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Thirteen

Quinn

W hen I woke up, I felt lost and disoriented as I looked around, wondering why I felt so comfortable where I was. Then I remembered that I had slept at Roman’s again and ended up cuddling his pillow most of the night because it smelled like him.

We stayed up talking for a few hours as I launched into my theory about how Justin hadn’t just died in a car accident; he had been murdered.

There was nothing that I could do to prove it, but it felt good to finally get the thoughts out of my head.

Roman was kind enough to sit there and listen, even though I felt like a crazy person when the only thing I could come up with as to why Justin would never have taken his seat belt off in a moving car was because he was too by the rules .

But it was true—Justin never did anything that even slightly deviated into a gray area.

He was, by nature, a goody-two-shoes, and everyone knew it.

If you were planning to break any rules or skirt outside of what was considered ethical—you made sure he didn’t find out about it because he would tell on you.

That was why it had been so weird to me when they told me that he had been ejected from the car because he had taken his seat belt off when the accident happened.

I argued that he would never do that, and his partner had insisted that it was locked and uncomfortable, so he took it off to adjust it.

While it was something that I would do—and had done several times—it wasn’t something that he would do.

Not even if the car was stopped at a red light.

He would have waited until the car was safely parked somewhere before taking it off.

Roman had entertained my endless rambling on the subject until I got too tired to continue and called it a night.

I hadn’t bothered to apologize for intruding on his space again since it had been him who had insisted that we stay.

Unfortunately, this time I didn’t plan ahead, so I didn’t have a change of clothes for Rosie or myself, and there was no way in hell that I was going to be late getting her to school again.

My alarm on my watch went off at five, so I rolled out of bed and shuffled down the hallway, hoping not to wake him.

This time, I made sure to peek in the living room to make sure we didn’t have another shower incident.

I still couldn’t get that beautiful sight out of my head—which I wasn’t complaining about.

I snuck into the living room and smiled when I saw him still asleep on the couch. I turned and headed to the bathroom, feeling slightly anxious about leaving Rosie by herself until I remembered that Roman was here and no one was going to get into his apartment without him hearing them first.

I closed the bathroom door but didn’t lock it in case Rosie woke up and was looking for me.

The shower felt wonderful as I stood under the hot water and let it massage my tense muscles.

I would love to fill the tub and just soak for a few hours, but I couldn’t remember the last time I had done that.

Not wanting to use all of the hot water, I finished up and stepped out, wrapping a towel around my body. I looked for one to dry my hair with but didn’t see any, so I tugged the one off of my body and quickly bent over to dry it as best I could so it wasn’t soaking wet.

When I stood up, I gasped and tried to clutch the towel to my body before it fell to the floor. Standing before me was Roman, rubbing the sleep from his eyes before they focused on my naked body. He went from half asleep to wide awake in less than a second.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, trying to look away. “I didn’t think before I came in and didn’t hear the shower. I thought you were still sleeping; it’s early.”

He bent down and handed me the towel while he looked away. I took it and wrapped it around myself as quickly as I could.

“I got up early because I need to swing by my place to get a change of clothes for Rosie and me before school, and she can’t be late again.”

“I really am sorry for walking in on you,” he said, but there was something in his eyes that said he wasn’t sorry at all.

“I guess we’re almost even given that I walked in on you the other day.”

I tried to laugh and make a joke out of it, but instead, it came out as some weird, muffled, strangled cry type of noise that I had never heard before in my life.

He smiled, and I looked away, suddenly feeling more embarrassed about it.

“Maybe not even ,” I muttered, thinking how I had only seen him from the waist up, whereas he had seen everything.

“Well, we’ll try to make a schedule next time to keep this from happening again.”

I could hear the laughter in his voice and clutched the towel tighter to my body. He stepped out and pulled the door behind him to give me some privacy to get dressed.

By the time I was done, Rosie was already awake and talking with Roman in the living room.

I got our stuff ready while he jumped in the shower, then we ran by my apartment to change before rushing to school.

Rosie didn’t care about how quickly we had to walk since she had gotten a doughnut for breakfast when I didn’t have time to stop for something healthier.

She walked into her classroom just as the final bell had rung.

Her teachers gave us a quick wave before closing the door.

I sighed a breath of relief that we had made it on time and leaned against the wall next to Roman.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time to linger in the hall and catch my breath if I wanted to get to work on time.

If I kept showing up late, I would find myself in my boss’s office again, listening to another lecture about punctuality and job responsibilities.

I pushed off the wall, and we started heading down the hallway when I felt Roman’s hand brush against mine. The jolt of electricity that passed between us was enough to make my heart skip a beat, and suddenly I found myself anxious for the day to be over so I could go back to Roman’s.