Page 26 of Roman and Jules
He scratched the dog’s neck with his most innocent look. “I didn’t do anything yet.”
“Yeah, because you’re tricky. Iknowyou.”
“You sure about that?”
There was more truth to that than he’d intended, and she hid her smile and bowled again, one after another until she took out the last of the pins with her final turn.
“Oh, you weren’t supposed to do that,” he said behind her. “You’re supposed to let me win.” He rose from his seat, sliding the large puppy from his legs with his muscular arms.
“I thought that was your job,” she teased, “and you’re doing very poorly at it, might I add.” She took hold of Mercutio’s collar to stop him from dashing out.
“No more cheating this time,” Roman said. “Do I need to hold you next?”
She turned a mischievous grin on him. “I’d like to see you try.”
His hand grazed the bowling ball as he turned back to her. “You mean that?”
Her heart jolted and she held Mercutio tightly to her. More than anything, but maybe she’d taken the flirting too far? She tried to make peace and lowered into a soft, high-backed chair. “You won’t get any trouble from me. I’m holding Mercutio back. Remember?”
“Yeah, I get it. You’re a chicken.” His hand went back to the ball, and she couldn’t help it. She released Mercutio. The oversized pup made a beeline for him. Roman hadn’t even gotten the bowling ball out of the rack before the dog almost knocked him down. “Jules!” He swiveled to her with an open mouth.
She shrugged. “My fingers slipped.”
“Oh no,” he said. “I can’t control my fingers either. They’re coming for you.”
She yelped like the puppy and shot out of her chair, but not before he caught her. It might’ve helped if she even tried to get away, but she was laughing too much. His hands went around her waist and he fell back into the chair with her in his arms. Her chin rammed into his strong shoulders. “You’re such a cheater!” he said into her ear.
“At least I’m not a chicken,” she said.
“We’ll see about that.”
Before he could back up his words, a buzzing sounded from his cellphone and he dug into his jeans to find it. She saw who was calling. “That’s Ty!” she said.
“Just another death threat,” Roman grumbled.
Her stomach dipped with concern and her hands went around his. “Let me see…”
“Here.” He wrestled his phone away from her and held it up like he was going to show her his texts. She peered at the screen and he took a picture of the both of them. “Wait,” he said. “Oh, that was a selfie, never mind.” His lips brushed against her ear in a quick kiss while he took another picture. “We’ll just send that to Ty, instead. How about that?”
She sobered. That only made Roman’s kisses feel cheap. “Don’t overdo it,” she warned.
“Why not? We’re just showing him howhappywe are.”
Her pulse quickened. Jules wasn’t sure what was going on with her heart… but it wasn’t exactly going wild for Ty this time. At all. In fact, it was getting harder to think about him when she was around Roman. Was she really that fickle? As if reading her unsure look, Roman smiled and kissed his finger and pressed it against her lips. “C’mon, let’s get some dessert.”
“I should probably look at my phone first.” Right now she needed texts from Ty to forget about Roman, which was a crazy twist to this day.
He brushed her hair from her eyes and studied her face before giving in. “Yeah, of course.” He let her go, his strong back pulling against his t-shirt as he pushed from the chair. He disappeared into the kitchen and then came out with her phone.
She took it gratefully, but not before her hand brushed his and almost undid her again. Had she escaped one bad relationship to get into something worse? Ty might have a point. Roman wasn’t exactly a pillar of the community. Jules scrolled through Tyson’s vitriolic texts. They started out accusatory and then turned more conciliatory. He wanted to talk, but Roman had warned her not to do that yet, and she’d take his advice.
Jules went through her other messages. She had a lot of missed calls from her parents, texts from her friends who happened to overhear the “good news” on TV, band members who were wondering if they were practicing tomorrow or if she’d be on her honeymoon. She groaned—she should’ve seen this coming. She quickly answered their texts, accepted all the congratulations, told her band members that they were on for practice, and called her parents, ducking into Roman’s room for privacy.
“Just calling my parents,” she shouted out. “They’re a little worried.” She waved at Roman before she disappeared inside.
Her mother answered right away. “Dear! Where were you today?” Her South Carolinian accent was thick in agitation.
“Sorry,” Jules answered. “I misplaced my phone at the uh… Chapel del Frate.”
