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pairing. bipoc male oc (tino) x black fem oc (milagra) x roman reigns summary. milagra and her boyfriend tino spend the holiday weekend with his dad. we're family, he told her. a cracked door that opens wider when tino is called into work for an emergency surgery and she’s left with his estranged, widower, father. warnings. profanity. smut. infidelity. boyfriend's father. age gap. slow burn. angst. mentions of parental death and grief. second chance. ghosting. word count. 25.9k. inspo. hard times by trey songz & walked out by tory lanez. disclaimer. navigation. rr mstrlst. main mstrlst. taglist. about me.

i. home • the white rabbit. 

“Don’t forget—we’re stopping by my dad’s for Thanksgiving.”

Of course she hadn’t forgotten. 

She would forget about him, if he hadn’t been smothering her since his most recent fuck up. A fuck up she was willing to bury in the dirt, before pouring the foundation for a new house atop of it. Why? Because Tino Reigns was no fuck up. He had made a mistake. At least that’s the terminology that helped her sleep next to him still.

They met a couple years and some change before. In the sky, on a Delta airbus that held one hundred and fifty-seven passengers—and they were sat next to one another in first class. It was a night flight and instead of sleeping like everyone else, or getting lost in the brain eating dimension of technology—they chose to stay up. Talking lowly, as to not disturb anyone, about their love for eighties R&B, and plans of traveling the world before they had kids. They exchanged numbers and he showed up at her doorstep with flowers and tickets to see New Edition. 

At least that was the story he chose to tell everyone. Clean-cut, cute, and something to tell their kids, had they ever settled in a good season of their relationship long enough to have them. 

The truth was much more complicated, as it always is. 

The pair did meet in the sky on a Delta flight. They weren’t sat next to one another directly. They were an aisle away. And it wasn't until Tino, moving too fast and too inconsiderate, tried to get up while a flight attendant was making her way down the aisle with two full cups in her hand, that their paths crossed. 

Pants soiled, he had no choice but to accept Milagra’s offering of Essentials sweats from her carry on. They barely fit, for he was six foot flat and pushing two hundred and forty pounds. They rippled in a shared laugh at that alone for a good five minutes. They talked about why they were in Houston—her to see family that she always regretted moving away from when she visited, but the moment she landed back in the Magic City, the nostalgia wore off. He was sent there to do attend a research seminar by the hospital that recently promoted him. They compared careers, fitting like a puzzle at the way they chose to reconstruct things with sharp objects—him with a blade and her with a pencil. 

They pondered on where they’d want to fly next. Her most likely to Greece and him back to the motherland—the island of Samoa. And it was then, that Milagra really looked at him beyond the blur of a handsome stranger, that she had no intention on talking to after she debarked—and she traced the intentional inked armor going down his right arm. 

He told her how he grew up—in a family of giants—literally and figuratively. A football coach for a dad and a slew of cousins or uncles who wrestled professionally. 

One topic rolled into the next as they hungrily whispered to one another across the way—like young girls under a blanket at a sleepover—stopping every time a body walked by and cut through them. Before they knew it, it was five minutes until landing. 

Tino got all the way to his apartment in Downtown Miami before realizing he never even got her name, let alone her number—but he remembered where she said she worked. He found her on their LinkedIn and showed up one day. No flowers.  Barely a plan and the continuous headache that wouldn’t go away until he found her again. 

And the tickets to see New Edition were hers. She had planned to go with another man who caught a convenient case of the flu and canceled on her. Tin0 was his stand in. 

Milagra found herself with him every day after. She fell into his life the way a chef would add garnish to his meal. 

Their relationship coasted on steady waters for all of two years. Not bad, but nothing to flood the group chat about with think pieces. Until recently. 

They didn’t have sex—at least that’s what he told her. He did admit that the lines between coworker, friend, and lover had been stirred until it became a new substance that even he couldn’t name. Lines were crossed and he looked up one day and she was occupying a space Milagra was meant to fill. 

Milagra was grateful for even that confession, knowing most men wouldn’t even have offered her that.  She understood. He was a trauma surgeon, as she was. Together, their eyes had seen the worst of what the human body could go through. More hours spent at the hospital than in their homes. He was used to her. She was available. Milagra got it—she understood—and so her understanding morphed to bitter acceptance. 

But she wasn’t as green as she allowed him to believe. She knew she would only ever receive the watered down version from his mouth. The same way he pulled apart and molded the story of how they met, until it looked and sounded like something digestible. 

So, she took his confession, already knowing in order to get to the truth she’d have to multiply it by ten.

What else was she meant to do? She didn’t have any proof and she didn’t want it. That would mean she had to go—and she didn’t want that. It was strange though, because she didn’t necessarily want to stay either. 

She had just grown comfortable. Feeling like she belonged in a spot since she had been placed there for so long. Like unmoved furniture, worn out by years and familiarity. 

Where else would she go?

At the ripe age of thirty, where things were supposed to finally be falling into place or falling completely apart to come back together, the thought of being alone and having to get to know someone else—the way they liked their eggs, if they snored, or guessing about the secret family they had hidden—and those thoughts scared her more than the thought of staying with a man that cheated on her—maybe. 

Tino wasn’t a bad guy. He had his shit together. He went to church on Sundays, did things for Milagra before she had to ask, and maintained a body that beaches couldn’t wait to see. He was charming. He talked about starting a family like a man who actually wanted to be a father, instead of one who just liked the comfort of family. He could fuck. And he did the dishes after she cooked without complaining. 

He came with his own toolbox of bullshit—but what man didn’t? And still, he was the genius and prominent surgeon who saved lives, and she was his pretty girlfriend who couldn’t sink her claws into a stable career. Until about five months ago, when an unsought offer from a well known architectural company arrived to her email. She accepted of course, but wished she hadn’t when she discovered from a late night lurking session on her boss’s Facebook, that he and her boyfriend were old dorm mates in undergrad. 

A handout. Just another reason to be grateful and stay attached to his hip. 

Milagra made up for it. She earned her spot and put the work in. Went from new hire, to Senior, to Director. An ascent he couldn’t claim. No, that was all her. 

His warm hand cupped the nape of her neck. “Did you hear me, baby?”

“Yeah,” she answered looking up at him, now. The blinding light of her computer screen bouncing off her soft brown skin. “Just the day or?”

“I haven’t seen him in a while. And this’ll be your first time meeting. I think we should make it a weekend thing.”

His father, Roman, lived an hour up the map and, closer to the coast. Tino graduated high school and fled, thinking he could outrun the grief of losing his mother, or at the very least not be reminded of it every time he walked past the empty master bedroom—and past the guest room where his father chose to sleep instead. Her ghost haunted them both in different ways. 

“Are you sure? The hospital…”

“I’ll let them know tonight. They’ll probably just have me on call.”

“And when they call?” She asked, watching him grab the rest of his stuff to walk out the door for the night shift. He gave her a look. One that said everything but offered nothing. A pattern of his, she noticed. She just couldn’t expect too much out of him. He spread himself too thin.

Milagra always wondered if that was a trait he inherited from his mother or his father. A question she’d have to answer herself the following week. Tino rarely spoke of either. His mother was dead and had been for over a decade now. Car wreck. It was the single tragedy that forced him to double down on the trauma surgeon route. Fixing and patching people from freak accidents that he imagined was his mother. And every time he spoke of his father, it was cold and distant, like he too was already buried six feet under. 

“Good night, Tino.” She dismissed him, focusing back on the proposal from work he temporarily distracted her from. She already decoded what the silence meant. If they called, he’d go. 

She should’ve been weary, anticipating being left with a strange older man, regardless of his relation to her boyfriend—only, she wasn’t. A part of her hoped this week flew by.

Roman was an enigma. That shady yet integral character the series always mentions, but doesn’t show up until the last season.  

“I love you,” he told her as if love was their only issue. If that’s all it took, they’d be married with four kids.

Milagra waited until the last second before she knew he’d make something out of it before she sighed and said—

“Love you too,” stalely.  

She heard his heavy steps retreat to the front door before it shut, leaving her in a familiar space—alone. 

The first thing she did was minimize her work window to open a private one. 

He was the complete opposite of his son as far as aura was concerned.

Tino was like leather. Traditional and straight to the point with a hint of edge. 

Roman was alligator skin. 

The head football coach at Florida Atlantic University—and boy, he looked it. Built like a man that would put you straight on your ass if you tried him. Roman hardly ever smiled in the pictures she found. The most he offered the camera was the hike of his upper plump lip at the corner into a smirk, and a crinkle at the corner of his eyes. 

Always going above and beyond for his team. Taking the boys on trips, or surprise NFL games in the sky box—most likely a gift from his college buddies that made it big. 

Roman—as stoic as he appeared online—seemed like a beacon of light to anyone that crossed his path. A devoted helper. But he himself, was a loner. 

Milagra knew it. Fishing trips accompanied by no-one—most likely a plan Tino was supposed to be apart of and ended up flaking. New recipes or old ones he attempted in his kitchen. Catching the game every Sunday in his theater room. Gardening on his massive front lawn. Or even the random projects he assembled and carried out around his estate. The most recent one was the stone wall, sunken fire pit he added to his backyard.

These were all things she could pick up from Instagram alone. 

The internet was a scary place. 

Milagra leaned back in the kitchen table chair, gripping her other wrist above her head, chewing on her bottom lip. A picture of him, towering over two other women, who she assumed to be Tino’s aunts, staring back at her through her MacBook. 

She wondered if the shared holiday weekend was his or Tino’s idea. 

Either way, up until the actual day they left, it was all she could fucking think about. In the shower, before bed, at work. She was even dreaming about it. 

A parasite of some sort, infiltrating her mind with images and scenarios of how it would all happen.

What was her brain searching for among all the obscurity?

And now she sat in the passenger seat of Tino’s cocaine white, GMC Acadia, watching palm trees follow them up with narrow winding highway, having nothing but the opportunity to heighten her curiosity and imagine all the things she couldn’t see yet. 

The ride was an hour long constant of listening to the radio—eighties R&B because he knew it to be her favorite—and the occasional turn of the volume knob for him to say something she only acknowledged with a dragged hum or shortened laughed. Hoping he couldn’t sense something was off with her. 

They traveled up the length of the circular driveway laid with cobblestone. Tino gripping her hand tighter, watching her steps. The door was already unlocked when he opened it. He let her step in first, her heels echoing in the high-ceiling foyer that was lit up to the point where you could see every corner of the space. She couldn’t tell if her sudden warmth had to do with the actual temperature of the house, but it made her scratch the back of her neck before smoothing over the skin. 

She could hear music coming from somewhere deeper in the house. A house that breathed life for a family of at least five or more, but as far as she knew, it was just him. 

She wasn’t facing the throat of the house when he came walking down one of the spiral steps. Only heard Tino’s acknowledgement. 

“Dad, this is Milagra.” His hand urged her forward gently as she had to crane her neck up, trying to remember how to speak. “Milagra, baby, this is my old man.” She could hear him, but he might as well had been in another room. 

He was tall. Spreading wider as her eyes trailed up his stature, like the grandest tree sitting in the forrest. He was dressed like a man who was indeed in the comfort of his own home. Black t-shirt that conformed to the muscles in his arms, no shoes, and sweats that hung like they had been there all day. His skin had a glow to it. The sun-kissed tan giving every part of him even more definition. His hair was pulled back strictly—the most structured thing about him, other than his body. It carried the kind of shine one’s did after just wetting it. It was dark, like he had dyed it the richest jet black on the shelf—but Milagra found comfort in the grey hairs kissing the frame of his roots and even hiding in his beard. A tell sign that he had been here awhile. 

She appreciated it. The grey hairs and the way his clothes hung off him. It made him appear more human. More normal. Considering he looked like something manufactured in a lab solely for the female gaze. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Mr. Reigns.” Her hand came up and he looked at it with just his eyes as if he didn’t know what to do with it. 

“Roman,” he corrected her. “I’m not that old.” And like the sun’s head peaking over the darkness of the sea’s depths, he offered light, and smiled at her. Not a full one, but it cracked enough to make her feel safe, despite her heart fluttering against her ribcage. 

“You’re like fifty,” Tino teased. 

Ignoring his son’s jab, he kept his gaze on her face—heart-shaped with soft and languid features  like a timeless oil painting. Her skin had a natural bronze and richness to it, like the grand canyon almost. The black dress she wore, fell on her shoulders in a way that the deep lines of her collarbones were exposed. The skin carried a shine, letting Roman know that like him, she paid attention to the details, taking her time after showering to give the spots she knew would be seen extra love and attention. He had to tear his eyes away from the small beauty mark that sat intimately on the left slope. 

“And what’s with all this formal stuff?” The skin between his brows crinkled. “We’re family,” were the last two words she heard before the world blurred and faded away around her like a dream. 

Those arms she had to tear her eyes away from came around her, embracing her body like he had known it for years. 

Bitch, hug him back.

She had to coach herself. Everything about him was distracting. His cologne wasn’t harsh, in fact it was therapeutic. Something she could get used to. She slid her hands up to palm his back and could’ve melted into a puddle of nothing at his feet. 

She could remember that this is how it started. The moment the air stretched and gave out before it grew unbelievably thick between them. 

The hug lingered for a second longer than strangers were meant to be in each other’s arms, before they both pulled away. 

Whatever they just birthed, evident in the gaze they refused to let go, even after pulling apart. 

“You didn’t tell me she was a model, too.” He looked to his son whose smile matched his own and it was in that moment Milagra could see that the smile she thought he inherited from his mother, he had actually snatched right off of his father’s face. 

Milagra stood beside her man, feeling his hand snake around her waist in a way that it hadn’t in months as she tried to find her words. 

“Y’all can come on. I got dinner in here.” Roman’s sunk a hand into his sweats pocket, nodding his head in the direction he led them. 

“What’d you make?” Tino’s figure walked side by side with his dad’s slightly larger frame as they trailed off into their own conversation. 

Milagra however, fell three paces behind them, watching them interact and looking at the pictures that hung on the walls. 

“What is that?” Roman turned back to her with tight brows, as if the thought had bothered him—lingering in his head like the scent in his nose since he hugged her. “That scent?”

She stared at him for longer than she wanted to, his pace slowing like a car running out of gas, as he gave her an opportunity to catch up. 

