t remember her. Blake said that it made her feel better to know that Roman wasn’t just kicking her out because of how things ended in their relationship. He hated the thought of hurting anyone, but in some ways, this was probably a good thing. If things hadn’t been working with them anyway, this killed off any hope this Jenny may have had. And obviously she’d had some, since she spent the night next to him in the hospital bed.

It had felt nice to wake up with her next to him, though. He could still remember her face and the affection in her voice when she spoke to him. He’d been startled, but he also sensed that she cared about him.

But that didn’t mean he should start something. It still seemed best to let things lie.

Blake stormed back in the room as Roman was finishing up another set of overhead presses. “What’s that?” Roman asked as Blake held out a stack of papers.

“Take these,” Blake said. When Roman didn’t move, Blake shook them at him. “I said take them.”

Roman reached out and took the papers. It looked like printer paper, the kind kept in his father’s old office in the printing tray. They were covered with words, his handwriting.

“You’re sick of me trying to connect you to the past, I’ll let you do the connecting.” Blake turned on his heel and headed for the door. “Best of luck to you. Call me when you’re done.”

“I don’t understand,” Roman said.

Blake swung back around and was practically yelling. “You wrote her letters! The month before your accident when you weren’t together, you wrote letters to her. Just read them.”

Roman looked down at the papers in his hand. They made him feel nervous. It was a strange thought—to read words he had written that he didn’t remember writing. As it had so many times when he pressed himself to remember, a pulsing throb began, stronger than it had been. Roman sighed and set the papers down on a weight bench.

“If you’re so into this woman, why don’t you date her?”

Blake pressed his hands over his eyes. “Roman, I love you. But you’re killing me. I would date her. Trust me, I’ve thought about it. I’ve been nice. I’ve flirted. But she is completely uninterested in me. Jenny wants you. Read the letters. And if you still don’t want to try talking to her, I’ll stop pushing you. But I won’t ever stop telling you that it’s a huge mistake.”

Roman watched Blake walk through the door, leaving him alone in the weight room with the letters. His headache was spreading to the back of his neck. Rubbing a hand at the base of his skull, Roman turned off the light in the weight room and went to find some medicine.

After three days, Roman couldn’t avoid the letters any longer. A low headache had plagued him since the conversation with Blake. He’d been chowing down on pain relievers like they were candy and his mom was starting to fuss.

“Maybe we need to go back to the doctor. What if there’s damage they missed—”

“Mom. It’s just a headache. This is normal,” he said.

“If it continues for another day, I’m calling the doctor.”

Roman rolled his eyes but gave his mom a soft pat on the shoulder as he went to his room. Though he knew she was genuinely worried, she also relished in taking care of him again. She had an outlet for her worry in his health that gave her a focus. She felt needed. It was driving him crazy, but he also felt like it was a kind of gift he could give—to let her worry and take care of him. He couldn’t take much more of it, though, and had started looking again for listings to move out. Not that she would let him now. If anything, she was more involved.

Shutting himself in his room, Roman pulled out the letters. He suspected that they were the cause of his lingering headache. Maybe reading them would help soothe the pain.

At least it would get Blake off his back. He’d never seen Blake so frustrated with him. They’d butted heads occasionally over the years, but usually over something having to do with God. Blake liked to give Roman a hard time about going to church, saying that it was for people who couldn’t think for themselves. Arguing the point never ended in a good way, so Roman had learned to let Blake’s comments roll off. The best counter to those arguments was simply to show Blake it wasn’t true by the way he lived. Over time, the comments had softened.

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