Page 72 of Catch Me (Becoming Us #4)

Travis

I shouldn’t have come here. That was the thought looping in my head as I sat there, watching Roman sketch like it was the only thing keeping him sane.

His hand moved fast, and I hated how familiar it felt, how it dragged me back to those weeks at my house with him sprawled on my couch with Tessa, drawing me without caring that I was watching.

The restaurant was quiet, just the hum of the music overhead and clinking glasses as they washed them in the back, but it felt loud in my head.

I told him I wanted to take him to dinner, and I meant it.

But sitting here, with him staring at me like I was some lifeline, I wasn’t sure I could really trust him. Not yet.

He’d hurt me. Nine days of silence, no calls, no texts.

Just gone. And now he was back, all rough edges and shaky apologies, like that could erase it.

I wanted to believe him, wanted to let myself fall into this again, but every time I got close, I saw that empty driveway, heard the quiet after he’d left.

“You’re staring,” he said, not looking up from his sketch .

“Am I?” I took a sip of water, forcing my eyes to the window. The fairy lights outside blurred into streaks, and I wondered if he’d draw them too, turn this into some pretty picture one of us couldn’t live up to.

“Yeah.” He set the stylus down, sliding the tablet toward me. “What do you think?”

I glanced at the rough sketch. He’d caught the tension, the way I held myself like I might bolt at any second.

“Looks like I’m pissed,” I said, pushing it back.

He leaned forward. “Talk to me, Travis. Please.”

I clenched my jaw, my fingers tightening on the glass. “What do you want me to say? That I’m fine? That this”—I gestured between us—“doesn’t scare the shit out of me?”

He flinched, but his eyes stayed on mine. “Does it?”

“Of course. I know I’ve said it already, but you ran, Roman. You fucking ran, and I—” I stopped and looked away. “I can’t shake this fear that you’ll do that again.”

He didn’t say anything for a second. He just sat there, keeping his hands flat on the table like he was bracing himself. “I won’t. I swear I won’t.”

“You swore a lot of things,” I shot back, sharper than I intended. His face crumpled, just for a second, and guilt twisted in my gut. But I didn’t take it back.

The food came then, breaking the silence. We both started eating like we were pretending this was normal. I stabbed at the noodles, even though my appetite was gone, while he cut into his meat like he could find some sort of answers inside.

He set his fork down after a bite. “I’m not asking you to forget it. I know I fucked up. I just... I need you to see I’m trying.”

“I do,” I admitted, hating how small it sounded. “But trying’s not enough if you—” I stopped, shoving a forkful of pasta in my mouth to shut myself up.

“If I what?” His eyes were wide, searching, and it made me want to look away.

“If you break me again,” I said, barely above a whisper. I didn’t mean to say it, didn’t want him to know how deep that cut went. But there it was, hanging between us, raw and ugly.

He froze with his fork halfway to his mouth, then set it down again. “Travis, I’d rather die than do that to you. ”

I laughed humorlessly. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“I’m not.” He reached across the table, his hand hovering over mine, then pulled back when I didn’t move. “Not this time. Believe me. If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

Thinking about my dad’s story, I wondered if one of them had felt this level of despair at some point.

When he came to pick her up every day, did it piss her off?

Did she want to scream at him but also want to run into his arms?

I couldn’t imagine that, but I could hear the wound in my dad’s voice even when he’d told it to me.

“What do you want?” I asked.

His expression was firm, his resolve seemingly unwavering. “I’m here. I’m staying. You can hate me, yell at me, whatever. Just don’t shut me out.”

I stared at his hand, then up at his face. He looked wrecked. His eyes glistened, like he was one word away from falling apart. And fuck, it got to me. It always did.

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “That’s the problem. It has been this whole time.”

His breath hitched, and he nodded, like that was enough for now. Maybe it was. We ate in silence after that, and I wondered what would come next.

When the check came, I grabbed it before he could. “I got it.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I invited you, remember?” I met his eyes, holding them. “Let me.”

He nodded, even though he looked uncertain. We walked out together, the night air cool against my skin as I looked up at the clouds. The fairy lights glowed above us, and I caught him glancing at them, then at me.

“What?” I asked, keeping my hands in my pockets.

“Nothing,” he said, but his voice was contemplative, like he’d thought of drawing it. “Just... thanks.”

“For what?”