“It’s uh—Mugler. Alien Goddess.”

“Mm.”

“You don’t like it?”

“No—I do. It’s strong, but feminine still. I think I’ve smelled it before.”

It was probably the first time in Milagra’s thirty years on this planet that someone—a man especially—paid her such an intentional compliment. It wasn't as simple as you’re pretty, you smell nice, or I like your bracelet. He somehow gave life and personality to a fragrance she wore nearly everyday. 

“Thank you,” she told him not even knowing if it was really a compliment. The half smile tugging at one side of his mouth as she passed him to get into the dining room, told her it had to be. 

He went all out. 

Turned a simple Thanksgiving dinner for three into a banquet of luxury. All the food, colorful and still steaming somehow, assorted on silver trays that lined the length of the table and shone under the low hanging crystal chandelier. Meats, side, and sauces. In the middle he arranged a line of those water-filled cylinders where the mini candles could float. Strategically, white lei flowers were sprinkled in between everything. And the cream cloth lying beneath it all, made everything look that more regal. 

“Hope y’all are hungry.”

Milagra starved all day for this.

She nodded, too occupied with appreciating not the just the spread, but the design of it all. He really had an eye for beauty. The kind that only someone who paid attention to everything could possess.

“Really outdid yourself this time, huh?” Tino smiled, peering over everything with the eyes of a man that hadn’t ate a home-cooked meal in years. 

“I don’t think I ever seen anybody make salmon or lamb for a Thanksgiving dinner,” Milagra looked to Roman.

“I haven’t done turkey in years.” He points to his son quickly. “He never liked it. His mom neither.”

Tino’s face fell flat and she could tell by the look in his eyes he wished his dad didn't just say that. Roman cleared his throat and the sound of his chair scraping the wood was unbelievably loud in the newfound tension. 

He sat at the head with his son and his girlfriend on either side of him—all in one corner despite the grandness of the table. 

They ate, and she made sure to at least get a forkful of everything just to confirm that it pleased her tongue as much as her eye. Tino cleared his plate and was now on his second one. In the corner where they sat, Roman let them pick out an aged bottle of wine from the stone wall wine cellar, accentuated by LED backlighting. From Italy of course. 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild. 

He popped it open for them. “I love that sound,” he smiled fully at her for the first time that night.

Like a newcomer, she let them do most of the talking. Tino caught him up on all the outrageous cases that came through. Someone with a shard of glass in their face from a bar fight. A girl whose hair clip was lodged into the back of her skull from a car crash. Another woman with something stuck up her ass. 

It wasn’t until they were nearing the end of their night, almost as if Roman was saving the best for last, did Milagra become the star of the show.

“Mila,” Roman’s voice interrupted the silence. She sat up even straighter in her chair and gave him her full attention, letting her fork rest on the plate. He made even the sound of her own nickname feel regal in her ears. Carrying the end of it like he was used to saying it. “Tin0 told me you went back to school recently?”

Swallowing what was left in her mouth, she eyed Tino, not sure what to make of them having conversations about her.  He always seemed too busy for even himself. Six feet between his own mind and everything else going on around him. So, to hear that he chooses, in the scarce five to ten minute conversations he carries with his dad, to talk about her, made her feel oddly closer to Tino in that moment. Maybe they weren’t as far apart as she thought. 

“Yeah, I decided to go back for my masters.”

“What are you studying?”

“Communications with an emphasis in applied linguistics.”

Roman’s brows rose slightly. “Say that shit five times in a row.” Milagra could see Tino shaking his head at the unsolicited dad joke. She on the other hand, found it cute.

“I know it’s a little different from what I’m doing now but…”

“Nothing wrong with that. Education is endless. Who says you have to stick to one lane?” Your son does, she thought but didn't dare say out-loud. In fact, she could tell by the tightness in Tino’s mouth that he was swallowing the urge to disagree. “What made you choose that route, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Well”—she shifted in her seat to match his stance. She tried being respectful, but Tino had barely gave any input. It might as well had been just her and Roman at the table. “I travel sometimes for work. A lot of International businesses consult my office for the architectural design of their construction projects—which means communicating with a lot of people whose first language isn’t always English.” She shrugged. “I thought it’d be helpful for the job, considering I’m the Director,” she lied. 

All those things were true. She traveled for work. Her office mostly did business with international companies. She was the Director of Interior Architecture, and a degree in language would help in her daily job responsibilities. But none of that was the real reason she grew a sudden interest in language. She read the novel Babel by R.F. Kuang in undergrad and wanted desperately to switch her major, but knew her parents would turn their noses up at the sound of anything other than the high paying field she was already knee deep in. Now, with a degree and established in her field, she utilized the extra time to go back and do what she couldn’t before. 

Adults didn't usually walk around proudly offering the fact that they were spending thousands of dollars to study a field they acquired from a fictional, fantasy novel. Milagra, almost always the only black woman in a room full of men, was always hyperaware of appearing more serious than she actually was. So, she kept the real reason she went back to school to herself. 

“And you already know three languages?” He wasn't even eating anymore. Only Tino’s silverware hit his plate and his father had angled himself in a way that suggested he and Milagra were the only ones at the table. She took note of all of this while simply nodding to his question. 

“I’m surprised you remember all this. I told you this—what—when we first moved in together?”

“It was just so impressive, I couldn’t forget it. What is it? English, Spanish, and…”

“French,” she added. “And I’m learning German right now as an elective.” His eyes urged her to keep talking, like he liked the sound of her voice as much as she got lost in his. “Tino tried to teach me Samoan. I think that’s one I really got sit and focus for. That’s definitely not a language you learn in passing.”

“Yeah. I grew up speaking it and I still struggle at times.”

“You’re half Italian, right?”

“That’s right.”

Tino’s brows scrunched, trying to remember when he told her that.

“Do you speak it at all?” 

Roman switched his gaze between both of her eyes. Under the light they were a solid amber. Something that caught his attention after hugging her in the foyer, but he didn’t get a chance to really revere them the way he wanted to. He had never seen the color on someone else up close. 

“I tuoi occhi sono—”

“—Baby, did you know the Cowboys were playing this weekend?” Tino interrupted with his phone in hand. 

Her pouty lips parted for a beat before she actually spoke. “Oh, damn. I forgot.” She waved a hand. “Dak is benched this game because of the injury. This is gonna be a hard watch. I don’t even know if I wanna see this.”

“Brains, beauty, and you know your way around a playbook. Where does it end?”

“Alright, old man.” Tino’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard at this point. “You’ve passed your compliment limit. One more, and I’m gonna think you’re trying to take my woman.”

His head went from side to side, and the line of his dimple deepened. “I don’t want no problems.”

No denial, just evasion. 

It was quiet for only a second before Tino’s phone vibrated in his hands and he wasted no time rising from his chair. 

“I gotta take this. It’s the hospital,” he said before leaving them alone. 

Milagra’s eyes traveled back to Roman, holding her breath when she found him already looking to her. She offered a tight lipped smile and he returned it. 

“The food was really good, Mr. Reigns—I mean Roman.”

“Thank you. I tried not to overcook, but I don’t know, I enjoy it. Enough for us to last the rest of the weekend.”

She nodded, looking at all there was left, before they fell into another silence. Not uncomfortable, but it felt forced. A layer of something resting just beneath it. Like they both had something to share, but chose silence instead. 

Milagra reached for her glass, with only a sip of the wine left in it, trying not to be overly aware of his eyes watching every step of the way. He waited until she accepted the last gulp of it before speaking again. 

“You ready to talk, now?”

With a pinched expression, she set the glass back down. “What do you wanna talk about?”

His stare hardened. She almost had him. Almost made himself a fool. Until he saw it. The twitch in her lips, the brew to a smirk. 

“He’s my son.”

“You think I knew that?” She whispered fiercely. “He barely even talks about you,” she scoffed. “I had to connect my own dots.”

“And you still came?” The hairs of his brows rose, causing wrinkles on his forehead. “What do you think will happen here?”

She frowned. “Whatever he wants. If he got down on one knee tonight, I’d say yes.”

“I would never let that happen.” He barely allowed the smoke from her heated statement rise.

He was hot as a furnace on the inside. It was one thing to imagine her with someone else all these years. Laughing at their jokes. Stroking the hairs of their beard like she used to do his. Mouth agape, rocking against them, moaning their name. 

But in front of him? A permanent reminder of his shortcomings? How he pushed away the one fracture of happiness he’d aligned himself with in the years following his wife’s death? 

That mystery someone being his own son, born from the fruit of his own body?

Hell no. 

With every burly pause in their conversation, the buzz of Tino’s voice echoed from the other room. 

“I love your son.”

“You’re so full of shit. Are you forgetting that I know you? I know you’re not happy. It’s all over your face and that fake ass smile.”

After all these years, he could still read her like the pages of his favorite book. She wondered if her armor was really that insubstantial, but no, that was just how it worked with them. He saw everything. Even the parts of her she didn’t want anyone to. 

“Well, it’s nice to see that you haven’t changed. That you’re still the same. Alive and well. I wouldn’t know.” She clenched her teeth, the muscles in her jaw dancing. “Seeing as I wasn't good enough for a fucking phone call at least.”

Her voice was coarse with the hairs of bitterness. And now he could see the real issue. 

“Mila—”

“Don’t.” She threw the napkin that rested in her lap onto the table, like a white flag. But it would never be that simple with them. “Okay? Don’t do that. I don’t need your pity—your excuses—a sob story—or whatever other bullshit you have to feed me, just to feel better about the way you left things.” She leaned forward. “This is happening. You’re not.”

He opened his mouth and shut it all in the same second, watching his son reenter. Both of their strained faces morphing into softer features as if Tino had a remote to control their dispositions.

“I got bad news.” Tino walked closer to the pair, tapping his phone against the opposite hand. Eyes burning holes into Milagra, who chose peace, not returning eye contact. 

Here we go, she said to herself.

“What’s going on?” Roman inquired.

“They need me.”

“Are you kidding me? It’s Thanksgiving.” Roman’s eyes flicked to Milagra, expecting her objection too. But he was trying his hand at a game she had never won before. She didn’t see the point. “HCA is like an hour away.”

“You know how it is—especially during holiday season. Folks get drunk—get reckless—bodies start piling up.” He looked to his girlfriend again, waiting until she lazily dragged her gaze to meet his. 

“I’ll be back as soon as I can be—I swear. You gonna be okay here?”

“I don’t know—”

“Of course she is,” Roman intercepted. Both of their eyes landed on him standing, grabbing another bottle from the cellar. “You said you’ll be back? She can help me put this up and I’ll give her the grand tour.”

Her eyes stayed pinned on Tino, hoping he came up with some reason to shut this down. She felt it. In the pit of her stomach she felt herself being sucked into a familiar wormhole if someone didn’t act now. 

Tino’s soft eyes shifted to hers and she tried to wash away the anxiety on her face.

“Just go. Go make somebody else’s Thanksgiving.”

ii. roman’s estate • put pressure on the wound.

It was the kind of night where sleep had wrapped a hand to cover her nose and mouth, but every time she slipped, it brought her back to life. 

Milagra was restless. The day exhausted her, but not enough to have a decent night’s sleep. The bed was too cold and unfamiliar. The crickets chirping were the most soothing thing about it all. That and the sound of the pool’s filter flipping the water in and out from the cracked sliding door. 

And the thing that kept her up the most was her mind remembering who slept on the other side of the house upstairs. 

She rose until her back hit the headboard, listening for a second, trying to search for any evidence of him being up too.

When she deemed it safe enough, she swung her legs over and into Tino’s slippers. She opened the sheer but thick white drape that covered the balcony door, enough so the pool lights from further out reflected onto her small face. She grabbed her latest read, Databases by R.F. Kuang. 

Once she made it into the vast hall, she realized just how eerie this situation was. She roamed through the house off sheer memory. Finding the hallway lined with pictures that weren’t there the last time she was. She stopped in front of it, finding Tino’s small face and a head full of thick curls, tucked between Roman and his mother. 

God damn she was beautiful. 

Full and voluminous, spiral curls cascaded along both shoulders. She wasn’t smiling, but her face illuminated the way only a woman that was at peace would. 

Women in Milagra’s age range always did that thing where they would see another woman and immediately pull out their ruler and scales. Measuring their own shortcomings and comparing the most minute details. And she was no different. It wasn't intentional or even malicious. It was just habit. 

From the first time she saw a picture of this woman, she barely found them. The differences. They had that same baked honey complexion, full lips, and long stemmed noses that flipped slightly at the tip. A jawline that was softer than angular, with chins that tapered at the ends rather than came to a sharp tip. 

Roman looked much younger. A connected mustache into a goatee vacant of any gray hairs, that emphasized his strong jawline. 

They looked happy. 

Not in a picturesque way. The portrait could’ve easily found its way into a sociology textbook, demonstrating the concept of family. But it was so much more than that. They looked like people that would do anything for one another. Like only fate brought Tino’s mom and Roman together. Pictures were worth a thousand words.  

Why did tragedy have to strike where it wasn't needed the most?

Every time she thought of it, she nearly shed another tear for them. 

Tip toeing the rest of the way down the hall, she rounded the corner and his broad figure stopped her dead in her tracks. 

He was on his laptop, the blue light reflecting in the glasses that sat low on the bridge of his nose, sharpening his already defined features. His bun worn out from the day. AirPods tucked in his ear, so she didn’t think he’d hear her if she snuck to get a cup of water and dipped out.

But he must’ve felt her instead. 

The minute she attempted at another step, his eyes ventured up. 

“Thirsty,” was all she said.

“Cups are above the refrigerator.”

“I remember.”

He watched her the whole time, in that way you do when you’re prepared to look away as soon as their eyes find yours. The minute she turned her body, he fixated on the screen in front of him, squinting as if he might actually be more interested in a paused video than her. 

He listened for her steps, light taps of her bare feet over the floor’s surface, until he heard the door slide open and then shut back. 

The curves of her figure wandering deeper into backyard. He pressed play, sighing. 

He knew they had to talk, eventually. Not like the one they had at the dining table. A more sensible one. He knew apologies were in order. Mostly from him. But there was so much more he wanted to say, in place of what he should. 

