Page 16 of Roman
“What is this jiggly stuff?” I pointed to the rainbow cubes of an unknown substance.
“Gelatin. It’s fruit flavored. My nephew and nieces love it.” Roman looked at me for a moment before shaking his head. “I’m not sure how to better describe it. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it, obviously.”
I nodded before I scooped some onto my plate before moving along. Whatever gelatin was, we did not have it in our realm. I was going to give it a try though. It jiggled as I continued down the line of food, and once I was finally finished filling both of my plates, I found Roman waiting for me. He glanced between me and the plates, one still floating, before he chuckled.
“Shall we?”
“Yes.”
Roman threw several glances my way as we walked across the lawn and toward the line of spaced-out blankets. I spotted Konrad, who was sitting with a young man and a pair of toddlers. Those must be his grandchildren he had talked about so much. He waved, and I did what I could to let him know I had seen him.
Roman stopped at a nearby blanket before looking at me expectantly. “Will this do?”
“Absolutely.” I sat down, and as the floating plate glided down beside me, Roman shook his head. “What?”
“That will take some getting used to. I’ve worked with fae before, but the fact that my mate ended up being fae, that was completely unexpected.”
“In a good way or bad?” I knew some people here weren’t fond of us. It was true, we could easily become bored, and a bored fae was often a mischievous one—myself included.
“Certainly not bad.” Roman pointed at the plate that was beside me. “That is just something new for me. I have two brothers, and one is mated to Ramsey, who is a gargoyle, and the other is mated to Knox, who is a vampire.”
I couldn’t help it—my eyebrows rose at the mention of vampire. We were taught in school that vampires were not good for fae as they often became obsessed with our blood. I didn’t know how much of that was true, but I hadn’t ever let it cause me any fear.
“And they were who you were with earlier?”
Roman nodded. “Yes.” He glanced away for a moment before looking directly at me. “Our parents were killed when the twins were days old. It’s a tragic story, but one that you must know before anything will be able to happen between the two of us.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. About your parents, I mean.” I glanced around. The blankets were spaced out, but as paranormals, hearing from afar was a thing. “Perhaps you cantell me about it? At another time?” I didn’t know if Roman wished to discuss things of that nature during our first meeting. This certainly wasn’t how I ever dreamed my first date would be with my mate, but here we were.
“Perhaps next time? I wish for you to know all about my family, but it might not be the best story for our first time spent together.”
I grinned. “Understood.”
“Care to tell me a bit about yourself? Have you always wanted to run a bakery? Do you have siblings other than your brother? Do you like it here? Miss home?”
It was my turn to chuckle. “Run a bakery? Not necessarily. I don’t mind though, and it’s not exactly new. I worked in our village’s bakery before coming here.” I thought back to the order of questions. “As far as we know, Evan and I are the only two of us. Our parents went missing when I was fourteen. They were supposed to be visiting a neighboring village, but they never arrived. They were searched for, but we do not know what became of them. We can only assume they passed.” It was possible that they were still alive out there somewhere, but wouldn’t they have come back to us by now? I had to believe that, yes, they would. “I like it here, and no, I do not miss the fae realm. It’s nice. Different. But there is so much more here.” I suddenly became excited. “Do you like television? Evan got us one, and there’s this show—I love it. There’s so many different shows and movies on it.”
Roman chuckled. “I have watched television before, yes. I even own one, although it’s rather small. Most of my time is spent grading papers or creating study plans.”
“Grading papers.” I thought about that. “You’re a teacher?”
Roman nodded. “I teach at the local college down off of the mountain. History. It was something that I loved to teach before I took a break to raise my brothers.”
I thought about that for a moment. “So, you raised them? Like Evan raised me.” I shook my head. “No, you said they were only days old when your parents died. Evan was lucky because I was already able to basically take care of myself. That must have been difficult for you.” I had no doubt that Roman would at one point share with me what happened, but it was incredibly sad. His brothers never knew their parents. “You’re their dad more than their brother.” Evan would always be my brother because we’d been raised as siblings. But Roman was the only parent his brothers had ever known.
“In a way, yes. But to them, I’m their brother. When they were younger, they did see me as their dad and even called me dad. When they were old enough to understand, I explained everything to them.”
“Are you close?” I asked. “Evan and I are. Well, we were. I’m not sure what’s going on with him today. I never expected him to act how he did just a bit ago.” We were going to have a long talk when I got home. I knew, without a doubt, that Roman was my mate. But that didn’t mean I had plans to go home with him this evening. Would I make the sexy alpha wait long? Most likely not. I was eager to know all about the pleasures that could be found between mates, and I had a feeling that Roman would certainly be able to fulfill all of my fantasies.
“We…it can be a bit complicated. I was overly protective because I had to be,” Roman said. “The circumstances of me ending up with them did not allow for anything else. That was difficult to give up when they found their mates.” Roman nodded. “I can understand Evan and where he’s coming from. It can be difficult to go from protector and provider to just brother.”
I took a moment to think about Roman’s words. They made sense. Was that what was going on with Evan? Was he suddenlyfaced with the fact that I would now have a mate to take care of me, wondering how he would fit into my life going forward?
“I’m not going to want to not have a relationship with my brother,” I said.
“I would never ask that of you.” Roman shook his head. “Just last week, I was trying to figure out how to rebuild mine with my brothers.” Roman smiled. “They have weekly family dinners, and I’d love it if you would join us.”
I smiled. “I’d like that. Do you think your brothers will like me?” There were going to be a lot of changes coming soon, and I was beginning to worry about some of them. Would his brothers accept me? Would I get along with them? Would they feel as if I were taking their brother away from them?
