Page 110 of Catch Me
“Tacos might be an aphrodisiac for me.”
“So, you liked them?”
“I won’t say no if you make them again.”
Just as I was moving my lips lower, Tessa leapt onto the couch. Roman laughed and reached out to pet her ears. “You’re neglecting her.”
Letting his shirt fall over his stomach, I sat up and scratched her chest. “She just doesn’t know how to relax.”
“Sounds like someone else I know. We should take her on a walk.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “She did get left behind when we went running this morning.”
Her head cocked, which told me she knew exactly which crime I was talking about. If I didn’t make it up to her, she’d probably hold it against me for life.
“Okay.” I got to my feet and stretched. “But just a walk.”
“Being lazy?” he teased.
“Nah, but I can’t talk to you on a run. There are a million things I need to learn about you before the weekend is up.”
He didn’t say anything, and his lips settled into a line. I wanted to ask about it, but he got to his feet.
“I’ll change.”
And like that, he was gone, just a disappearing figure down the hall.
I looked at Tessa and arched a brow. “He’s a tough nut to crack. We can do it, though, huh?”
She barked, her tail going a hundred miles an hour.
Yeah, we could do it. He was stubborn, but so were Tessa and I.
*****
“Alright, turbo!” I called. “I said just a walk.”
Roman chuckled beside me, which was one of the only sounds I’d heard from him since we left the house. Something had made him retreat into his protective shell, and I was determined to bring him back out, but I knew that I couldn’t do it by force unless I wanted a fight on my hands. An anxious dog could be more dangerous than an aggressive one, simply because they were unpredictable. As much as I wanted to push Roman, there were some times when I needed to let him come to me, otherwise I’d get bit.
“I’ve never known how to relax,” I said, putting one hand in my pocket as we walked. I let my other one brush against Roman’s, giving him a chance to get used to it. He pulled it away immediately, but after a second, he relaxed again. “My parents had their hands full with me.”
“What were you like?”
I smiled, enjoying the fact that he wanted to know. “Exactly how you’d expect, probably. By the time I started walking, I was also trying to climb trees. I jumped off of everything and gave my mom a heart attack on the regular. They always let me get it out, though.”
“Will you tell me about your mom?”
“She was like sunshine,” I replied, staring into the trees ahead of us. “She loved to garden and be in nature. We used to go on hikes every weekend, even when it rained.”
He breathed a laugh. “She sounds like you.”
The thought warmed me. “She said I had the kind of spirit that needed to grow. Like, if you put a plant in a small pot, it won’t reach its full potential, so she wanted me to explore the world around me without holding myself back. ‘You’re gonna be sad sometimes,’ she told me. ‘That’s life, but it’s better to be sad surrounded by pure and beautiful things.’ That’s why we went on a hike when I lost my first game of the season in sixth grade.
“She could also put the fear of God in a man,” I went on. “If I was really acting up, she could shut it down with a single look most of the time. Usually, she didn’t have to do that, though. I respected the hell out of her and hated to disappoint her. My dad—he looked at her like she hung the moon.”
Roman’s fingers brushed mine, and I thought it was intentional, but he didn’t take my hand. “She seems like the best person.”
I hummed my agreement. “Only the good die young, right?”