He tried to focus on the tape of his players’ at practice, but his eyes kept shifting to the sliding door. He felt that jolt. The rush of excitement one gets when they want to experience something with someone. Walk the line together. 

She circled around the sunken fire pit he added. It wasn't there the last time she was. She stopped for a while. Her face too far away for him to gauge whether it was in curiosity, admiration, or something else. 

He thought of her the entire time. Saw her eyes with every lay of the brown stone. Placed the steps where he thought he remembered her saying they should go. And now she was seeing the manifestation of her ideas, brought to life with his hands. 

As if he was late to something, he shut the laptop and stood from the couch. He made it all the way to the door, eyes like beams on the back of her head from where she sat. Muttering madness to himself—trying to build up the courage to just go. 

“Fuck,” he mumbled. Every step he took, felt lighter. His insides floating. She was curled up, cozy with her feet tucked under her, doing what she loved. This is exactly what he pictured. “Still reading?”

She looked up at him towering over her, almost forgetting the circumstances of her icy heart, and the words she held in her throat like bad food for years. 

“Why would I stop?” She rolled her eyes and returned them to the open book in her hands. “You think I’d just fall into a black hole after you?”

He planted himself on the cushions with her. Far enough that he didn't get the urge to touch her. 

Roman couldn’t do this. All the pretending. It was one thing to act as if he didn't know her—hadn’t felt her before—but, to act as if he hated her was taking it too far. 

He created the rift. Put enough space  and resentment between them for years. So he’d be the one to bridge the gap. 

“Look—I might’ve overreacted at the table.” The sound of the page turning gave him a moment to breathe. “I can tell that you love him and I know he loves you, too.” She listened to every word despite her eyes being pinned to the page of the book. “I was wrong—for everything. I’m sorry, Milagra.”

For years, those were the only two words that mattered to her. The only ones she wanted to hear from him, had she ever heard his voice again. 

The sound of the filter pulling the water suddenly felt like it was taunting her. The subtle layer of steam over it. The chill in the air. It all reminded her of that night where they stayed out here, fucking like starved teenagers, dipping in and out of the realm of water—such a pure element, washing away their indiscretions—until the sun came up. Three months spent with him felt like a lifetime. She had forgotten what the floor felt like with her feet flat and grounded. He had shown her heaven, as she fell through each cloud with gratitude. And then he snatched it away. She’d been walking on flat surfaces ever since. 

That was the scariest thing about finding something useful in another person. He who has the power to give, has the power to take, too.

“Was any of it real?” 

She hated the rush of desperateness that folded itself over her words, but she was just that—desperate. For answers. Blaming herself for years, finding reasons to shift the blame from him to her. But the problem was rooted in something much deeper than just blame.

Milagra thought she wasn’t enough. Much younger and not nearly as successful as she is now—she figured he finally realized that. 

He wished he could pin point that as the reason. He’d tell her straight up—I just wasn't feeling it. But it’d be a lie. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he told her dryly. Hurting even himself with the avoidant reply. 

Of course it mattered. It always mattered.  

“We have someone in common now,” he continued. “If you love my son like you say you do—then you’d forget about what happened before.”

The birth of something didn’t erase the existence of what remained. It would have to be bigger, stronger, more potent. 

“I can’t believe I didn't realize it sooner.” He studied the side of her face. The line of her jaw that he used to press his lips into while the thick hairs of his beard scratched the skin lazily, back and forth, until he found a place he liked the most. It was usually the spot near her ear. She had another beauty mark there. Faint, but it was there. That was her favorite place for him to land, too. 

“He kept saying his dad was a football couch. Never said what school. He’s half Samoan. From Florida.” She recited all the clues, missed. 

“How did you figure it out?”

“He has a bunch of boxes in the basement. Tapes, old trophies”—she stopped to look at him—“and pictures. Not a lot, but enough. The first one I saw was of your wife. I could never forget her face,” she admitted. Roman’s chest went hollow. “I knew I had seen her before—I just couldn’t put my finger on how. So I kept looking. Until you showed up.” Tapping her fingers on the hardness of the book cover, she almost got lost. Remembering how she cried all night, in the shower, while Tino laid sound asleep in their bed, oblivious. 

She didn't know then why she was even crying. She deemed it as resentment from him being closer than she could’ve ever imagined. She thought she was getting somewhere. Closing the gap between what could’ve been and what actually was. She found something stable. But as soon as she turned in his foyer, watching him clear the last two steps, it couldn’t have been more clear. She was relapsing on a drug you couldn’t even see most days. Her body shriveling and getting sick off of it. He hadn’t even opened his mouth yet, and all those feelings came crashing, like water from a broken levee, into the houses she built from her pain. 

She used to think of the past as something shrinking. Memories drifting further away and getting smaller as the days between the current and past stretch. Before they become a task to remember. But it wasn’t until he ended their summer fling, that she learned that memories—the ones that leave actual stains—we hold onto. They become the dreams that are hard to forget instead of being hard to remember. Not just clusters of scenes fading, but clear dialogues—words he always repeated to her or the sound of his heavy breathing while her head was pressed to his chest—and drawn out scenes—bold lines as if they were from a movie she had watched just minutes before. The past where he appeared was far from shrinking. It expanded and swelled just a little more everyday, as did the ache to just be in his presence one last time did. And it grew so large, it took up too much space in her mind. Like a tumor. 

And it didn’t help that the man she used to move on from such tragedy—in a sick poetic way—just so happened to be his son. All the mannerisms, the subtle behaviors that made her glitch, feeling as if it were years before with Roman—it was all because Tino learned it from him. 

Milagra made a grave mistake all those years ago. That same one that most women in their mid twenties do. Meeting a man that presented himself as all the things she dreamed about as a little girl. An extension of her father. A protector, a provider, a lover, and someone to help her sort out all the thoughts that got lost in her head. Projecting the rest of her life with him in every frame. Memorizing every wall in his house, and resting in his bed until her scent soaked in the fabric of the sheets. 

She hadn’t even meant for it to go as far as it did—as deep as it was in such a short time. Neither did he. But that was the issue. Love without intention is like taking a dagger and shoving it right into your own heart. 

Roman reached deep into the pocket of his sweats, revealing what he grabbed on his way out. She stared at it and then him blankly. 

“It’s a peace offering.” It was a Twix bar. 

“I don’t eat those anymore.”

“You’re still bad at that,” he told her. “Lying. You just posted it a few weeks ago.”

He tore the gold rapper open, taking one of the four chocolate cylinders for himself before holding the rest out.

“You were cyberstalking me,” she realized before snatching it from his hands knowing it’d disappear in his mouth if she didn't. 

“I only just started,” he lied. “I knew you were coming.”

“I knew it.” She had to laugh. “I fucking knew it. You didn't even flinch when I turned around. In the foyer.”

He bit into his bottom lip, but it didn't do much to hide the smile forming on his lips. “He kept telling me about this girl he met. On a plane. I don’t know how I didn't connect the dots. He said you were from Connecticut. You worked in architecture and design. Went to school in Houston. He talked about you all the damn time. You started to feel familiar. Like I already knew you.” She swallowed the knot in her throat. “It was like pulling teeth to get him to just bring you here. He slipped up one day over the phone and said your name. Milagra.” His lips—she couldn’t stop tracing them. She had just learned about pronunciation and how it varies from person to person based on factors like jaw structure, the atmosphere and region they learned to speak in. She always liked the way he carried the A’s in her name and the way his lips opened up to put it in the air with a slight southern drawl. She watched the whole time as he recounted the story like it was a fond memory he thought of often. His eyes bounced over the ground when a smile rounded softly, as if his worst nightmare hadn’t some to fruition. 

Only it had. It was a blessing wrapped in a nightmare. All those nights, wishing and hoping for a cracked door—any chance or lingering sign that he could or even should try again. It came. But at what cost?

“Why didn't you say anything?” 

He breathed deep. He couldn’t tell her the truth. He just wanted to see her face again. Hear her voice. Smell that perfume. Strong, but feminine. 

“I don’t know,” he lied again. He had been doing that since he met her. Telling half truths, lying to himself even, hoping it was enough for the time being. All those lies, like a bridge built with compromised materials. It’ll never hold up. Severing their connection. 

“You could’ve stopped this.”

“So could you have,” he argued. “But you didn’t. You still came. Why?”

He hung onto every movement of her face. Her eyes dancing between his. The tightening of her lips. The arch in her brow. 

All she ever had to do was just say it. Save him from his own misery. 

“I don’t know I guess…I just wanted to tell you to your face what a piece of shit you are.” He breathed again, not even realizing he was holding himself from the act. Her chuckle faded out. “I don’t even feel any better. I thought I would.” 

That cinching of your insides, organs fluttering, your gut reacting, when you’re about to make a decision that’s not quite right—it was happening. 

“I’m willing to forget if you can.” Every word that tumbled from his lying mouth made his heart cramp in his chest. “For Tino.” He convinced the both of them. 

She was slow to accept, but eventually she nodded. “For Tino,” she agreed. 

The water lapped and the pool’s shimmering light bounced off their faces as they chewed on his peace offering. 

“Everything okay between you two?”

His tone held no infliction, but it didn’t need it. The question itself is what threw her off balance. She looked to him as if she might’ve forgotten he was there. “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

He shook his head. A lie. She could tell from the same pout he wore that his son adopted every time he was withholding something. “I’m just curious, is all. Just asking in general.”

“You’re bad at that too.” He squinted. “Lying,” she clarified. “Especially now that I know your tells. You can thank your son for that.”

“Your page—there’s no pictures of you and him.”

She rubbed her moisturized lips against one another, thinking of a way to climb out of this one. 

“Your generation likes to advertise things they cherish. Mine not so much. Monitoring spirits online and whatnot.”

“Sure,” his curved lips said, but his eyes captured doubt. 

Milagra was impressed at how easily he could read her. He could do a lot that his son couldn’t. 

The difference was like night and day. 

The difference in being looked at and being seen. Only downside was that in being seen, that means he saw everything. 

His silence grabbed at her guilty conscience.

“I love your son.”

“That’s your second time telling me that without me having to ask.” It always felt like he had more to say. A pregnant silence at the end of every sentence. His eyes still pointed intentionally as if his mouth were still moving. 

“Maybe, that’s because your lips are saying one thing, but your eyes are saying another. Just say it.”

“He might’ve mentioned something about you two going through a rough patch. A coworker?”

Milagra shifted in the seat. Of course he knew. She couldn’t look him in the eyes anymore, so she redirected her attention to the fireplace. The dark, smooth surface surrounding the untouched rocks, as if it had never even been lit before. 

“Every couple goes through things. I’m not saying it’s okay, but…” She shook her head. Every time she thought about it she thought less of herself. 

Still, she knew no greater wrench to love than one person giving up and sinking to the bottom, while the other kept swimming. “Leaving is always the easy option.” His chest shrank in size. “I leave and I’ll just have to deal with problems from the next one. Probably worse. At least he tries.”

“You two seem to fit pretty well.”

“We have our moments. Days. Things we just can’t seem to agree on. Like the whole going back to school thing.” 

Roman’s brows dented in the middle. “He didn't want you to?”

“He did—he just thought the whole masters in communications thing didn't make sense. Said it was chaotic. Unstable.” She smiled softly as if the words didn't hurt when she had first heard them. “I can’t please everybody. I fuck up trying to please myself some days.”

“I hear that,” he agreed. “I love my son, but he’s one of those people that lives life in a straight line—or tries to anyway. I thought it would wear off after his mom died. Once he realized how short life is.” He poked his bottom lip out. “All it did was grow. Nothing wrong with it, I guess. I just wish he didn’t try so hard to put everybody else on such a narrow path.”

“Yeah,” she chuckled to herself. “I appreciate him though. Structure is good, sometimes.”

Too much structure—perfection—it could get so boring. 

Their relationship wasn’t extravagant, but it wasn’t below the bar either. It just was. Mediocracy was sometimes the biggest let down in life. The idea of just existing when there was a clock counting down that none of us could see. 

If Milagra thought about it too hard—all the time wasted just being—it got hard to breathe. 

“Too much of anything isn’t good for you.” 

This was dangerous. She liked to believe the conversation was lighthearted and innocent in nature, but there was nothing passive about the way he stared into her soul. Him listening, was the most intimate thing that had happened to her in months. The past and the present were starting to blur into one, making her feel like time hadn’t moved at all. 

“Did this all by yourself,” she spoke again after a bout of silence. Eyes still trained on the fireplace built in her name. The seats they sat in. The stone laid on the ground. The plants. It was all for her. 

He stopped for a moment, a lightbulb going off. “You cyberstalking me, too?” The corners of his lips lifted.

“I only just started,” she mocked him, before smiling back. The fire of a memory burned through her mind, but as quick as it came, she put it out. She cleared her throat, shut the book, and planted her feet back on solid ground to stand up. 

“I got that.” He held his hand out watching her grab the mug. “Go ‘head. Go to bed.”

She turned, going back to the house, one step at a time, trying to forget the way his fingers stayed on hers for longer than necessary. 

“Roman.” She called his name softer than she meant to, halfway to the house. He turned his head from where he still sat. “So, we’re just supposed to just act like we don’t know each other all weekend?” She laughed it off. The tender spot in her chest that started as a small dot and then grew with every memory, every night, every kiss, she was meant to bury inside for the next two days. 

Roman thought about it. And he thought hard, not returning her smile. He should’ve said something right then and there. Took a shortcut. Told the truth and kept swimming. But he retreated back to his coward practices. 

“I won’t say anything if you don’t.”

In the cool air of the night, the pair tried to overturn their heat for one another just as cold. Throwing ice chips in a burning building. Taking the pen off the book’s pages in the middle of a sentence, for the second time. 

For years, they wondered about each other. 

Roman wasn't the type to believe in second chances, and even if he had, he convinced himself he didn't deserve one. Especially, not now. 

She didn’t come here for him. She came to close the book, not finish it. To show him his handiwork. The remains of a woman he didn't handle with enough care, that she had to put back together on her own. 

He fucked up and he had to accept that. It was for the best.

But there were instances—small moments turning to bigger ones. Every day that went by, it was becoming harder and harder to differentiate what was and what had become. He didn't know much about coincidences. He figured things just happened as they were supposed to. 

And they were.

Following their conversation from the night before, there was a silent understanding that they should keep a safe distance. The universe heard this and laughed. 

