Angie didn’t know when her hand had come up to cover her heart, but it had. She watched Roman sip absently at his beer as if nothing was happening, and she couldn’t help shaking her head in dismay.
“You’re not going to answer…”
Bette Romanovsky’s voice was so full of pain, Angie could almost feel it herself, as if it had been living secretly under her ribs for all of her life, just waiting for that very moment to come plowing through. This woman was hurting, and as she watched Roman, Angie was even more hurt to see, so was he.
“Please pick up.”
Bette was audibly crying now.
Angie jolted when Roman finally crossed the kitchen to the answering machine, took hold of the cord, and ripped it clear out of the wall. Angie jolted as tiny pieces of plastic insert went flying, sending dozens of invisible shards falling to his kitchen floor.
She sat in silence for a long moment, eyes wide.
She spoke cautiously. “You’re going to regret that when you’re walking through this kitchen barefoot some night, and step on a tiny shard of plastic.” She tried to smile. “It’s going to hurt like hell.”
Roman made his way back over to the island and slammed his beer down next to Angie’s, with so much force it was a wonder that it didn’t shatter. He gripped the black granite under his fingers and pushed back as far as he could go, the muscles in his big arms contracting as his head fell.
Angie watched the top of his blonde head, fighting the urge to run her fingers through it. “You could just answer her. It’s been two months since you’ve spoken? That’s a long time. Maybe…” She didn’t know how to finish. She was still on speaking terms with her parents. She had a great relationship with them. As far as she knew, she was their only biological child. If she woke up one morning to find out all of that was a lie--that they’d been lying to her for her entire life--she would be inconsolable. By the grace of God, she didn’t know what it felt like, and she had no right to be telling Roman what to do, so she zipped her lips.
“I just…” Roman didn’t look up from where his head was hanging. “I can’t stand the sound of her voice.”
Angie’s eyes went absently to his arms, which flexed with every word he said.
Roman finally looked up, and his eyes were hot with rage. “They lied to me. They lied to me for thirty years of my life.”
Angie nodded. “I know.” She told herself to shut up, but couldn’t. “But that doesn’t mean they love you any less. They were just trying to protect you.”
“They failed. Protecting someone, and lying to someone are two things…” He struggled. “They’re not…”
Angie gave him a moment to find the words he was looking for.
“Mutually exclusive,” she finally offered, tentatively. “It’s when one thing makes the other impossible. When two things can’t be true at the same time… incapable of existing together.” She realized she’d just described the relationship she had with the very man standing before her.
“I know what mutually exclusive means.” Roman couldn’t help but smile at her. “I just can’t think straight when I’m this mad.”
“Lucky you have me, then.”
“You just know everything.”
“I do,” she sighed. “It’s a blessing and a curse.”
His smile grew more genuine. “I am, you know.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m lucky to have you, Ang.” He breathed deep, and his lungs shook.
Angie’s center surged with warmth, and she couldn’t handle the way he was looking at her, so she went to her files.
“I mean it,” he said, stealing her attention once more. “I don’t know if I could’ve done this if you hadn’t been around to keep me distracted.”
“If I weren’t around to keep you distracted you probably would’ve gone back home to see your family, just from the sheer loneliness of it all. You probably wouldn’t have left your job at Novsky. You wouldn’t be avoiding your brothers like the plague…” She held his eyes. “If anything, I’m holding you back.”
“You’re the only reason I haven’t completely lost my mind.” He breathed deep. “And contrary to what you may think, I’m not trying to punish anyone. I just can’t be around any of them.”
She nodded. Seeing Val, Leo and Gary was still hurtful to Roman. She understood that, and decided to drop it. Maybe once he met his biological father, he’d find some way to release the demons, and rebuild. “Are you ready to see the files?”
“No,” Roman answered. “But show me anyway.”
She took a deep breath, nodding.
“Okay. Here goes nothing.” She pulled out a photo, laying it facedown on the counter, facing Roman, before pushing it towards him. “Roman… meet your father. Police Lieutenant Knox Jefferson. No relation to Thomas Jefferson, by the way. I checked,” Angie rambled. “And just so you know, he was born in Iceland, so…” She popped her own collar. “Look who was right, all along.”
Roman wasn’t listening. An older man with serious blue eyes, and graying blonde hair, glowered up at him from what looked to be a dated Army photo, and he felt bile rising in his throat.
Angie watched in shock as Roman jetted across the room to the bathroom, not even finding a moment to slam the door as he launched his body at the toilet just in time to empty his stomach into the bowl.
***
“Are you ready?” Angie asked the next morning, gazing up into Roman’s face. It was still the same shade of green it had been when he’d emptied the contents of his guts into the toilet the night before.
His eyes lingered on the door of the old row house, the door he’d learned belonged to his biological father.
Angie raised her fist to the door. “I’m knocking.”
He swallowed heavily, and managed a nod.
After giving three swift knocks, Angie looked back to him, and realized she was probably more nervous than he was.
The door swung open faster than either of them anticipated, and Angie sucked in a breath when Roman immediately took her hand in his, clenching it so tightly she was sure he was going to cut off circulation.
