Page 72 of Before Now

“It would be abduction, but we both know you’d come willingly.” He gets a shrug while I shove my earbuds in my bag. He’s right. “I did plan to track you down, though.”

“Mysterious and intriguing,” I tease.

A lady leads her dog by us on the sidewalk, not paying attention, but I still scan for anyone else. Roman’s in street clothes, clearly off-duty. Nothing about us talking in the town square should translate into anything, but a moment passes between us. He hooks his head in the direction he was going. We walk to his car not too far away.

“Silly,” I say, sliding into the passenger seat.

He holds the doorframe, a scowl aimed at me. “If you’re about to make fun of my car again, maybe you should keep walking.”

I press my lips together while he closes my door, muttering under his breath.

His car isn’t silly. A black two-door classic something he loves more than life. What’s silly is watching him fold himself into it because he won’t give it up.

As he contorts to fit in the driver’s seat, I look out the window and suppress a laugh. I might have taken my sweet time in the square to talk to Foster longer, but I’m near shivering under my coat, and a warm ride from Roman beats the cold any day.

“So, are you no longer satisfied with our emoji-only conversations?” I tilt my head at him as he pulls from the curb. “The paper, paper, weary face, pen, repeat, steam coming out the nose text was great.”

He chuckles, one hand rubbing his jaw and the other turning us away from the square. “It would be far faster to tell you I’m sick of never-ending paperwork.”

“I thought you meant you were exhausted from folding so much origami.” I smile when he side-eyes me.

The emojis started long ago, so long I’d need to scroll for a while to stumble upon anything else. We play it as a game, a challenge to keep it going. Although, deep down, it doubles as another contingency. Like my hidden bag. Like his contact nameR. Like us right now in his car.

We use it as a way to protect each other from the potential fallout.

And texting my mom’s ex in his police chief’s house sets up for all kinds.

“You could give up, you know? Admit defeat.”

“Never,” he says.

Roman pulls into a tiny lot of gravel near the playground equipment at the park. Somewhere for parents to marginally supervise from their car. My urge to grab my phone and capture the emptiness of the jungle gym surges. The abandoned slides and monkey bars missing life. Long dead leaves twirling across the bridge in the cold breeze. Everything exists in a state of waiting until the noise of laughter and life return.

“I love when you do that.”

I swing around to Roman studying me while I imagine the shot. “When I completely space the real world for one I’m framing in my head?”

“When you lose yourself, finding so much in the real world no one else cares to notice.”

My dad would say everyone experiences the pulse of the world around them, but only the rare eye sees through to its heart.

I slump in the seat, playing with a button on my coat. “Maybe I see it because I’m one of those things that go overlooked.”

Sometimes even by the man I loved more than anything.

The thought brings on a familiar onslaught of guilt. After my dad died and my mom got rid of the phone he’d given me—along with everything else I inherited—my anger turned on him too. He left me with her while he lived his dream, and his dream is ultimately how he left me forever. But then I realized it wasn’t fair to him.

The world shows us everything up front, and whether we look is on us. I learned young to hide what people don’t like to see—spare them the burden. I can’t blame my dad for believing I wouldn’t. He thought I missed him, not that I needed him to stay too.

A beat passes before Roman reaches in front of me to open the glove box. He places two fingers on a soft pink envelope and slides it straight out and into my lap. I squint at him, picking it up while he closes the compartment.

“Writing me love letters, Roman Moore?”

He pulls a face, clearly offended by the thought. “If I come across as someone who writes love letters, I need to reevaluate my shit.” He tips his chin to the envelope. “Open it.”

I unceremoniously tear through the flap, ripping the top. My head tilts, eyebrows slanting at the card inside. “What…?”

“It might be a little early, but you mentioned it the other day. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t hear you.”

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