They ran into one another the very next morning. Milagra was in the middle of zipping up her hoodie, when the door to the gym came creaking open, and out he walked. Shirtless. Every seam that made up his body pulled tight from the exhaustion of his workout. 

“I was—um.” She had to clear her throat of that thick and heavy feeling of lust before she continued. Lines drew themselves on her forehead like she was trying to remember her lines. “I was just gonna go for a walk,” she explained.

He nodded wiping the streaks of sweat still running down his body like he was fresh out of a shower. Every deep breath he pulled in, the muscles of his core flexed and then settled, and flexed again. God, please don’t do that, she begged to herself. 

The door creaked when he opened it back up for her without turning. “Equipment is still downstairs. I think it’s supposed to rain in a bit.”

The sweat—it kept dripping. Through every line and every crease. She could imagine him panting—grunting as he handled the metal weights like toys. 

“I thinks it’s better for me to get some fresh air right now,” she admitted. Roman’s sweats hung looser, one side dipping more than the other, exposing a defined v-line. Something thick and obviously needing attention, pressing firm against the material, creating extra lines. Leaving nothing to the imagination. 

“Right.” She couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose. The jump of his peck and his lips folding in said otherwise. Bastard. 

Shaking her head she made a move to walk past him. 

“Have you talked to Tino? I tried to call him a little while ago.”

“He texted around five. I guess I missed his call. He said he was still tied up and he’s trying his best to get back before noon.”

Her stride quickened after getting a whiff of him, but his voice got closer with every step. 

“Something I meant to ask you last night.” She stopped at the door and turned. “Is he always this caught up with work? I know he’s in trauma and all, but to have to leave so quick at night like that?”

“That’s just how it is.” She stared blankly. “They call and he has to go.”

He couldn’t miss the distance in her eyes. If it weren’t his son they were talking about, he’d easily tell her she deserved better. That a woman like her required more than a man who would only get to her when he could. 

But he’d be a hypocrite. 

Just when she sensed him wanting to say more, she put her hand to the door. “I’ll be back. Should I leave this open?”

“Yeah.”

She couldn’t have gotten out of there fast enough. He was too much. The whole thing was too much. She didn't know how she’d survive until it was time for them to leave. 

Milagra started at a decent pace, finding her way down to the main road they came in on, palm trees covering one side, and on the other the water sparkled from the sun’s early rays. She ran and ran, until the feeling of her lungs burning overrode the feeling of guilt and embarrassment. It worked, but there was a third feeling that superseded all of them. One she couldn’t place. And it lingered and stayed stuck in her chest like heartburn. 

Sure enough, the rain started. It was one of those light showers that almost felt sticky because of the humidity. Her sneakers hit the wet asphalt relentlessly as she tried to outrun the flashes of memories plaguing her mind from seeing him like that. His bare chest. Out of breath. The eye contact. 

She shouldn’t feel these things anymore. 

Her hands settled on top of her knees when she came to a sudden stop. Chest in knots. Letting the rain wash away her sinful thoughts. 

Every time it rained, she thought of her grandmother. A small and everything but fragile black woman from the Dominican Republic that refused to speak English, regardless of her knowing it. 

La lluvia significa nuevas bendiciones, cariño—she would tell her. 

New blessings. That’s what rain was supposed to represent. 

It hadn’t rained on Milagra in a while. 

She tried to be grateful for the things she already had—for some don’t get the blessing of stability. The comfort of knowing things would be a certain way when they made it home. 

But sometimes it felt like a prison for her. 

When she arrived back, skin slick with sweat and rain, she uncovered her head from the hood, walking deeper into the house, past the two spiral staircases, and into the kitchen. She found him again, dressed as comfortable as he had the night before at dinner. His hair in a looser bun as he leaned over on the island, iPad in hand, the sensual voice of Anita Baker serenading the entire open area in a love spell. Sweet Love. Timeless classic. 

It was becoming clear that everything Milagra came to love about Tino, he had adapted from his father. 

How could she have not seen it before? 

He was like a watered down carbon copy of the man she spent an entire summer with. A summer that haunted her every summer after, making her resent the ancient cycle of seasons changing in the first place. 

The sight before her folded at the edges and turned to something else. Blurred into the mornings she’d come down, still in one of his shirts, following the smell of breakfast and the sound of the music. Rounding the corner and honing in on his focused features. Lips in a tight line. Brows dented in the center. The muscles in his arms moving with him. The natural light of morning spilling in over the accents of brown within the kitchen. Coating the glossed counters. 

She’d just watch. 

And she found herself doing the same thing. Just watching him. Falling into the same forbidden patterns until his brown orbs found hers as he rose to full height, adjusting the volume before clearing his throat. 

“You hungry?”

“I guess I could eat.” 

“Come. Sit.”

Like a puppet on his string she sat across on the stool. Watching him move in a relaxed and almost rehearsed fashion, trying to figure out if she should say something. 

Nothing about him had changed. A few more lines of silver at the root of his hair and along his beard—leaner—tanner—but other than those small details and signs of aging, he was the exact same. Milagra didn't know whether to be appreciative or resentful. Women were good at filling in that grey area men left unattended. In the days following his unexplained silence, she did just that. 

Maybe he fell ill, or went on vacation and lost service. 

Then days turned to months. She was forced to color in the void with more aggression now. Delusion even. Imagining that he had went through some life altering phenomena. Group therapy. Rehabilitation, or something mimicking it for those addicted to grief—the kind where they made you throw away your cell and take mandatory hikes to appreciate nature and life. 

Then after a year had passed and she built a wall high enough to not look over it—or at least stay off his social media that he barely posted on—she convinced herself he wasn't real. That she had imagined it. Dreamt it. 

It felt like one anyway. 

But he was real. And he had always been right here, where she left him with intentions to come back. But her pride wouldn’t allow her to return to a place where she was not wanted. 

Somehow she still ended up right back here. 

“You gonna just stare or you gonna help?” He muttered without looking up. His hands went to work, chopping up vegetables she assumed would fill an omelette. 

“I think you got it. Looks like you got it.”

His upper lip hiked up in a smirk. “You know the rules in my kitchen. If you’re in it, you help.” Eyes rolling up in her head briefly, she slid off the stool and washed her hands. “You remember how to make my French toast?”

“Eggs, heavy cream, vanilla coffee creamer, salt, brown sugar, cinnamon, maple and vanilla extract.” She listed off the items without pause, clumping them together on the counter near her so they were accessible.

“Good girl,” he praised, mindlessly. A force of habit. No extra filling in it. But it made her heart skip a beat. He hadn’t realized what he’d done until seconds after the two words left his mouth, going back and forth with the idea of apologizing. Peering back at her, watching as she moved without hesitation, so he just let it be.

When he figured enough time had passed and enough of the song playing went on, he spoke again. “Gotta hurry up before Mr. No Sugar For Breakfast gets back.” He listened to her chuckle softly, pleased that he hadn’t fucked up the mood too much. 

“Have you ever tried a different flavor coffee creamer?” She asked through the sound of clinking, working a fork through the eggs to beat them.

“No,” he answered. “No, I never thought to.”

“It’s good with Chobani’s Cookie Butter creamer.”

His hand movements slowed, as the thought of her taking a piece of him registered. 

She had always been good at that. Taking what he gave her and maximizing on it. Making it better before giving it back. 

“I’m gonna have to try that,” he finally replied. “You ever make it for Tino?”

“Yeah right,” she replied pulling a laugh from him. Too many studies on what sugar does to the body had Tino allergic to the idea of sugar. A practice she fell into, only when his eyes were on her. 

Daylight spilled into the kitchen, each song easing into the next, smoke rising from the pans that occupied the five burner stovetop. They managed to collaborate on the rest of breakfast with no hiccups. Just more laughs—some from the gut that lingered—eye contact that neither let marinate too long, and the stench of the past. 

Eating what they produced together, however, was the complete opposite. An intimacy that couldn’t hide in the mirage they had been keeping up. Not sat across one another. Not in the silence that forced the projection of their thoughts. 

“We did alright,” he forced himself to say, wishing now that he’d kept the music playing. She nodded without looking up from her plate. “You were always a good sous chef. One of my best,” he joked. It sounded harmless in his head at first. Then, the twitch of her eyebrows pinching for a second, made him more aware of his words. 

Fuck, he cursed himself. 

“I’m sure you’ve had better,” she told him tightly.

Their chewing and the beating of silverware against plates took precedence until he found the nerve to speak again. 

“You know I didn't mean it like that, Mila.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Milagra repeated his words from just the night before. She forced a smile before taking a sip of the grape juice he poured her. “None of my business.” In place of the orthodox orange juice, he remembered the grape always being her favorite. He himself had never been a fan of it, but somehow at every store run, he found himself grabbing for it. In his fridge, it would live. Untouched. Like the sunken fire pit, the grey cotton robe that still smelled like her perfume, or her hardcopy of Tia William’s, Seven Days In June.

Her fork hit the plate and the wood of the stool shrieked across the floor. “I’m gonna go shower. Starting to smell myself.”

All these years, making excuses for him and elaborate scenarios, and the most realistic one never occurred to her. Of course there were other women, she crucified herself. And now everything started to come into focus like a camera lens. 

Tino ended up coming back around eleven. Apologetic and willing to compromise by participating in an activity he hated when he was younger, that his dad loved for some reason—fishing. 

She sat in the backseat of his truck, listening to the mindless chatter of men and trying not to get lost in the butterflies hijacking her stomach whenever their eyes snagged in the rearview mirror. 

Milagra tried not to let his comment from breakfast consume her, but it stuck. It stuck like a piece of gum under your shoe. The whole ride there, she kept going back to it. 

But she just couldn’t rest with the idea. Him and other women. Besides the fact that it made her feel physically ill, she just couldn’t see him opening up that way with another. It was a struggle enough with her, but once the hatch broke everything fell into place as natural as the sun rising in the east. 

There was a calm lake just a few miles out from his estate that he bought. She waited, off to the side, enjoying the scenery of nature and the muscles in his back when he untied his flybridge catamaran from the dock. Tino moved everything they brought with them onto it. She pulled her Chanel shades atop of her head to keep the hairs blowing from sticking to her lip gloss. 

Every glimpse of the boat, she had to fight the memories. Walking onto it was hell. Obscene images of her and him on a day just like this one. The sun intolerant, with teeth, sinking into their skin. Her bare ass sliding off the leather seat. Him sweating above her—mouth latched onto the center of her tanned breast he freed from her bikini.

Roman passed her and offered a cautious “sorry,” when his leg brushed against her stretched out one. He left her to the inside of the cabin, joining his son in the flybridge before they took off. Those same filthy memories snagging on him too.

They got settled after Roman drove them further out. She stayed under the shade inside, one with her hardcover of R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis, while they hung off the wooden back piece with their hooks. Stealing glimpses of their nearly identical profiles whenever she could without consequence. His tongue darting out to lick his full bottom lip. A silent game of her eyes darting onto the lines of the page whenever one of them looked her way. The veins in his hands when he adjusted the rod, doubled in size. Another memory, glitching. In a tight grip, his hand, ran with veins of adrenaline, held the space just below her calf, before pressing his lips to it. His thrust losing momentum. 

She blinked long and hard. Mouth going dry. Insides fuzzy. 

In an act of terrorism, she’s sure, he peeled the black shirt from his body, exposing the ripples in his stomach and his defined chest, before stuffing it between his legs. 

Milagra’s lips puckered when she exhaled harshly. “Fuck me,” she mumbled under her breath. 

“Isn’t that right, baby?” Tino’s voice rose, peering back at her. His hand a visor. 

“What?”

“I was telling him how you and your brothers taught me how to tell where the fish really were. The negative space.”

Roman didn't even bother looking back after that. He had taught her that. She must’ve passed it on. Another piece of him she kept. 

She couldn’t help it. The pieces of him shattered and then scattered about the moment she realized she’d never see him again. The sharp pieces caught onto the parts of her that it could and sank deep. 

It was serene. The boat rocking lazily. Seagulls screaming overhead every so often. A fleeting painting of their shadow on the white drape overtop her head. A familiar picture. A familiar scene. Only in the first one, her world had just shattered and came back together. Coming down from the high of an orgasm that left her limbs lifeless. 

Her teeth sank into the flesh of her bottom lip, not even noticing the shadow of Tino’s large figure growing closer with every step. 

“Baby, can you go keep him company. I gotta take this.” He held his buzzing phone up. 

She had to take a deep breath. Placing the bookmark inside, she sat it down and padded barefoot out to him, using the metal bar for leverage, before plopping down. 

They sat like that for a while. The tension spreading out and over. Her thumb rubbed over the skin on her inner wrist, catching his attention. 

It was small. Something she could hide in the corporate world with long sleeves. A semi-drunk night with her college roommate and line sister that she thought she’d regret, but had only grown more attached to as the years went on, and the ink lost its initial intrusion and innocence. 

Two snakeheads facing the opposite of one another, open-mouthed, and made to look like the outline of a butterfly. 

His lips had spread over the ink many times before. Even his teeth sunk into the flesh, before he slid his slender fingers through hers, holding tight as they both fought to stay grounded. 

Something like electricity forged a line through them when she caught him staring at it. He wasn't quick enough when he looked out into the water, clearing his throat. 

He could see the thoughts, heavy and murky, as they lingered over her. Her light dimming for just a moment. 

“I meant what I said this morning. The sous chef thing—I didn't mean it like that. I don’t know why I said that. I didn’t realize how fucked up it sounded.” He bit his own tongue, a different confession almost slipping. 

He couldn’t have possibly meant it like that. No other woman besides Tino’s mother or a blood relative, had ever even stepped foot in that kitchen. His son’s mother’s hands repelled against food and the mixology of cooking. It was a talent that should come naturally, but she naturally always failed at it. 

It was a language only Milagra understood. 

“I know you didn’t,” she replied. Chuckling so softly he had to look at her to make sure he wasn't hearing stuff. “You’re a loner. You like being alone. You like your space.” Milagra’s head shot up and back, seeing Tino distracted with his hands going as he talked to whoever else was on the other side. “We barely left the house that summer,” she continued, looking in his eyes. They lightened like honey in the sun. His lips melted into a smirk remembering. “I doubt you had anyone else in your space like that. I barely made it there. We met on accident.”

