Page 57 of Sweet Somethings

"They can be."

"I know your mother had issues, but did she cook for you?"

"Rarely. I usually cooked for her."

"What did you make?"

"I was really good at spaghetti and mac and cheese that came out of a box. Tuna was a popular favorite. Hot dogs occasionally."

"Anything from the fruit or vegetable section of the grocery store?" she asked with a smile.

"Not very often. Sometimes a neighbor would drop off apples or oranges."

"Did you live in a house or an apartment?"

"Lots of different apartments. Sometimes there were roommates."

"Male roommates?"

"Both male and female. Most of them were nice enough."

"You lived a very different life than I did," she murmured.

"I did. I don't want to paint it all black, Juliette. My mom was not a bad or evil person. She had problems, and she didn't handle them well, but she wasn't mean. She loved me in her own way, as best she could."

She had a feeling Roman had been defending his mother for a very long time, and she respected the fact that he didn't blame her for ruining his life or making it hard, because there was no doubt it had been difficult.

The doorbell rang.

"That was fast," Roman said. "I'll get our pizza. Don't read ahead. We're doing this together."

"I'll wait for you," she said, sipping her beer as he left the room.

While he was gone, she closed her eyes for just a moment and let herself remember the old days. She could almost picture her homework before her, her mom at the stove, the sound of the TV in the living room where her dad watched the news every night. But the images were blurry, the sounds not as sharp as she would have thought they'd be, sitting here in the room where it had all happened.

She opened her eyes, feeling a little disappointment that her memories weren't better, that the house hadn't made them brighter. Maybe she'd been a fool to think they would be any different here.

Roman came back into the room, and she put a smile on her face as he set down the pizza and then grabbed paper plates and napkins for them. She didn't want to think about the past anymore.

"So tell me about the Marines," she said as she grabbed her first piece. "About your friends—the guys in your unit."

"Well, Cole is probably my closest friend. He's from Texas, and he's got a big, loud personality. Jimmy is loud, too, but more of a flirt, more of a ladies' man. Henry is the quiet one. We sometimes forget he's in the room. But his instincts are razor-sharp. Then there's Walton; he comes from the Louisiana bayou, and he talks endlessly about fishing and crocodiles and all other kinds of swamp creatures. He's the most superstitious, too. He has all kinds of rituals to ward off evil. I found myself doing the craziest things just so I wouldn't break some superstitious rule. He took us to Mardi Gras one year, and I met his crazy relatives and finally understood where his beliefs came from."

She liked the softness in his voice when he talked about his friends. "You miss them, don't you?"

"I do. We've spent most of the past seven years together. We're brothers." He took a breath, then added, "I never had anyone in my life who watched my back until I joined the Marines."

"Not even your grandfather?"

"He did the one time—after the fire. I don't think I appreciated it at the time. But the guys I served with—they would die for me, and I would do the same for them. Knowing that there were men I could count on made me want to be the person they could count on."

"I'm sure you were that person."

"Until I got hurt."

"Probably protecting someone else," she guessed.

"You don't know that."

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