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It was a release like I’d never felt before. I was so burned out after running on nothing but adrenaline for so long. Roman was looking at me with a strange look on his face, his head cocked to one side and a crooked grin.
“I know I’m nuts,” I said, taking a slow breath in and wiping my cheek with the back of my hand.
“I don’t think you’re nuts,” he said softly. “I just think you’re processing a year’s worth of shit, all at once. I don’t blame you.”
“Christ, your face,” I said, snapping back into reality and realizing he still had dried blood all over one side of his jaw. “Did this hurt? Let’s go clean it up.”
“It didn’t hurt that badly. Just scraped on some bushes.”
“I have a fresh first-aid kit in the house now, thanks to you.”
“Told you it would come in handy,” he said.
“You know the right way to do things.”
I led him over to the downstairs bathroom and pulled out the first aid kit, fumbling with it as Roman rinsed off his face in the sink. When he dried it off I applied antibiotic ointment to the long scrape, patting his skin gently with my fingertips. I couldn’t help but fixate on his features—his plush lips and long eyelashes, so close to my face.
He looked as cool, calm and collected as he always did. Even after all of that. Even on a night like tonight.
Fuck it. Roman was a god, as far as I was concerned.
“You… I’m sure you have things you need to do,” I said. “You’ve been babysitting my ass for days, now.”
“Okay, now I might say you’re nuts,” he told me. “Because there is zero chance in hell I’m leaving you alone after a night like tonight.”
I let out a lungful of air that I’d apparently been holding. “Thank fuck. Because secretly I don’t want to be alone. At all.”
“And you won’t have to be,” Roman said. “Tonight is for you. We’re only going to do what you want to do. Watch shitty movies? Eat ice cream? Go to sleep early? Whatever it is, we’re doing it.”
I glanced out the big windows beside me and immediately flashed back over the last couple of hours. “The idea of being here makes my skin crawl, right now. I think I need to be somewhere else to reset, you know?”
He nodded once. “I get it.”
“I never thought I would say this, but I might actually want to be somewhere with other people. Somewhere I can feel like a normal human being, for once in my life.”
“Well, I know of one place that’s open,” Roman said. “And as long as you can deal with a certain outlandish bartender, it might be the most comforting place I know of.”
The moment I thought of Red’s Tavern, my heart felt warm. “Yes. God, yes. I would love to go to Red’s. And I have a certain Big Rock Cock to thank, too.”
“Is that what you wished for? Your stalker to be caught?”
I nodded once. “I wished that I’d be safe. And ever since you came into my life, that has happened. Now, more than ever.”
Roman looked at me, putting his hand to the side of my face, gently caressing my temple with his thumb. My heart skipped a beat, and for a split second, I thought he was going to lean in and kiss me. I hoped he was going to lean in and kiss me.
But instead, his beautiful brown eyes just locked on mine as he nodded, speaking softly. “Let’s get our asses to the tavern.”
“Holy shit,” Roman said as we got comfy in our booth at Red’s Tavern, checking the screen of his phone. “Are you ready for some really good news?”
“I think it’s about the only thing I am ready for right now.”
“This guy isn’t a first-timer. He’s apparently harassed and stalked other celebrities in the past. He’s gotten nabbed for indecent exposure a few times. And he’s been involved in meth-related robberies.”
“Fuck,” I said, reaching for the frosty pint glass of lager on the table in front of me. “So he really will be behind bars for a while.”
“A long, long while,” Roman said. He picked up his glass, holding it out to mine. “Cheers to that. And cheers to you, being able to lead a real life again.”
I took a sip of the bubbly lager, lifting an eyebrow. “Well, my life’s never been normal, really. But certainly a lot more normal than the last year has been.”
Roman’s eyes lit up on something behind me. I turned to see Jack Damien walking in through the front door, and he came over right away.
“So, you’re here in Red’s Tavern,” Jack said, “which means that things either went really well or really, really poorly.”
“Things went fantastically,” Roman said, holding up his beer.