Such a fool, he thought to himself. Accidents were things you bounced back from. They were thoughtless and without gravity. There was nothing accidental about the way his heart overcompensated for its normal job when he looked at her. 

“Am I really that predictable?”

One shoulder shrugged. “You just like your routine. I see where he gets it from, now.”

Roman shut one eye, a feeble attempt to fight the sun, while looking back at Tino quickly. He shook his head. “Swagger jacker.”

Milagra laughed from her gut and it was like hearing the opening chords to his favorite song. He hadn’t seen her do that in years. Laugh so deeply, that she didn't care how it sounded coming out of her. 

“Ugh.” She winced. “You can’t say things like swagger jacker.”

“Why not?”

“Because nobody says stuff like that anymore.”

“Okay, so what are the kids saying now?”

“He’s biting off of you or eating off you.”

He waved a hand. “I don’t even like the way that sounds.” He had earned himself another hearty laugh. Her stomach aching. 

“Okay—what about he’s reheating your nachos?” She raised her brows. 

He hesitated before relaxing into the idea. “Alright, I guess. It’s better than that other shit.”

Tino rambled about, phone pressed to his ear, linen button up open and flapping from the wind dragging over the lake—completely unaware and uncaring of the duo sitting on the edge. They sat close enough for their shoulders to touch and it looked as if nothing was between them, but there was. 

If you looked closer, you could see an entire world of yearning wedged comfortably down the center. A sore and bleeding cut of what if. 

They had dinner together again that night. Not like the night before. This one was less formal. Instead of the dining room, they made camp in the living room, eating leftovers from the prior night. On the longer couch Milagra sat, plate in her hands, careful to not spill anything on the cream material, with Tino between her legs on the floor. 

Milagra’s foot rested on Tino’s muscular thigh. He ran a hand over the smooth skin of it subconsciously as Roman’s eyes kept snagging on where their skin met. Almost losing his train of thought in the conversation they managed to carry, over the background noise of some old holiday movie. 

“The hospital is in a pretty hot area,” Roman pointed out. “No celebrities ever come through there? I know y’all got laws and stuff to follow so, no names.” He held two hands up. 

“I remember this lady brought her granddaughter in. The kid had swallowed one of those flat batteries. Her mom was some rapper.”

The two men’s voices came and went in Milagra’s consciousness. She had heard all of these trauma nightmares too many times. It rubbed her the wrong way now. Like an old itchy sweater. Anything to do with that damn hospital. All she could think about was him and his coworker, sneaking off to grope each other or something. 

“Oh—and last month, one of those guys from Love Island came in. Drunk driving.” Tino shook his head at the sore subject. 

“Love Island—what’s that? One of those game shows?”

“Yeah. A bunch of strangers fake falling in love over the summer to win money and clout.”

“Hey!” He flinched when Milagra snatched her small foot from his hold. 

“You weren’t supposed to be listening.” He chuckled. “I’m telling you that show is bullshit.”

“Why is it bullshit? Cause there’s money involved?” Milagra probed. 

“That—and the fact that they’re only on the show for maybe two months max. If that. Some of them come in mid season.” Roman’s chest jolted with the pressure of a laugh, watching them go back and forth. “Dad, some of these motherfuckers even go as far as exchanging I love you’s. Never even left the villa before. They don’t meet the parents until the end. Guys on there asking girls to be their girlfriend. It’s crazy. That summer love bullshit.” 

Milagra’s body ran cold at the same time that Roman’s prickled with heat. 

It seemed the living area had frozen in time or maybe just they did. Tino was fine as he scraped the remnants of rice and sauce from his plate. 

“I don’t know,” Roman started. He shouldn’t do this. It was bold, but that’s exactly why he was doing it. In the past he hadn’t been so bold and he had been paying for it ever since. “Summer love can sometimes be the most potent. You only get but so much time. Less room for faking it or holding back. You know?”She shouldn’t look. She couldn’t look. “I’d take that over a slow burn any day,” he finished. 

Milagra looked anyway. Right into his brown planets of lure. The weight of his words settling over them like a blanket. A warmth she hadn’t felt in years. 

Even deeper into the night, Milagra laid in the sad grey sheets of the king-sized bed, alone, as she was used to. It was much more humid than the night before, so the air thrusted through the vents harsher. She hated artificial air. It was too demanding. Goosebumps rose on her soft skin against her will. She ended up leaving the door that led to the veranda open, just watching the sheer curtain dance every time the wind pushed them. 

 She didn't even know why she was waiting up for him. It’s not like they’d have sex. They barely indulged in the late night debrief that most couples do. He’d stay on his side. She’d stay on hers. A book in her hand, while he read one from his phone—disconnected from the pages of whatever he was reading, how he was with almost everything else in his life. No more than five words between the two of them, unless something big happened that day, before either flicked the switch. Then they’d lay, backs usually turnt to one another, overly aware of the other’s presence in the bed. At some point in the night, because they still longed for one another, or at least the tightly threaded connection they once shared—they ended up tangled in each other’s web. His leg over hers. Her arm draped across his abdomen. 

It was pathetic. The way she still somehow longed for it. 

Milagra dosed off after a while. Thinking she was dreaming when she heard voices, she stirred to get more comfortable. Those voices—she recognized. One was Tino’s—rushed and avoidant. The other held bass. Powerful but comforting. It was Roman’s.

They weren’t yelling, but they weren’t whispering either. 

They grew quiet and she didn’t hear anything at all, until the she recognized the timing of Tino’s heavy footsteps. She contemplated pretending to be sleep, but gave up the act once she heard him mumble something under his breath. 

“What’s wrong?” She turned in the duvet. 

“Nothing, baby. Go back to bed.” Not listening, she just stared until he climbed in and did the thing that confirmed her suspicions of something being off. He got in close and draped an arm around her midsection. Not in a mindless way. It couldn’t have been, because that would suggest it was habit. His arm didn’t just rest, but he curled it over until his warm hand met the other side of her waist, and he held her there as if he couldn’t sleep unless it was like this. 

She settled into the sound of his breathing and made peace with the crickets singing, so clear, as if they were in the room with them. That familiar buzz of the night opening herself up.

“It’s so quiet here,” she ripped through the silence, feeling as if she should. “Peaceful.”

He drew a breath and somehow his grip became tighter. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Nothing like the holidays at your people’s place.” She laughed with him. 

“All those damn kids. It’s like my brothers are trying to start rival football teams.” 

He laughed harder. “I don’t know. I kind of like it. The sound of kids being kids. A full house.”

Her brows dipped before she turned in his hold until she was facing him. She could feel the shift. Something in him changing.

“For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve always preached that one and done thing.”

“I know. It’s just I don’t want this to be my reality.” His eyes illuminated by the moon roamed around the space. “My parents only had one. I left and now this is how my dad spends his days. Alone. Nothing but the walls and that loud ass pool.” He smiled and she returned it. 

“I’m not raising all those kids by myself, Tino.”

He sighed. “I know.” Something like dread laid between them now. The apprehension and anxiety of having to make the unattractive decisions. “Tomorrow’s problem,” he finally spoke again. “I wouldn’t do anything without putting a ring on your finger, anyway. It’s what we always agreed on.” 

Milagra’s heart picked up speed and she wondered if he could feel it this close. 

The promise of forever—security—it should’ve soothed her. Instead it triggered her fight or flight. The walls closing in. 

She had always pictured things happening so differently for her. 

And just five years ago, one fleeting summer—sweet and savory—a glow around its edges, even now when she thinks about it—spent with an older, mysterious man who reeked of loneliness and the appetite of new desire—she could taste that different version of forever.  

But the summer was ending. She prepared to go home, back to reality. Downtown Miami where men like him just didn't exist. 

“You know where to find me,” he told her. A strong hand pressed to her car door as if he didn't want to shut it with her on the other side. 

Sincerity always reflected in his eyes, and that time was no different. “Yeah,” she nodded. 

She was going back. 

He watched the entire time. From the moment he shut the heavy car door. When she reversed and her tires dragged over the stone of his driveway. Until she made it onto the street. Giving him one last look that would last for years as he stood tall in her side mirror—the heat of a summer’s love still heavy on her tongue like alcohol the morning of a hangover. 

The last of her car reduced to a dot down the long road disappeared, and his phone—a device he forget he even had the past three months—buzzed in the deep pocket of his sweats. 

“Son,” he answered. In a daze. The sickness already settling into his bones from Milagra’s absence. He felt it as soon as he stepped foot back into his own home. 

“I was calling to tell you that I was running late. It’s already ten and I haven’t heard from you all morning. I was getting worried.”

It took Roman a minute. To arrange the words he was hearing in order and give meaning to them. And once he did, the sickness of something else consumed him. One with claws that sunk into your skin and held you down. 

Grief. 

It was his wife’s birthday. September twentieth. The close of the summer. When she was here, she was the pretty bow wrapped around a season full of life. Every year after her death, the two men she left behind, paid her homage, dedicating a weekend to the beach house on Fisher Island Roman and his late wife owned. It was their first big purchase after they moved to Boca. Tearing up the foundation, redoing the roof, and rebuilding it until it felt like theirs. 

It became her spot. 

In her death, it’s where they felt her the most. Her smell still lingering on the couch cushions. Sundresses, bright and flowing, still hanging in the master bedroom’s closet.

But that year, Tino and Roman’s normal routine went askew. Tino would usually drive up to Boca, they’d rent a boat and take the hour and a half ride, or ferry, to the island. Spend the weekend doing all the things they would if she were there, until it hurt too much. 

“I-I…” Roman swallowed something solid and burned the entire way down. 

It was his wife’s birthday and he had spent the entire morning of it with another woman. 

The reality of it all—what he had done that whole summer—that morning—hit him like a brick wall and smacked him back into his depressing reality. 

“I got caught up with something.” The robe Milagra left behind, a breadcrumb, he fingered it from where it draped over the back of his couch. “I’m about to shower now. The door is open when you get here.”

Milagra texted him the moment she made it home. She hadn’t even stepped foot out of her car, the ignition still humming. 

The text lived in their thread for two days. Untouched. 

So she sent another. The bubbles emerging and then disappearing and her heart bounced frantically, but it felt like there was no blood coming from it. 

I don’t think this is going to work. 

I’m sorry Milagra. 

She wasn’t going back. 

Months went by and she had called twice by then. Betraying herself with every stretch of wanting something that didn't want her. Missing someone who knew exactly how to get to her. Holding the gun firm to her own heart. 

No answers. 

All the texts and calls—they all ended up in the same void. Until one random day, the way they say it usually happens, she killed it. Whatever they had or didn't. She buried it and moved on. 

iii. roman’s estate • if it’s meant to be.

“You using something different in your hair?” Milagra asked her boyfriend before fingering through the thick curls. 

“Why?” He place his phone on the other lounge chair so he wasn't tempted to check it again. 

Things looked different to her than they had the days before. The grass was a deeper green. The pool sparkled better under the sun. She breathed easier. Felt lighter. The weight of the past not pressing down so hard. 

“It doesn’t lay the same. It’s in your face more.”

“Don’t tell me—my hair looks sexy pushed back?” Tino recited a line from one of her favorite movies—Mean Girls—drawing a hearty laugh from her. “You should do that more.” He smiled. Amazed that he could even still do that—make her laugh. 

“Do what?”

“Laugh. I feel like you don’t do that enough lately,” he explained. 

He remembered just as she did, how they used to be. Sewn like siblings who were forced to do everything together. He had been trying to get back to that. It’s all he wanted. And she was starting to realize that wanting that too, was her best bet at a normal life. One that didn’t force her to keep looking into the cemetery of old flings. 

“Noted.” Her fingers pressed deep into the lounge chair’s cushion as she leaned in to kiss him. A single touch of their lips, tender, and straddling the fence for more. 

Roman slammed the backdoor to the house louder than he intended, breaking their trance. They watched as he approached with a pitcher of liquid—something thick and saffron—and a couple water bottles tucked under his arm. 

“I ran out of grenadine,” he muttered, setting it down on the side table. “You want a glass?” 

“No, thank you.” She slid her shades over her eyes. Hiding the amusement that twinkled in them, before rising and removing the old t-shirt she turned into a cover up. Both men stared, getting lost in the curves of her body as she revealed the blue Pucci bikini, tied snug to her tanned skin. 

“You alright?” Tino asked him.

“Yeah—yeah.” His voice didn't sound like his own. Looking up for the weakest second, he caught her, rubbing the sunscreen into her hands before smearing it over her cheeks. The white liquid sitting on her plump ass, an image he was all too accustomed to. He shook his head, adjusting himself in his red trunks as discreet as possible. 

“Did you bring the face sunscreen out here, baby?”

“Yeah, it’s right here,” Tino answered, holding it out to his dad. “Can you hand this to her please.”

Roman let out a rough breath. “I thought we agreed, no phone today.”

“Two seconds. I’m just checking my email.”

On weak legs, Roman made his way toward the pool where Milagra stood. Skin glistening, hair blowing, and thick in all the right places. A scene that mimicked the introduction of the main female character of a rom com classic. 

“Here.” He held the tube out at a safe distance. 

“Thanks.” 

He didn't want to torture himself a second longer. The minute it left his hands he turned on his heels, but her voice stopped him in his tracks. 

“What’s wrong big fella?”

“Why would something be wrong?”

She poked her lips out before responding. “You just seem tense, is all.”

He laughed breathily. Her words a grater to his resolve. “Tense?”

“Yeah. Maybe you should get another sous chef. Relieve some of that tension.” Milagra smiled as fake as her acrylic nails. 

“Shut up,” he warned. 

“Awe. Look at you two.” Tino yelled from behind them. “Future in-law bonding. Love to see it.” 

The standing pair wore obnoxious grins before turning back to each other, a brief fit of laughter between them. 

“That is so fucked up.” She shook her head.

“You really should tell him.”

The secret could hold up for now, but he feared that the fall from higher up—after marriage and possible kids—would be way more catastrophic. 

Her head snapped in his direction. “What happened to, I won’t tell if you don’t? Leave him be,” she defied. “He’s happy in his delusions. Aren’t you?”

“Be careful,” he warned. “The ledge—one of those rocks are coming off. I meant to fix it.” 

