Page 8 of Roman and the Hopeless Romantic
Cassie
Cade leaned in, unable to hold back any longer.
Mel sucked in a breath before their lips met, and Cade suddenly didn’t know why he’d hesitated. She was everything he wanted, everything he’d always want. Their future sprawled out before them as wild as it was sure. First kisses weren’t the forever kind, but maybe this one could be, maybe this girl was different.
Cassie sighed as she held the Kindle to her chest. Cade and Mel were her favorite fictional couple, and she returned to them every time she felt her world spinning out of control. They grounded her, calmed her.
She stared at her laptop across the room, knowing her classes for the day wouldn’t wait forever. Online school was easy in that she could start and stop whenever she wanted as long as she finished her work. And she enjoyed the work. It gave her a purpose, something to help her feel productive on days that rarely changed.
Today, though… today, she just wanted to live in her stories.
Her alarm clock blared to life, sending a chilling scream through her room. With a groan, she rolled over and slapped a hand down on the button. She woke up hours before the alarm on a daily basis, unable to sleep any longer. Sometimes, it meant going through her days as an exhausted zombie, but that was better than risking the dreams she was always scared would return to haunt her.
She slid the Kindle under her pillow and sat up. Wild chocolate hair fell into her face. If anyone outside her family saw her in the morning, they’d assume she was a monster come to life.
Yep, she was that person.
Kicking the covers off, she got out of bed, sparing a cursory glance down at the oversized T-shirt she wore. A brown smear ran over her boob from the chocolate she’d dropped from her ice cream bar the night before.
She pulled on a pair of baggy sweatpants with a hole over one knee, not caring that she looked like a vagabond. Piling her hair into a messy bun on top of her head, she grabbed her laptop and headed for the stairs.
Mary hadn’t come to get the boys to school yet, but she knew Jesse wouldn’t be home. Every Monday, he woke up early to go watch Charlotte’s figure skating training. The girl both figure skated and played hockey, yet Cassie’s sole exercise was climbing up and down the stairs.
Her dad stood at the coffee machine when she walked in. “Morning.” She yawned.
“Morning, Cassandra.” He kissed the top of her head as he opened the fridge.
Like Cassie, her dad was stuck in his own grief and memories of that night all these years later. The two of them understood each other in a way no one else did. She didn’t hold it against him that he disappeared into his work, because she got it. It allowed him to imagine a world in which the scars didn’t run so deep.
She did the same thing with her books.
Neither of them felt the need to talk much, but they kept each other company through breakfast. Cassie drank a yogurt smoothie while she opened her laptop and set it on the kitchen table.
Her dad scribbled notes onto a legal pad.
It wasn’t until Will and Eli ran in that their quiet shattered. “Morning,” both boys called as they ran for the cereal.
Cassie stood to help them, but the doorbell ringing froze her steps.
She looked to her dad, eyes wide. “Y-you…” She moved to the hall and stared at the door before looking to her dad.
He nodded. “I’ll get it.” He lumbered to the door and yanked it open, revealing Roman, looking just as put together as he always did. Expensive jeans, dark polo, aviators pushed into his blond hair.
But the expression on his face… that wasn’t so normal. A storm brewed in his reddened eyes. Her dad said something to him, but she couldn’t make it out as she took in every bit of his appearance.
His hair may have been styled perfectly in his relaxed way, but his jaw tightened. His clothes were preppy and expensive, but the hem of his shirt was wrinkled where he picked at it. She walked closer, not stopping until he saw her.
His nostrils flared in anger. At her?
“Roman, would you like to come in?” her dad asked. He wasn’t one to spend much time with Roman or even Jesse for that matter, but if even he could see something was amiss, Cassie wasn’t imagining it.
“Is Jesse here?” Roman’s voice was hoarse.
“No, he’s at the rink.” Her dad moved aside to let Roman in. “Come in, we have coffee.”
She’d never known Roman to turn down coffee, even as a kid when he tried to sneak it. She’d also never known her dad to offer it to him.
“Yeah.” Roman rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, okay.”