Knox Jefferson was older than he’d appeared in the photo. His blonde hair was now completely grey, with a white beard to match. But his eyes.
It was the eyes.
Angie looked to Roman, and saw the realization on his face, as well. There was no denying that the man peering suspiciously out at them from behind the screen door of that house was Roman’s father.
To Angie’s amazement, as Knox finally pulled open the screen door, his grey-blue eyes riveted to Roman, the face he was making was one that Roman made all the time. The two had never met, and she was already catching similarities that shouldn’t have been there, his squared shoulders, his quiet presence—which, ironically, seemed to scream out—and the way his eyes remained completely controlled.
Angie breathed in. This time, it was her who was gripping Roman’s hand a bit too tightly.
“Are you… Knox Jefferson?” Angie asked.
Roman just stared, speechless.
Knox’s eyes moved back and forth between them, slowly.
Angie faltered. “We hate to barge in on you like this--”
“How did you find me?” Knox demanded, blue eyes suddenly going cold.
For the first time, Angie couldn’t see Roman in Knox Jefferson. She was sure that she would never in her life see the kind of vitriol that was darkening this old man’s eyes darken Roman’s in the same way.
Angie looked to Roman, and could see he was slowly on the verge of coming apart. She looked back to Knox, eyes begging.
“I’m a private investigator. Colt Investigations?” Angie’s mind was suddenly racing. If he was an anonymous donor, why did Knox recognize Roman? Her mind still swirled as she spoke, struggling for the right words. “We’ve been looking for you--”
“You can’t be here.” Knox’s eyes stayed riveted to Roman. “You have to go.”
Angie
’s words slowed to a stop, and she looked to Roman again.
Roman tried to speak up, but almost instantly lost his voice.
“I…” Tears filled his eyes as he realized that Angie had been right all those months ago. He hadn’t prepared himself for his biological father to spit on his shoes and reject him completely. He hadn’t allowed himself to entertain that thought for one second, not until that very moment.
Now it was too late. Roman could sense the incredible damage this man was about to do, in corners of his soul he hadn’t even known were in existence until that moment.
“I just wanted to speak to you,” he said.
“You can’t be here,” Knox said, again, releasing the screen door.
Angie and Roman jolted as it slammed noisily shut, followed quickly by the door of the house.
Just like that, Knox Jefferson was gone.
Angie and Roman remained on the stoop for an inordinate amount of time, still clutching each other’s hands, neither wanting to be the first to speak. Neither having the heart to.
When Angie looked up at Roman, he was still staring at the closed door. The moisture in his eyes had dried, but he still clutched her hand with a numbing fierceness.
She couldn’t even feel her fingers anymore.
And she didn’t care.
***
Once they made it off of Knox’s stoop and back to the car, they’d made the quiet drive back to Roman’s apartment. Angie asked him if he wanted her to go upstairs with him, to stay for a while, and he hadn’t answered, so she took that as the closest to a yes he could get in that moment.
“Maybe he was just shocked,” Angie spoke for the first time since laying eyes on Knox.
She shrugged off her coat as Roman closed his front door and made his way into the kitchen. She hung her coat on the rack next to the door as he fished a beer from the fridge, then a pack of cigarettes from the drawer right next to it. Angie was stunned by the sight, having completely forgotten that he even smoked. She hadn’t seen him take a single puff since the day she’d chided him for it outside of her apartment.
Watching him flip the carton open, she had half a mind to remind him how disgusting they were, but the moment he brought it to his mouth, seizing a cigarette between his teeth, he hesitated. Jamming his eyes shut, he took it out of his mouth, tossing it carelessly onto the island.
Relief washed over her.
“We can try again tomorrow,” she said. “If you want. I’ll go with you.”
He finally raised his eyes to hers. “I’m never going back there. And neither are you.”
Words. They weren’t words she was hoping to hear, but she was just glad he was speaking again. The silence had stretched on for too long from his end, and had been making her terribly uneasy.
“Are you okay?”
Popping open the beer, he hissed.
Angie frowned. It was a sound he made often, usually accompanied by a smile, but not this time.
“Yes, Angie. I’m great. I’m fantastic.” He took a hearty swig of the beer, and jammed his eyes shut. “So go ahead,” he offered.
“Go ahead?”
“Go ahead and tell me that you were right all along.” He slammed the beer down and waved a hand. “Tread lightly in your search for the fucking truth, right?”
Angie’s mouth hung open. He must not know her very well at all if he believed she’d kick a man who’d fallen as far as he had. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
“But I’m sure you’d love to. Take advantage. I’m giving you the green light here.”
She frowned. “No.”
He held her eyes from across the island, beer forgotten, as he clawed his nails against the granite counter. His lips trembled and curled down at the edges.
“You don’t have to fight so hard,” she said. Since the moment he’d first knocked on her door asking for help, Roman had been fighting so hard, and it was beginning to take a toll on her, because she knew he was falling apart inside. “You can give some of that fight to me, if you want. I’ll take it happily.”