She walked along the shaven rocks that made up the pool’s decking. One foot in front of the other, balancing herself as if she was on a tightrope. They sloped up slightly to a mountain in the corner for someone to sit or stand on before jumping in. 

“If I fall in, are you gonna jump in or wait for him to get up?” She joked. “Oh—” She almost lost her balance, bending forward a bit to catch herself. He jolted forward, ready, in her peripheral.

“Milagra—I’m serious.”

She chuckled to herself. “I’m just trying to get to the top and tan. Relax.”

Everything happened so fast. Too fast. He didn't have enough time and too much space was between them. Her foot found the faulty unlaid rock. A scream, short but powerful, escaped her before she went splashing in.

“Babe—what the fuck?” Tino’s back detached from the lounge chair, and she emerged from the water. “Are you okay?”

Roman took one look at the scowl on her wet face and all his worry fled the scene. “I tried to tell you.” He pushed out between a laugh. 

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.” Her skin was on fire despite the cold shock and his laugh only grew in size. 

“Alright—alright.” He held his large hand out. A peace offering. He looked to his son still laughing. “She’s alright—oh shit!”

So occupied with relishing in her fall, she stole an opportunity to grab his hand, tugging as hard as she could. It didn't happen quite as fast as hers, but it happened, and that was enough to satisfy her hunger for revenge. Roman’s enormous stature disappeared into the water with the sound of a hard smack and splash. Tiny droplets reaching even Tino. 

He rose, like some type of Demigod. Fully dressed, shaking the water from his long dark waves that escaped his bun.

“What happened? You were supposed to be helping me?” Her act cracked as soon as he turned her way, upper lip curled in a snarl. 

“I see some things never change,” he muttered. Milagra’s laugh went full blown. Old habits die hard. It was the same tactic she always used to get him back in the pool when he was ready to call it a night, but her body just wasn't ready to rest. She assumed the damsel in distress. A cramp, or just needing help out of the water. Her brave knight—he always fell for it. 

The hoarseness of her laugh got to him. The smile stole his irritation, before he drew in closer, lifting her in a bear hug before dunking her back in. Splashing each other. They were like kids at a cookout. Unruly. Wet. Uncaring. 

Tino observed, pleased. A twinge of confusion with how well they meshed so quick. 

And then something shifted. Milagra ended up in his hold, prepared to be dunked again. They felt it at the same time. It creeped up on them. 

The guilt. The residuals of passion and how they were before. The line was starting to blur. 

Her smile faded and it was if his sun had set. Before he could even speak, she removed herself. Up and out of the pool in a flash. Leaving a trail of water in her wake the entire way into the house. 

Roman didn’t go after her right away. He didn’t even know if he should, but he knew what his body was naturally meant to do. He put up a good fight but he was done not listening to it. 

“Milagra!” His voice rumbled like thunder throughout the vast halls of his downstairs. The sun giving the house life from the arched windows. “Milagra—”

The sight of her, red eyed, rushing to clear her face, silenced him. Weakened the strong legs he stood on. Almost brought him to his knees.

“I’m okay—I swear.” She turned from him, shooting up from the bed. 

He shook his head, holding the towel to his waist tight with even tighter lips. He wished he could stop it. Her pain. He didn't even know where to start. His feet carried him further into Tino’s room. 

“Milagra I—” He grew frustrated. With himself. With her. With Tino. Everything. 

He felt it too. Nostalgia was a curse. It felt like he was swimming against the tide. This shit was hard.  Seeing her and then pretending to be blind. The extra effort to go around himself and what he felt naturally. All to do more hurting than helping. 

“Why do you do that?” She asked in one rushed breath. 

She was disgusted with him, but herself more. Allowing that flimsy childlike faith that things could rest between them infiltrate her better judgment. Trying to make amends with a man who fed her dreams that she had gotten full on. Surviving off of them like an animal in the winter, until she needed more. And by then, he was long gone. 

Unanswered calls, piling up on her phone. Blue bubbles in their thread consistent on his, as fear had him by the throat. Paralyzing him to the point where he couldn’t even end it properly.

Foolish of him to think that by not properly closing the door, and leaving it cracked, meant she’d never try to shut it herself. 

I’ll come back when I’m ready, he’d tell himself night after night. I’ll find her again when I’m better. 

“You have to know that this is as uncomfortable for me, as it is for you,” he said in a whisper, as if he didn't want anyone, not even himself to hear it. 

“Uncomfortable,” she repeated between a married laugh and scoff. Uncomfortable was her bun being a tad too tight, and the scrunchie pulling on the small fragile hairs that rested on the nape of her neck. The cup of her Louboutin causing too much friction with the skin on the back of her ankle. 

This feeling wasn’t as easy to cure. And as long as he stood tall—a constant nagging of a bruising memory—a reminder of the night she laid awake beside him, thanking God for sending him—the feeling would only expand. 

“I’m gonna make it easier for the both of us. I’m leaving tomorrow. I’ll make some shit up. Some work thing—I don’t know.”

He clutched the towel tighter. A puddle forming now where he stood just staring at her. She was in pain. He had caused enough of it trying to hold onto something. So, he let go. 

“Okay.” He nodded. “Okay,” he repeated. The decision not settling any better in his body, no matter how many times he’d say it. It would never be okay.  

They avoided each other the rest of the day. An invisible pull they ignored for everyone’s sake. Milagra faked a sudden illness. Lying in Tino’s old room. Blank TV screen and a phone barely touched. Just thinking. 

She could hear them—laughing. The distant hum of chatter. The echo of the TV. She fell asleep to it. 

Lips. Somebody’s lips—familiar and soft—she felt them. The hairs of their mustache dragging and scratching her skin with every kiss. Her waist first, her breast, shoulders, and then her neck. A moan slipped and she smelled him. He moved quick. Tugging on her panties in the dark and she lifted helping. His mouth latched onto her again. Her back arched and rose off the plush mattress.

“Mm,” she moaned out. “Fuck.” He sucked all the heat right from her. Hungry. Starved. 

Her hand came down, tangling in the tresses—long thick tresses—of hair on his head. That’s when it hit her. And at the same moment, he kissed his way up until they were face to face. She knew those eyes anywhere. Recognized them in her sleep. 

He was thick against her thigh. Without thinking twice she reached between and connected them. A rush of heated pain as he stretched her. 

“Always so tight,” he mumbled against the skin of her cheek. Pace quickening. He couldn’t suppress his appetite any longer. Their skin slapped together in collision. A fierce and demanding kind of sound. His groans carried, carelessly, biting into the flesh of her neck, grinding deep. Milagra’s breath hitched with every thrust. Eyes suddenly catching the dark shadowy figure in the doorway.

Tino.

Her heart almost combusted as she struggled to stop him. 

Tino was just watching. Still as a statue. His mouth finally parted and his voice reached her as she jolted up from the bed.

“—Baby—it’s just me.” Her chest heaved. Struggling to come back to center, she held onto his arm for stability. “You were sleeping, relax.”

She huffed. 

It was just a dream. 

“You feel better?”

“No, not really. If it’s not better by the morning, I’m just gonna go back home.”

“You sure?” His brows turned down. 

She nodded. “Yeah. I don’t wanna get anyone sick,” she lied. The only sickness she held was in her heart. “Besides, you and your dad deserve the alone time. You barely see each other. He needs you right now. It’s that time of the year where family means the most.” He looked off. Mouth twisting. “What?” She asked. 

“Hospital called. That’s why I came in here.” She sighed. “My patient that I worked on—his body isn’t taking to the medicine. He had a seizure a couple minutes ago. I’d take you with me, but I don’t want you waiting at the hospital before I get a chance to take you home.”

“It’s fine. Go ahead.”

“If you need anything—he’ll get it.”

No he can’t, she thought. She nodded anyway. Watching his back as he left. 

Just one more night. That’s all she had to do, was get through the night. 

Before she even bent the corner, she already knew he’d be there. Waiting for her. She could feel him. And if anything she learned about him that summer proved right, he could feel her, too. 

Milagra tried hard. She really did. 

She could feel the doom of something and it kept her tossing and turning in the sheets of the vast bed, until she finally gave in. Every little instance, every snagging of their eyes, the hiking of his top lip into a slight smile of admiration or amusement, every pry into their relationship—it all made its way down on her sight, like rain on a windshield until she couldn’t see clearly anymore. She should’ve known it would end this way. 

A bystander, she watched the side of his hard face. Admiration and longing filling his eyes. The TVs—they projected a glow over the space. Making everything majestic and mysterious. Soft. 

The chubby face of the boy on the screens, she recognized. Tino in a yard, kicking a soccer ball around. It was Roman’s voice, deep with a southern drawl, behind the camera, egging his movements on. 

He muted the TV after catching her figure out the side of his eye. Then they veered down to the duffel bag by her feet. 

Roman chose to ignore it, knowing he wasn't letting her walk out that door a second time without making this right—without setting things straight. 

“Just looking at old pictures.” He held up the stack he was currently going through. Once buried in the closet, with the rest of the memorabilia that had his late wife’s scent on it. Tonight, he decided to pull it out. Too often, he found himself trying hard to remember the feelings he had only ever felt when she was still here. It wasn't that hard to conjure, anymore. Some of them were sneaking up on him and coming back in increments. 

She looked down the hall that led to the foyer one last time. It’s right there, she told herself. Just grab the bag and go. Milagra’s feet carried her in the opposite direction of the door. He never even turned back around. He knew she’d come. 

“You know, this time fifteen years ago, we had just moved into this house?”

“I didn’t know that. I thought y’all always lived here. In Boca.” They never talked much about his life before her. That summer wasn't the time for that. He told her all of two stories about his wife and son. Never showing any pictures. The ones lining the halls weren’t there before. He didn't have the heart to put them back up until recently. He had the stripped the place of any trace of her in the years following her death. 

He shook his head. “Before this, we lived in a small beach town. Pensacola. All the way on the other side. It’s like a nine hour drive. We didn’t get here until I got injured—Jaguars released me—and then one of my college teammates offered me a job as a head coach up here at FAU.”

In the picture he held, he and a teenage Tino were standing in the circular driveway outside. Roman had a firm hand on his shoulder as they both wore that lopsided smirk that wasn't mature enough to be a smile. She laughed inside at Tino’s full afro of curls and how big he was even back then.

Roman slid the picture to the back to reveal the next one. Tino in a cap and gown, holding a mock diploma in hand. The proud colors of his school she recognized from the same shirt she always stole of his—orange and blue for the University of Florida. Cords and sashes draped around him colorfully as he sat in the dirt next to a tall obelisk headstone. A picture Milagra had seen before, from the stash he buried in their basement. 

“Man, I wish she could’ve saw this,” he said more to himself. “She wouldn’t believe the things he’s doing now. Saving lives.” 

She crept around to sit next to him and get a better look. Not bothering to leave any space. It was pointless. Nothing else could transpire. She had already made up her mind. Had all day to think about it. She would never step foot back in this house after today.

Tino was barely even doing the smirk thing. His eyes were puffy and red from having to get himself together before taking the picture. 

She couldn’t imagine. He was only sixteen when it happened. They hadn't even been in this house a full year before he and his father had to rifle these unfamiliar streets, looking for any sign of her, desperate, when she hadn't come home from a store run. Just for them to circle back home, those flashing blue and red lights greeting them. Two officers, ashamed to tell the two men, who had already felt it before he even said it—that their everything was gone. 

“Must’ve been really hard to raise Tino on his own.”

He blew out a big rush of air from his mouth, reminiscing. “For a long time, it was like he refused to acknowledge that she was gone. I didn't wanna force him to grieve. Everybody does it at their own pace.” His eyes lowered gradually to the picture again, and she could see all the memories swarming his mind. Some good. Some bad. All necessary. 

“What was she like?” The words flew out of her mouth before she could catch them. She easily lost control around this man. It was no different than before. They were fools to believe it would be. He extended a familiar warmth, the same one you’d get from that girl at the summer camp that you easily vibed with and would never forget, even though you’d probably never be as close to again. “He never talks about her.”

He hesitated at first. A blank stare across his stiff features and she almost regretted asking the question—regretted even getting out of bed before he turned his head to her and his face softened. 

“She always had her hand in everything. She wanted to be everything,” he smiled lazily. “I think that’s what I admired about her the most. She never limited herself to one thing, you know?” Milagra’s eyes trailed off for a second, wondering what she’d think of her. “She was a lot like you.” Her breathing stalled. “I see why he chose you.” 

She didn’t know what to make of his words. He handed her something she didn’t even think she had the capacity to carry.

“It’s cruel,” she whispered in pain almost. “What happened to y’all.”

“Damn, right it is.”

“I try not to question God—but sometimes it’s hard not to when things like that happen.”

“I took a long break from Him after that. I stopped going to church. Didn’t even think to touch a Bible. It just didn’t make sense. None of it. Why did I get left with this hand and all the sinners get to live out their fantasies—happy?” She could listen to him talk all day. His voice was calm, passionate, and careful, like he had rehearsed these very lines to recite for her. 

And he had. 

“Then, I really had to think about it. I can’t see everything—all the variables involved. He can. I only see from my small, selfish lens. I don’t know why that had to happen, but it did. He doesn’t make mistakes. Now Tino’s a surgeon, of all things. My wife’s one life for all the hundreds he’s saved. I think I can live with that.” He used a hand to smooth down the hairs of his thick beard. “It took me a long time to get to this point—but I’m at a place where I’m at peace and I’m happy.” He nodded approvingly at himself before looking to her.

He had those kind of eyes that made you self conscious in silence, wondering what he could be figuring out. She could tell he listened to the gaps as much as when she filled them. 

Milagra kept it all together on the outside. Her hair—if not in its naturally curly state, slicked back in a single tight braid at the nape of her neck—was usually straightened with her ends clipped bluntly with not a flyaway in sight. Clothes always ironed, even her socks at times—she never left the house without earrings. And in the bag that matched her outfit of the day, she made sure floss, hand lotion, and those mini stain removers were packed. 

But on the inside she was a jumbled mess. She lost her train of thought from the slightest interruptions. Milagra could barely make a sound decision without changing her mind at least five times before. And she found herself dotting over the answers she gave people in her head forever, before even saying them aloud—to the point where there was almost always a three to five second window of silence between the question someone asked and her answer. 