“Not walking away.”

I stopped, looking at him—really looking. The way his hair fell in soft waves and his shoulders hunched like he was waiting for me to flee. And I realized I didn’t want to. Not tonight.

I started to walk again. “It’s still a work in progress. ”

He fell into step beside me, close enough that our arms brushed. “Good. As long as there’s progress, I guess I can breathe.”

Under the stars and the fairy lights, I let myself take his hand, and I threaded our fingers. It was as if that simple touch created a world of magic that complimented the scenery around us.

Maybe there was no recovering the bridge that had been burned, but what was stopping us from building a new one? If we did it together, every step of the way, I wanted to believe that there was nothing that could stop us this time.

*****

Committed to the idea of being smart about this, I dropped Roman off at his hotel. I stayed in my Jeep, not wanting to give myself a chance to do something stupid. I’d been sitting out front for close to twenty minutes, though, and each time I shifted into drive, I dropped it back into park.

God, I was weak for this man.

Jumping out of the car, I marched to the elevator without slowing. Just the wait for the doors to open was absolute torture. When I’d finally made it to his floor, I knocked on his door, then walked to the wall across from it and back. Grabbing onto either side of the frame, I waited.

When he opened the door, his eyes widened. “Hey.”

With that one word, all reason abandoned me. Taking both sides of his neck, I walked him backward and kissed him with three hundred and fourteen days of anguish. No matter how deep I’d buried it, the moment our lips met, it didn’t stand a fucking chance.

I pushed him up against the wall and he groaned. His hands went underneath my shirt, starting a fire on my skin. My fingers brushed through his hair as I tugged on his lower lip.

“Hey back.”

He drew in a shuddering breath before he captured my lips again. I pinned him more firmly against the wall, just going with it at this point.

“One more,” I murmured.

“What?”

“I don’t know if I trust you all the way, but I wasn’t sure ten months ago either. We barely knew each other, yet I wanted you. God, I wanted you, Roman, and I still do. One more chance. ”

He nodded, clutching me to him. “I wasn’t ready then, but I am now.”

Pulling back, I studied his face. “You’ll come see me.”

“And you’ll come see me.”

“I need to learn everything we didn’t have time for and everything that’s new about you, starting with these migraines. If you have some fucking brain tumor and this becomes a tragic love story...”

He laughed and shook his head. “No, just stress and stuff. Apparently, I put a lot of pressure on myself.”

“Are you eating?”

“I don’t need you to take care of me.”

That was debatable, but we’d deal with it later.

He broke away from me, and I let him. When he sat on the bed, I stared at him. This time, it didn’t feel like I had to look away. It was freeing, and I was able to draw in a long breath.

“The guys are making bets about why I didn’t go to dinner.”

He leaned back on his hands and smirked. “You’re ashamed for them to know, huh?”

I whacked his elbow, making it bend so he fell onto the mattress. “I’m not ashamed of any decisions I make. Being unapologetic is kind of my whole thing.”

Noticing the papers on the bed, I picked them up. He tried to stop me, but after a second, he gave up.

“What...” I stared at the drawings, feeling confused. Most were of me pitching.

“One from each game,” he explained. “Your final pitch in the ones you played. Some are happy, some aren’t. Wins and losses.”

“Is this why you left the game so quickly?”

He nodded. “I wanted to upload them to my tablet before the last one tomorrow.”

“What are they for?”

Dragging me down to sit beside him, he perched his chin on my shoulder and kissed my neck.

“I was going to make a drawing from each of the games. They weren’t supposed to be of you, but.

..Anyway, I wanted to make a sort of collage to frame them in so that it’d commemorate your first World Series. ”

“That’s an incredible idea.”

“The last one will be the best. ”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be your face just before you win the World Series.”

“Fuck, I . . . Can I have a collage too?”

He pulled back and frowned. “It was always going to be for you, dumbass. You think I want your face on my wall?”

“Maybe. You’re obsessed.”

“Hm.”

He grabbed his tablet and started scrolling through drawings. I wanted to see every single one. The image he passed to me made my mouth drop open.

“You actually drew this?”

“Not until last night,” he admitted. “I couldn’t bring myself to.”

As I studied it, I felt overwhelmed. The angle didn’t show much of his face, but it showed mine. He’d studied me the entire time we had sex. The way he’d captured it here was incredible. And it was explicit.