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Hazel just looked up at me like what I’d said made no sense.
“Don’t let him,” she stated simply, and handed me the last tack.
“Don’t let him what?”
“Think of you in any other way than the one you want.”
I smiled, and after making sure the string of lights was supported, I hopped down. “You make it sound so easy.”
“Oh, it’s hard as hell. But if you want to be respected or viewed a certain way, you have to be that woman before you can project it. Know what you want and don’t settle for less.”
That actually made a lot of sense. I knew what I wanted professionally: funding for the Arbor Hill center, the Level Two job opening, and a career helping people. Emotionally though, I wanted strength. Peace. Roman. I was just struggling with how to go about getting those things. But Hazel did an amazing job of owning herself and her world. She was barely five feet tall, a tiny thing, but her presence took up the entire room and made her appear as big as her personality.
“You’re right,” I said. I needed to get it together. But one major issue danced around inside my skull. “I can’t seem to kick my anxiety problem, though. It’s like, when I’m caught off guard, I spiral down into all my fears.”
“Except with Roman,” Hazel said and handed me my cocoa.
I took it and sat on the couch. “Yeah. Except with Roman.”
He caught me off guard in a totally different way. A way that made me want to tap into the edgy need he brought out in me. Made me want to reach for the rising heat, instead of run from it. When I was with him, I felt free and powerful, like I could feed off of his capability and match it. Like I could be a good counterpart.
“I know you struggle with anxiety and your past, but it’s not all you are. Warren’s a douche and just happens to bring out the worst in you, no shocker there,” Hazel said. She started arranging Stroky and his equally sad-looking flock on our coffee table.
I smiled, loving her more by the minute. She didn’t know the details surrounding my sister’s death, how my choices that night had been the wrong ones, or how they ate at me every day. And I was glad for that.
It wasn’t because I didn’t trust her. I just didn’t want one more person looking at me with disgust or pity. My issues were my own, and even though I had a hard time dealing with some of them, others I could handle. Like Roman. And it was time I started doing that.
“But are you weak, Amy?” Hazel said, jolting me back to the present.
“No,” I said, suddenly feeling like I needed a megaphone.
“That’s right. And my guess is, Roman’s a guy.”
I laughed. “I can confirm that.”
Hazel glanced up from Stroky and smiled. “What I mean is, guys are stupid sometimes. He’s either tiptoeing around you because he doesn’t want to hurt you, or he doesn’t know how to deal with his big scary man feelings, so he just pretends they don’t exist. But if he didn’t like you, or you weren’t worth the trouble, he’d just dump you.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it or anything,” I mumbled, and she smiled.
Roman wouldn’t dump me during the campaign because of our arrangement…then again, maybe he would. If I wasn’t providing him with any “value,” why keep the deal going? Maybe he did like me beyond our secret pact. If so, I needed to bring out that side of him. Because it was no secret how I felt…and my poor body was damn near shaking from withdrawals already. I needed his touch.
“Time to start taking control and going after what you want,” Hazel said, lifting her mug and gently bumping it against mine.
I smiled, because I knew exactly what, rather who, that entailed. Roman had his agenda: to keep a firm line between the physical part
of our relationship and the rest of it. Fine. But my goals were different. I wanted The Real Roman. And I knew now that I couldn’t separate my feelings the way he seemed to. Therefore, I wouldn’t give into one aspect of our relationship without the other. This would be either a business deal, cut and dry and completely emotion free, or it would be more—on every level.
Arrangement or not, I had a feeling I’d still want him after the election, which gave me a little more than a month to show Roman what I saw: that there was something real between us.
“You’ve got an ambitious look on your face there,” Hazel said with a grin.
“Just thinking of how to go after what I want.”
“Good.” She beamed at me. “Now open that box and help me with the rest of the decorations.”
I pulled the box toward me and removed the lid, revealing a bright pink crocheted cornucopia and a set of antlers.
“Oh! Those would look great in the kitchen.”