That was one of the first things she noticed about Roman. Their conversations dragged—not just because he always managed to pull more out of her, not wanting her voice to go silent—but also because he too, took that bout of silence before responding. Most men were blunt in a detrimental fashion that made Milagra’s stomach fold over itself. She worked with them—arrogant pricks they were—and even grew up in a house with three men who never failed to “tell her like it is.” Roman stood apart from all of them. He gave thought to his words. Filtered over them before their delivery and she appreciated that. 

Even the way he was able to take those jumbled thoughts she sometimes let slip through the cracks and help her give order to them. Setting things straight and affirming them. 

“That summer we met…I was a mess. Even after. It was so much worse. I wasn't over her.” He laughed at the ridiculous notion. “I wasn’t over any of it. I was in the thick of grief. And Tino was nowhere to be found. In medical school. It was like everybody was moving on, but me. Everything just moving. Life passing me by. I wasted so much time in these walls—doing nothing but sulking.”

He thought—how could I ever go on? He hadn’t planned on doing life without her. He barely wanted to do it alone, but he had a son to think about. A piece of her. 

He didn't want to do it with anyone else. 

And then Milagra appeared—and for the first time since his wife’s untimely death, he thought to himself—I think I can do this. 

It rattled him. Knocked his entire world off its axis. She came out of nowhere, with the unspoken promise to make love a possibility again. Granted him permission to enjoy it. To be grateful for the sun shining on his pores, even though his wife couldn’t feel that anymore. Gave him something to look forward to. He had a reason to get up everyday, that wasn't his son. He couldn’t handle it.

Opening one door meant closing another. He clung to his grief as long as he had, because the pain kept his memories of her alive. Yearning to feel her hands on his was only possible if he missed her egregiously. If he let go—if he decided to move on and be happy—how would he keep the memory of her alive? How could he remember the way she said his name? Could he still taste her lips on his? Would he be able to still smell the natural scent of her? Or would he forget all these things? Move all the cluttered memories of her out of his mind to make room for Milagra?

He couldn’t do it. It felt too much like betrayal. Cheating almost. 

But damn if Milagra wasn't the spitting image of her. Not just in looks, but her spirit. Her energy. It was as if, in her last act of love, his wife sent Milagra as a consolation prize for her own death. The cushion to soften the blow of her absence. Someone to take care of him and his son. 

The whole thing kept him up most nights. He’d lay in bed, trapped in memories. Memories of his wife. Memories of when his son could stand to be around him. Memories of Milarga. 

It was never going to work back then. If he was the same man from years ago, even if Tino wasn't in his way—he wouldn’t have been able to get past himself. 

But Roman was different now. And he had to let her know that.

“I’m different now.” He locked in on her gaze. Something grabbing them both on a hook and refusing to let go. “I’m not mentally locked up anymore. I’m happy. I’m free.”

Milagra felt the hot tear roll heavy to her chin. Frozen, she couldn’t even wipe it. 

The same relief you feel after being casted into deep waters and finally coming up for air—that’s the feeling that coursed through his veins. He had never spoken those words aloud. He felt free like he said. Heard the chains cracking. 

“Are you happy?” Her face contorted in pain, already shaking her head. “Just answer the question.”

“It's not a simple question. I don’t have a simple answer.”

“Sure it is,” he urged. He was throwing her a line, praying she took it. Offering her a way out and they’d figure out the specifics later. 

“Why do you even care? As long as your son is happy, that’s all that should matter to you.”

“Why do I care?” He almost laughed at her ignorance. “I’ve always cared.” A line formed in the middle of her brows. “I’ve made a few mistakes—yes, I know. But you are not one of them.” Her heart gained momentum with every other word and she wondered if any of this was even real. She had imagined it—dreamt of it before, but nothing could compare to the real thing. 

She jumped when his warm hand grabbed hers, placing it on his hard chest. “You never really left.  Five years and I still feel you. You’ve been living right here the whole time.” His heartbeat. It matched hers. 

She didn't lean in too. Like a fish on a hook, she was still hung on his confession. And by the time she realized what was happening, he was already halfway to her. 

For so long, he had just been existing, alone. He forgot what this felt like. Yearning. The twisted need clawing at his neck of losing control around someone. 

This wasn't supposed to happen this way. She had planned to ride it out. Starting over was a task and she already had a home. Empty and lonely as it was. All she wanted was to be seen—tended to. And in three days this man had done all of that which his son couldn’t in almost three years. 

And for that reason alone, his last stretch of space, she closed it. 

It was soft at first. Simple. Just one peck that lingered until one of them found the strength to pull away. The first buds of a flower. They eyed one another. Orbs bouncing around each other’s faces—sinking into their places. It was always going to happen this way. 

He leaned in again. Lips pressing into hers urgently now. The hairs living overtop his lip pricking her a bit. Again and again he did it. A hand curved into the space of her upper neck, long fingers tangling into her scalp, pressing her against him.

Roman entered her mouth tongue first and she leaned her head to the side, deepening the kiss. Fully bloomed now. Their flesh smacked together loudly in the silence. She could hardly breathe, chest tight, but she didn’t care as long he didn’t stop. 

She pressed her fingers up the fabric of his cotton shirt, feeling the rippling muscles over his tight skin. Traveling the length down, past the waistband of his sweats and the strings, sliding over the hard and thick muscle. Roman’s breath picked up against her mouth. Her hands. He hadn’t felt a woman’s touch in so long. So, he slowed his pace, and took his time, making her settle—surrender. Gliding his tongue over every inch of her mouth, wanting to feel all the parts he missed out on all these years. Learn every inch over. 

He pulled until she landed in his lap. The air thickening. Their breaths quick. Hands everywhere—desolate. He needed her like a fish needed water. 

Two big hands wrapped around and swallowed her face. He couldn’t believe it was real—that it was finally happening. 

“You are fucking perfect.”

He pressed the skin of their foreheads together before they kissed again. Like animals, feeding off one another. He slid her sweats down, palming her ass, before reaching a hand further. Rubbing her through the fabric of her panties, the wetness soiling it. 

“Take this off,” he directed. She pulled the zipper of her hood down, revealing her breasts and guiding one to his face for him to catch. 

Licking around the rim, flicking and biting, he gave equal love to the other one. Her head hung back, suspending in pleasure. A strong hand yanked her panties to the side, rubbing the slippery flesh directly. 

“Oh,” she moaned, moving against his hand.

“I know you missed me.” He kissed the skin stretched over her throat. “You touch yourself thinking about me, still.” He was an arrogant lover and he earned the right. No one even came close. “I think about you all the time.” She struggled to keep her eyes open. Stomach tightening. She wouldn’t last much longer. That’s just how good he was. He knew every spot. He couldn’t forget. “Listen to her, baby.” 

The squelching wet sounds filled her ears. 

“This is wrong.” His face fell into the side of hers before licking it. On the screen, Tino stared back. “This is wrong,” she repeated, breathless. 

“So, stop me,” he whispered. 

With the strength of a woman scorned, she uttered the words. Weakly. “S-stop.” 

His hand didn't move anymore. Easing off her and holding them up. She rose, planting one foot back to the floor. Looking around as if she had awoken from a dream. 

She stared into the gloss of need over his eyes. All the hurt and pain of his absence falling like accumulations of snow. And now it was everywhere. 

All he had to do was communicate. Tell the truth.

She would’ve understood. Might have even waited for him. 

And by the time it all registered, her acrimony was already boiling over. 

She struck him. His face snapping to the left, eyes shut tight. Jaw working. 

Before he could open his mouth to say something, she grabbed her hoodie, holding it tight to her chest, and walked away briskly. The last thing she needed was to hear his voice. That would’ve made what just happened too real.

Roman didn't move from the couch. Not even after he heard his front door slam. 

She had shown him something he thought would be missing forever. A piece of himself he buried with his wife. And a young and off limits Milagra dug it up just to kill it again.

iv. home • doing it wrong.

A week had passed since they left his father’s estate. 

Her and Tino were as okay as they had always been. A pimple patch over the obvious red blotches of things wrong with them, but they loved each other enough to see it through.

She went through all the stages of grief—again. Trying to erase his father’s existence. An eraser to permanent marker.

Roman was wrong to reopen a wound she was already putting pressure on. Forcing it to heal itself. 

He did that. Cut her open and left her to bleed out. Just when she thought the wound was closing up, he did it again. 

She could still feel the weight of the smack. She felt bad. 

She had never even done that before—put her hands on a man. None of them drew up emotions strong enough for her to feel that urge. 

Every time the phone rang and she hard Tino say, what’s up dad, her heart stuttered in her chest. Every new post he made on social media, she was just waiting for him to hint at fucking his son’s daughter. 

She was losing her mind in the calmest way possible. 

Already thinking of excuses to never go back. 

She just wanted a clean slate. Her and Tino deserved that much. 

It was a Friday night. She had nothing to do. No work and she had been released on winter break from school after acing every final, despite her clogged mind. 

Tino’s figure appeared in the doorway. She expected him to go for the walk-in to get ready to go, but he was dressed comfortably in sweats with his bare chest on display.

“Hospital just called,” he announced settling until he was comfortable enough to lay still. “Said they don’t need me anymore.”

Milaga turned to look at him, the book in her hand folding in on itself with her thumb as a temporary bookmark. She waited, sensing he had more to say.”I was thinking, maybe, Patrick and I can have some fun. I know he’s been missing me. We don’t talk as much.”

A wrinkle formed in her brow line as she chuckled softly. “Boy—what?” 

Tino didn’t have any friends or coworkers named Patrick—and he sure as hell didn’t volunteer to spend time with any of his family outside of his father. 

Patrick wasn’t a person. Patrick was what a young Milagra named the birthmark erotically placed on her pelvis, that just so happened to be shaped in a deformed star. Thus, came the name Patrick Star. 

Tino grinned lazily. “You heard me.”

Before she could respond his large body was already on the move. 

She erupted in light giggles, like a schoolgirl who had never been touched before. 

His mouth was relentless. On her chest, her lips, her neck, and back to her lips again. A small whimper fled her throat, feeling him through his sweats. 

She watched him leave open-mouthed kisses onto every inch of her waist. Fingers sliding into the elastic of her shorts.

“You are fucking perfect,” he whispered. 

Lying stiff as a piece of wood now, she warped back to the week before, when he uttered the same sentiment. 

She could hardly feel his lips on her inner thighs, sucking and biting. Staring up at the ceiling she remembered everything clearer than when it happened. That same pit of yearning, deepening. He managed to pull the shorts down, exposing her wet center, but her hands came over his. 

“What’s wrong, baby?” He peaked up at her. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t—I’m sorry.” 

His hand came down next to her head on the pillow as his face twitched in confusion. His mouth opened and closed in the same second before he sighed. She saw the exact moment where he chose to give up, all his fight eating itself. 

Biting into his bottom lip until the skin turned yellow, he slid off her. The tears already welding up in her eyes watching his back until he disappeared somewhere else in the house. 

He never came back. She waited for him, in the same position he left her, and closed her eyes in the darkness, after realizing he wouldn’t. He always had a heavy walk, and she could hear him moving about in the house. 

She was punishing him still for the same crime she had committed—sure that hers was much worse. But nothing felt right with him anymore. The little light to their flame was already dying out before, and Roman’s resurrection from the dead blew it out completely.

The tears stained her pillow. She didn’t know where to go from here. 

The night and the next day flew by. For once, he was home, but he spent his time alone, in his office. She’d linger in the kitchen across the way, running through lines she could say. Watching him through the glass panels of the door, his glasses rested just above the tip of his nose, brows scrunched—like his father. All her words dried before she could build the courage to say something. 

At night she just laid in bed. Back flat on the comforter, legs crossed at the ankles.

She didn’t know how to fix this without knocking everything down first.

She heard the bedroom door creak, but she didn’t have the strength to look up. He made his presence known anyway. Sliding next to her, matching her position with a flat back to the bed. 

Milagra couldn’t stand the silence. It wasn't something she wanted to sit in when so much weighed over them. 

“Do you wanna talk about last night?” She asked. Peering over at him, when he shook his head. 

“No, we don’t have to. I do wanna talk about something else, though.”

“What?” Her heart doubled in size, pumping more blood than ever before. Every second he didn’t open his mouth, time stretched. She was already drawing up the lines to explain herself. Come clean. 

“When I told you about me and Madeline”—Milagra cringed inside at her name. Jaw clenching. 

She was more than a fuck up. Madeline pumped life into the problem they had been pretending was dead. “You didn’t react,” he finished. His voice didn’t harbor anger. She found no sadness in it either. It was the same as them. Just there. “You didn’t yell. You didn’t even cry. Not that I wanted any of those things from you. But you didn’t give me anything. I just wanted something. Something to let me know you were in this—that you cared. And, I’m not saying that’s why I did it. It had nothing to do with you. I had a moment of weakness. That shit came and went.”

She felt him move. It appeared in front of her seconds later. A small blue velvet box. Her hand shook when she took ahold of it. Holding her breath the entire way until she popped it open. 

“I’ve had it for a couple months now. Way before the Madeline bullshit.” It was beautiful. He did listen when it counted. 

She remembered their first anniversary, drawing her dream ring on a napkin at the resort’s beachfront restaurant. It was simple. A studded gold band with the center cut just enough for the diamond marquise ring to slide the through the space atop of it. 

“Last step, was for you to meet my Pops. I couldn’t do it without his approval. He said you passed with flying colors. That you reminded him of my mom,” he added. And that’s when she heard it. The crack in his voice. It forced the heavy tear to finally roll down the side of her smooth face. “I know you don’t think I pay attention—everybody thinks so—even dad. But I don’t have to have my eyes on you all the time to know that you’re unhappy.” She sniffed. Fighting to keep her composure before the cry became ugly as the truth. 

He did it this way because he already knew. If he had it his way, he would’ve bought out some rooftop. Flew her family out, so they could witness their love in real time. But he knew they were at the end of their road. This was it for them. Last night confirmed it. This house was no longer a home. It was just familiar. There was barely any love left. 

The box snapped when it shut before she handed it back to him. The last bit of hope he had withered away. She was sobbing silently now. 

It was over. 

She felt the pain and the relief of release at the same time. Like being released from prison with nothing. Not a damn thing to your name. Nothing to fight for. But at least you’re free. 

