Page 4 of When We Meet Again

I reach out to shake his hand and he takes it. I am by no means blind to his attraction. We hold our hands still as if a delicate thread is beginning to form between us. The way he looks at me…it’s easy to get lost in the way he watches me intently. And he doesNOTlook eighteen. Maybe twenty-two or twenty-three.

“Great to meet you.” Huskiness lingers in his tone.

I feel that greeting deep in the pit of my stomach and my heart flutters. When I look at Roman, I don’t see Patrick—I see nobody but him.

“Let’s get her a drink.” Roman slaps his brother's back like he owns the place, never taking his eyes from mine.

Patrick stops to talk to somebody and Roman and I step up to the dark wooden bar top.

“What’ll it be, Kensi? What’s your poison?”Men who look like they are in their twenties, apparently.

“A nickname. I’ve been friend-zoned quickly.” I joke, kind of.

He smirks.

“Whiskey, please.”

Roman signals the bartender who is eyeing him up like I’ve been doing all night. Subtly, but willing to risk it all.

“So tell me, Patrick’s friend, how did you meet my brother?” His eyes now indifferent and his face cold—the opposite of what it was just a minute ago.

I know I have the chance to tell him how I saw him first. It was he whom I wanted to meet. How my body reacted to him since the moment we locked eyes. If I only would’ve waited...

I blink back the tears,and I allow my gaze to find Roman’s, pulling me out of the memory. I’m sure I look like a hot mess. My blonde hair mussed from the wind at Patrick’s grave, and my makeup-less face. I look like a prepubescent, green-eyed boy without makeup, but at this point, I don’t give a damn.

“I’ll be fine. And to answer your question, I will be staying in the apartment. It’s mostly my shit anyway. He has a few outfits hanging in the closet… And his pillow.” Patrick was hardly ever home. And when he was, he’d sleep in the spare bedroom because he didn’t want to wake me up because of his snoring. He always ensured I would fall asleep in his arms even though I woke up alone. That was the promise he was able to keep.

Roman goes to say something else, but the sound of the sliding glass door opening stops him.

“Waverly, hun, are you ready to head out?” My mom asks me before giving Roman a sympathetic grin. Her timing has always been impeccable. It's like she knows a conversation is about to get deep and steps in to ruin it.

“Oh, Roman. I’m so sorry for your loss, sweet boy.” She brings him into a hug. They met a few times and immediately hit it off. One laugh from Roman’s wit, my mother was a goner. She even hinted to there being something between us, but I squashed that quickly. That was not the type of drama I enjoyed dabbling in.

He returns my mother’s embrace but never takes his eyes away from me.

I’m immediately drawn back to the night Roman and I met, he’d hugged me goodbye when he and Patick walked me to my car, and while in the embrace, he whispered in my ear, “If only I didn’t point you out to him.” When he pulled away, his eyes never left mine then, either. I’ve never asked him what he meant. I assumed he’d had a few too many and would probably want that throwaway thought left to lie. But I’ve never felt so safe ina hug before. Despite Patrick standing right next to me, I let it linger for a little longer than I should have. It was nothing. Just the remnants of a woman longing for her love language to be answered without knowing the man next to her wouldn’t be capable of fulfilling it.

Every time Roman was around he’d be the first to hug me—hello or goodbye. Something I’d never be so bold to do first. Never was I the one to initiate contact. I was loyal to Patrick to a fault. Almost to an extreme, which I’m sure led to a deep-rooted and undiscovered resentment that I’ve harbored all these years.

Roman has always had an air about him. Like he screamsperfect friendandhot sexin the same breath. Everyone wants to be near him. Girls want to date him and figure out the key to locking him down—a theory I obviously couldn’t confirm or deny, and guys want to be his friend.

I turn uncomfortably and gaze back out at the trees, ignoring a strange new tension between us.

My mother finally releases him from her mom-hug and taps my arm. “Thanks for talking to my daughter. She refuses to talk to me about how she’s feeling.”

She needs to stop talking. Roman narrows his eyes at me. Again. Not in frustration or disdain, but in pure curiosity. Like I’m a puzzle to him. There's a reason I don't talk to her. She will take everything I'm feeling and exacerbate it, and I don't need all the extra shit right now. I just need tobe.

I plaster a fake smile on my face and squint at Roman through the sun. “It was great to see you again, Rome, but we really should be going. I have a lot of…”A lot of nothing to do.“Shit to do.”

“Language!” My mother squeezes my arm and mumbles under her breath, “I’ll never have grandkids with that potty mouth. Men want women who are conservative.”

“Okay, Mom.”

Roman moves toward me, ignoring my mother's words, and pulls me into another hug. I lean against him, returning the embrace, but my body tenses. He smells of faint cigarette smoke and some type of coconut oil you'd buy in a surf shop. Having a good seven or eight inches on me, he leans down so my chin rests easily on his shoulder.

His head turns slightly, pushing his mouth against my ear, and whispers so only I can hear, “I’m always here for you, Kensi. Always.” And he pulls away with tears filling his eyes. I offer him a cold nod and turn to help my mother down the patio steps, not giving Roman another glance.

The thing is, he and Patrick look nothing alike, but they also have the same look—if that makes sense. It’s the type of look that’s so dangerous, it could have you saying ‘I do’ when you really ‘don’t’.

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