Page 45 of Resting Grump Face
Despite being fully clothed, I can almost feel the heat from his fingertips hovering over my skin.
Roman draws his brows together. “I’m not standing up, I’m sitting,” he points out and shakes his head. “See what you’re dealing with, Sienna.”
“Oh, believe me, I know. Maybe I can make him disappear and we could pretend that you’re Ryker, CEO of the Grayson Empire.”
“That wouldn’t work.” Roman shakes his head once more. “Mama always says I’m the handsome one. She doesn’t say that about him, so people would likely notice.”
I was right,I think to myself. His brother did get all the likability. And the humor too, apparently.
The server, still not saying a single word, hands me a menu and waits for my order. I choose a grilled Portobello mushroom steak with truffle mash. Ryker adds three beers for the table and excuses himself to go to the bathroom. To my confusion, neither of them order any food.
After a second of silence, Roman and I speak at the same time before he stops and lets me go first.
“I just wanted to apologize. I didn’t really know I’d be interrupting intimate brother-on-brother bonding time when I agreed to come to dinner.”
“Nonsense.” Roman adjusts the placement of the silverware. “I’ve known this fool for almost 25 years. He’s very clingy, so we’ve had more bonding time than necessary. We see each other almost every Friday, as you might have gathered. Unless he’s busy like yesterday. It’s possible that was just a ploy to keep me from my well-deserved fries though.”
This is probably the first time that I am actually surprised by something I learn about Ryker Grayson. Well, apart from him caring about the environment. “He’s… clingy?Are you sure that word means what you think it means?”
“I know. He’s not the type to be clingy at first glance.” Roman laughs. “It’s because I used to get bullied when I was younger, so he worries a lot. But it’s been ten years now and I’m doing just fine. I am on the spectrum, as the cool kids say these days, hence the bullying and extra cause for concern, I guess.” He looks up to see my reaction.
“That’s why you avoid eye-contact,” I say carefully.
“Oh, no, I avoid eye contact because my eyes are a mesmerizing shade of ocean with sprinkles of gold and I have to use my powers for—yeah, no, it’s the ‘tism,” Roman says, opens his puppy eyes wide and stares at me without blinking.
We both break out into more laughter as the server brings the beers.
“That’s also why the server isn’t talking and the light is dimmed,” Roman explains once they are gone again. “I can go to restaurants just fine and seem like I have a perfectly normal dinner, but it’s exhausting having to…”
“Deal with humans,” I add.
“Exactly, and all the noise and bright light. So much freaking light. So, every other Friday, when we’re not a Fry-Day’s, Ryker reserves an entire restaurant of his choosing for the evening and they cater to my needs. Personally, I think it’s over the top and I feel a little guilty about it, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. Listen…”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Isn’t that great? Usually at some point during dinner I’d hide in the bathroom for a few minutes because it’s the quietest place. I don’t have to do that here. I just wish he wouldn’t chooserestaurants like this. He already chose what we’re going to eat too. Says I need to eat healthy at least once in a while.”
I grin and listen to Roman talk about Ryker. It’s nice what he has to say about him. He admires his big brother and I’m glad the two of them have such a close bond. I wonder what happened that made Roman such a joy and Ryker the polar opposite.
“He’d never admit it, but he even wears his costumes to dinner, so the servers will be busy looking at him instead of being weirded out by me.” Roman raises his glass and waits for me to do the same. “So, thanks for being weird for my benefit.”
“I’m not sure it counts as being weird when you look this fabulous,” I joke, adjust my puffy sleeves, and clink my glass against his, “but you’re more than welcome.”
“You do look fabulous,” Roman agrees and quickly averts his eyes again. “So, uhh, I just info-dumped everything there is to know about my brother and me, and now I feel quite weird and naked.” He touches his shirt, apparently to check and see that he is, in fact, not naked. “I am a little surprised that he brought you along. He hasn’t brought anyone along since Miranda, so you must be important to him. How about you tell me something weird about yourself to make me feel less weird about myself? Got any weird habits?” He takes a deep breath. “That was a lot of weird.”
I laugh and try to think of something to tell him while wondering who this Miranda was. His ex, I assume. “Of course, uhh… Oh, I know something. I don’t think it’s weird, but I have been told it may be a little odd. See, I have this thing where I believe in Karma. Not like in a divine intervention sort of way. It’s all about math for me.”
Roman’s eyes shoot up for a millisecond.
“I think that every action has a reaction, a consequence. So if you do a lot of good, the mathematical probability of good things happening to you is substantially higher. That is to say,when you do nice things for others, they are more likely to remember and do nice things in return. You know that cheesy line: Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it? It’s kind of like that.”
Roman nods.
“The problem is that it barely ever seems to work the other way around. People get away with terrible things all the time. Like…” I try to come up with a good example. “Like someone who throws away their trash in a park did something bad and they know it, but the chance of them receiving appropriate repercussions, so they won’t repeat their behavior in the future, is close to zero. So, once in a while, when I observe something like that, I will intervene and do Karma’s job for her. Because too often she is a fickle, fickle?—”
“If I hadn’t been eavesdropping, I would have assumed you were talking about yourself,” Ryker growls as he sits back down next to me.
“Watch it, or you’re not invited to Fry-day’s anymore,” Roman mumbles while looking at some phallic sculpture that’s bolted to the wall.