He laughed that cruel laugh, again.
“Don’t laugh at me, Roman.”
His eyes grew heated, even as his downturned lips curled up into a smile, hidden by the rim of the beer bottle as he chugged down another swallow.
“Maybe I should just go,” she whispered. Maybe he needed this time alone, and her being here, staring at him, was giving him the wrong idea. Like she pitied him. She was the farthest thing from pity. She knew Roman’s strength, had witnessed it in the short time they’d had to build a friendship. But she knew that his biggest strength was also on the road to becoming his biggest weakness. His ability to put on a brave face. His insistence on it. He would not break with an audience present, not even if that audience was her. Someone he called a friend. Turning away from the kitchen, she fingered her coat off the rack, freezing when she heard his voice.
“God damn it, Ang.”
She turned back just in time to see him slam the bottle down once more. The cigarette he’d abandoned leapt softly at the impact, then rolled slowly away.
“God damn it,” he whispered, staring a hole into the countertop, clenching his teeth. With a deep, audible heave of his chest, he suddenly reared back before swooping his big arm down, sending every item flying off of the island. Bowls, utensils, and even the beer he’d been chugging, all went flying.
“Fuck!”
Angie jolted at the crash. She wasn’t startled by Roman’s rage, or the ear-splitting crashes that came, one after the other, as each item hit the floor, but rather the agony that had motivated it. She brought her hands to the neck of her t-shirt, clutching it fiercely as she watched him grip the island in such a tight grasp his knuckles went ghost white. His head fell between his flexed arms as he struggled to wrench one full breath from his heaving chest. It was a wonder he didn’t crack the granite that he was holding in his unforgiving grip, shattering it to pieces the same way the ceramic fruit bowl he’d sent soaring sat shattered at his feet. No, Angie wasn’t startled by his loss of control, but by how much it hurt to see it.
With his head hanging down between his arms, muscles pulled taut from where he still held the counter in a death grip, she realized she’d do anything to make his pain stop.
Coat forgotten, she made her way into the kitchen, dodging the various supplies that were scattered all over the floor, and stepped up next to him. Even hunched over, he towered over her, and she was suddenly supremely aware of his power. If he wanted to toss her across the room like he had half of the items in his kitchen, he could. Easily.
His chest rose and fell rapidly under his black t-shirt, like a man on the brink of explosion. Gingerly, keeping her eyes on his bowed head, she placed a hand on his bicep, inhaling audibly when it flexed in response.
She was immediately rocketed back to her youth, a time when she would spend entire days rock climbing with her father. He would remind her to test each rock as she climbed, test its strength, before giving it most of her weight. Just to be safe. She cupped Roman’s arm, tested it’s strength, knowing it could give at any moment, explode under her hold, and if it did, it had the power to hurt her very badly.
He was much scarier than any rock climb. He had the power to not just hurt her physically, but emotionally. The tremble of her fingers was disguised by the tight hold she had on his arm and, when he didn’t immediately respond to her touch, she wrapped her other arm around his back, cupping his shoulder.
This time, his entire body tensed. She felt it under her small fingers. His skin was velvety soft, and the strength that rippled under that softness seemed on a constant mission to break free. That mission seemed to have amplified the moment she put her hands on him.
She began kneading his arm and shoulder softly, trying to think of something to say, but nothing seemed good enough.
She wanted to say she was sorry, but the sudden sensation of his muscles relaxing under her hold stole her words. She was hyper aw
are of every move he made, every breath he took, and when he suddenly turned towards her, head still bowed, she couldn’t help but jolt in surprise.
That surprise was nothing compared to what rocketed through her when he wrapped those big rocks around her waist, pulling her to the very tips of her toes as he enveloped her in a hug.
A shudder rumbled through her when his warm breath whooshed into the crease of her neck and shoulder, nearly tearing her to pieces. If she thought she’d been hyper aware of every breath he’d been taking a minute ago, it was only because she’d yet to feel it touching her skin.
Against all of her control, her body responded, and she locked her arms around his neck, nearly choking him as she attempted to give him the tightest hold possible.
He crushed her body to his in response. After a few quiet moments, it became impossible to tell who was breathing harder. Every inch of their bodies played together, from their heads, which were tucked into each other’s necks, all the way down. Not an inch of their bodies went lonely.
Her hand went into the hair at the nape of his neck, feeling its softness. When her body suddenly rocked under his hold, she clutched the hair between her fingers.
His breath came harder and faster against her neck, with more intensity as his body surrendered.
Tracks of moisture raced onto her skin, passed her t-shirt, guiding a quick trail down the crease of her back, one after the other. The tears felt like fire on her skin, and she hadn’t the first clue how to put them out.
“He didn’t even know me. What the fuck did I do to deserve this?”
“Nothing, Roman. None of this is your fault.”
“I have no idea where I belong.”
Her hand traveled up the back of his head, cupping the blonde tresses at the crown.
“You belong here.” She meant the words with every fiber of her. “I know it probably doesn’t mean a whole lot, but you’ll always have a place right here. With me.”
Claiming Roman Page 11