They both knew it was wrong, to turn over and hold each other as close as they did, clinging. Her fingers gripping the cotton of his shirt, tears spreading on the material. All he did was pull her in tighter. 

They slept just like that. Cradled and molded into one another. Their last night together and they spent it holding onto the last bit of love they had for one another. 

She wanted a clean slate and they composed just that—a clean break. Seamless. A war with no casualties. 

He offered for her to stay as long as she needed, but her bags were already packed and she was out the door with them by noon the next day. He wasn't even there to see her off. A sign that she was going the right way. This needed to happen. It was long overdue. 

Her new home was a hotel downtown that was convenient and close to work. Half her days were spent working, dotting over illustrations and recalculating measurements three times over—and the other half of her days she spent on Zillow looking for something that felt homely enough. And she wondered if that would ever happen. If she would ever feel that safety and comfort of home again. The chip of paint behind the headboard from it knocking against the wall too much. The faint brown spot on the living room carpet where he made her spill her coffee, demonstrating a punch from the fight that aired the night before. The smell of his Men’s Dove body wash all over the bathroom. 

She settled into a condo not too far from the hotel a month after the breakup. It wasn't quite the homely feel she had already missed, but every day that she used her key to open the door, and every small pot bought or piece of furniture she moved—it started to feel familiar. And that was the best she could hope for. 

Two months had coasted by in Milagra's new place, living her new single life, and she was starting to get comfortable in it all. Her classes were back in full swing after the winter break and she buried herself in distractions as to not have to look up and face the changes in her world. 

It was a Tuesday morning and she chose to work from home. Fresh out of a meeting she went downstairs, looking for the new edition to her collection of classic literature novels. But she found something else in the black boxed locker. 

It was another book. Or at least that’s what it felt like through the plastic carrier bag. Her name printed on the label. 

She rushed back upstairs, kicking the door closed, before tearing it open. The wrapping fell revealing her copy of Seven Days In June. She could tell by the color of the tabs. She thought of the last time she had seen this version. Her first one purchased—she never thought she’d have to live it.

Her brows pinched, opening it from the back and flipping until she landed on the title page. A languid cursive she’d recognize anywhere. 

Page 240.

It was all he wrote. 

The smallest push of wind landed on her face as she flipped the pages to get there, almost missing it completely. A single line of dialogue underlined. She never wrote in her books. She didn’t believe in it. It had to have been him. 

“I love you,” said Shane. “Dramatically, violently, and forever.”

Her eyes hadn’t even finished sifting over the text before the teardrop landed on the page. 

She could run all she wanted, but when things were meant for you, they never left you—and if they did, they came back. The thickness skin cradling around a wound once open, growing back twice as hard. 

Love. 

He loved her. 

It was happening again. The past and present blurring.

She was just like him. Holding onto her pain, because it kept them and all they had alive. 

It was time to let go. 

In her mind, she hated him. 

But the body—the body always remembers. The body will always do what’s right to heal itself. Always. 

v. roman’s estate • i took the long way.

“I’m sure he told you what happened, by now. That’s how you found my address.”

It took Milagra all day to figure out that she was going back.

Truth be told, the minute she saw his handwriting etched neatly in cursive inside that book, she felt the distance between herself and him shortening, as the hours counted themselves down. 

It was always going to happen this way. 

He nodded. 

“You asked me before, if I was happy,” she continued. “I wasn’t. And you knew that—you could see it. I thought I was doing a good job. Pretending. Coasting.” He knew the lyrics to this song all too well. He had lived them. “But that’s no way to live.”

He didn't respond. He left the floor open for her to open up and feel safe. 

“What did he say?”

“That he was lost,” he answered. “And I told him that sometimes lost is the best thing to be. Now you can go anywhere. Start over.”

“When I make big decisions like that—life changing ones—I can’t help but always wonder if I made the right decision.” She always knew in the back of her mind that she’d never get full off of him—Tino. He was just the safest option. And after falling from grace, that’s all she wanted when she found him. Safety. “How did you know—that Tino’s mother was the one?”

“When you know—you just know.” He stared. 

“Do you know…now?”

He nodded, taking in every line of her. Her skin and the glow to it. The sleekness of her hair and the way it fell over her shoulders. The depth of her cupid’s bow. Those eyes. 

“I’ve always known.”

“He’s your son,” she reminded him. The same way he had done on Thanksgiving.

“I know.” He bit down hard. “But that’s on me. If I was better—if I was honest—you two would’ve never even crossed paths.” He ran his fingers over the hair surrounding his mouth. “I never really believed in second chances. Not until I needed one.”

“Needed?”

“Like a plant needs sunlight.” He shook his head. “This is the only thing that makes sense for me. You.”

“Why couldn’t you just say all of this? That first night. Out back?” She just couldn’t wrap her mind around the deception. Him allowing her to think that none of it meant anything. That it had been so insignificant to him, it disappeared into thin air. “You acted like me being back here was the worst thing ever.”

“At the time it was,” he stressed. “That meant hurting my son. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“So, now what?” She snapped. 

“I can’t promise that things will be perfect. It’s gonna be hard—I mean really fucking hard.” 

Milagra shook her head. It was already hard. Why couldn’t things just naturally fall into place for her?

“But it won’t be like before. That, I can promise.” He took gradual steps, proceeding with caution, until he towered over where she sat on the other side of the island. This time he wouldn’t sink to the bottom. He swam to her. Bending until he was just inches from her mouth. Her eyes jumped from his mouth to his eyes. She was showered in fear. 

But it was time to let go. 

So her eyes closed and she waited until she tasted him—warm and parlous—the complete opposite of what her life had adapted without him. 

He did it again. Added three more down the side of her neck. 

He exhaled from his nose, before catching her jaw in his hand, forcing her to look at him. 

“Always knew,” he reminded her, before planting another kiss on her forehead. 

He lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist, all the while exiling his son from his conscience. He could have this. He deserved this. He deserved her. Fasted for over a decade for someone like her. 

Roman carried her up the length of the staircase the same way he carried her months before—like she and all that she came with didn’t weigh a thing. Eating off one another, desperate to finish what they started five years ago. The hunger and passion just as potent as before. Pungent like food that had been sitting out just waiting. 

He released her, and she fell gently on the bed. Her dyed black strands surrounding her, draping over the fur throw. She watched the entire time, as he reached behind to slide the black shirt up and off. Grabbing the hem of her tank, he cracked a smile at her before lifting it over her head. Her D cups spilling out, hitting the cool air as she giggled. 

He came back up. Fists digging into the bed on either side of her head, muscles flexed. 

This was finally happening. 

She planted two hands over the hair of his beard, bringing him down to her, tasting him again. Getting used to him again. The girth of his tongue and the rhythm of his passion. 

His hands went for the button of her jeans next. Kissing the skin above, running chills everywhere his lips brushed. He caught a glimpse of the almost star shape on her pelvis, smiling to himself before kissing it in ritual. They were barely off when he hooked his hands to the back of her knees, pressing until he could see all of her, glistened under the dim lights. One last look and one last chance to stop him, and she didn’t. So, he dove in, face first. Licking and sucking in a French kiss as if it were the lips on her face. The back of her head dug into the mattress. Writhing and moving against his mouth. Getting away was useless. His grip was too strong. It always had been. 

His hand came down somewhere between her hip and ass, eyes shut, licking around the most sensitive area. Moaning to himself, feeding his addictions. Venturing down, he kept the pressure of his thumb on her clit, but couldn’t resist burying his face deeper. She giggled, pushing at his strong shoulders. Wickedly, he smiled before rising, turning her on her stomach and pushing his sweats down and off. 

She gasped. The hardness of his tip rubbed up and down her slit, almost entering. Pushing back, she couldn’t take it. They had played enough games. Wasted enough time. Drove each other into madness. 

“Roman—please.”

So, he pushed. They were both starved. Pushed past the mental block of betrayal and her walls all at once. Entering and covering himself in a form of ecstasy he hadn’t danced with in years. 

He was in control at the start. Moving at a safe pace, making her feel every vein, every piece of skin she was missing. In and out, a hand locked on the small of her defined back, right above the meaty flesh of her ass. It was a sight to see. Stretching her out. The white cream gathered at the base. Her breath hitched and he struggled to keep himself in check. He dreamt about it. Some so real he woke up missing her wrapped around him. His hand not even cutting it close. 

She was everything he ever wanted. Starving for knowledge. Passionate. Ambitious. Leaning into her feelings. Strong. A woman. 

A woman that made him lose control. 

His demeanor shifted. Something teetering the line of anger or frustration, guiding the motions of his hips. Driving into her. Deeper. Faster. Rougher. Her breaths turned to whimpers. Whimpers turned to moans. Moans transformed into screams. She couldn’t recognize her own voice. 

His strokes accelerated. From precise to choppy and needy. He couldn’t focus on anything else. 

Milagra clawed at the covers, taking it. She would take anything from him. This older man held the key to all of her locked doors. 

His hand slithered between her and the bed to find her clit. Rubbing tight circles over the slippery flesh. His strong leg, knee pushing hers up, as he laid all of his weight on hers. He pushed and pushed. The muscles of his ass flexing every time he drove in deeper. Their skin slick. Mingling together in a groove—grinding as one. Their labored breaths filled the room. She pushed back when he did, ensuring they were never apart. 

“I want all of it.” He pushed further and further until there was nowhere left to go. “I want all of you,” his gravelly voice whispered on the side of her face. “Forever.”

She gasped, when she felt it kick inside her. The first spurts of his release didn’t make it to where he intended, before he pulled out and left the rest of it on her ass. 

Two sets of knuckles pressed deep into the mattress as he hovered overtop her still, catching his breath, coming back to reality. 

Gripping the bone of her hips he pushed her over to the other side. Clearing her face of all her hair before licking into her mouth with a new sense of yearning. 

He reared back on his knees and she rose to hers. He was hard as a rock still. Heavy with a string of clear liquid still leaking from him. 

She never wanted to taste something so bad in her life. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he told her in the midst of getting pushed on his back.

“I want to,” she said. Eyes smoldering. She would’ve done anything in that moment. 

She took ahold of him in her hands that seemed to shrink in size compared to him. Moving the skin along she licked her lips, admiring at first. Kissing the tip like a gift she had been dying to unwrap, before taking it all the way down, gagging herself on purpose. The strings of spit following her release of it, evidence to her purposeful suffering. 

His stomach hallowed. This wasn’t his usual thing. They all struggled too much or their desire to look pretty while doing so always ruined it. But she always looked pretty to him. 

“Such a pretty girl.” He couldn’t help but tell her so. Sliding his hand down the hill of her arch before stroking her hair. “So fucking pretty for me.”

He gripped the base, sliding the swollen tip back and forth over her dripping tongue. 

“Suck it.” He guided it inside as she closed in on him. Cheeks hallowing in. “Fuck. God, I missed that mouth.” She released it with a slight pop before spitting on it. Taking the tip back in and repeating her actions two more times before he lost control. Gripping a handful of hair, his hips pushed off the bed, hitting dead center in the back of her throat. She struggled to breathe, mouth full, running her nails over the skin of his chest where his peck flexed under the ink of his tattoo. He slowed down. Wanting to feel everything. The warmth of her mouth, every piece of wet flesh. His dick hardened to a painful degree, begging to release again. “Come on.” 

She climbed overtop of him and he immediately strived for connection again. Holding it for her to ease down on. She moved against his hard body, not wasting a second to show her appreciation. Grinding back and forth with a hand to his knee, her swelling clit kissing the hairs on his pelvis. Clinging onto her hips, he watched, mesmerized. Infatuated. 

The swinging of her breast. The muscles in her core. The small whimpers breaking from her swollen lips. Thick hair falling over her face. The skin of her neck, shining with sweat every time she dropped her head back. The tan lines decorating her. 

He gripped her breasts in his hands, sliding his fingers over the hard tips of her nipples. 

“So fucking sexy.” His thoughts came to life. He loved everything about her. “Give it to me. Urghnn,” he growled at the tightening of her pussy around him. 

To gain some control he dug the heels of his feet into bed, huge thighs striking up into her. 

“Oh my—f-fu-f-fuck! Roman,” she cried. Clawing at the meat of his muscles. 

“I know, baby. I know.”

His lips snarled over his teeth at the sight of her breast bouncing. Hands struggling to hold onto him.

Their eyes found each other. The heat in his chest spread, smoldering to a new fuel. A need for closeness. He rose up, pressing his chest to hers. 

“Wrapped around me so tight,” he sighed of relief. “Almost like you need me.” 

Burying his face into the flesh of her chest, he inhaled. Strong but feminine. The compliments replayed in her mind. His tongue snaked out to lick the top of where her chest rounded. He always paid attention to the parts that everyone else ignored. 

His hands were greedy. Gripping and feeling every inch of her skin, traveling the map of her body with no destination, until he settled on wrapping his strong arms around her waist. Holding her, letting her their bodies mold and stick to one another. 

God, she missed this. She had sex before, but with him, it was always different. Different in a way that she ached for connection and wanting to come out of her own body. It was usually just about pleasure. Feeling good and hitting the goal post. This was different. She just wanted to be as close as close could be. She wanted him to feel what he’d done to her inside. When words weren’t enough, this is what it should be like. This is what the creator intended. The thing that separates us from animals. 

She rocked with him, never wanting it to end. She could do this very thing forever. Melting into his strong hold. His arms a barricade. She had never felt so safe. 

Somewhere in the euphoria they had stopped moving completely. Her fingers tangled in his beard and hair. Noses gliding alongside each other as they chased the high of kissing. Something so simple. A lost art, they perfected. Leaning into each other’s movements. Making up for where the other lacked. 

His tongue flexed in a way that reminded her of how he ate at her just minutes before. Moving to her neck, pushed her head over, he found that spot where the beauty mark lived. 

They just fit. 

She started moving again. Riding with her clit brushing against him. 

“You feel so fucking good to me,” he declared into the skin stretched across her throat. More fuel. She sped up. He switched his position, feeling her squeeze the life out of him. She was close. That fast. That’s how it happens when a different organ—the heart is leading. 

Up on his knees, he held her in place. Balls slapping against her ass with every thrust. He already knew the map of her body. No one, not even she, had to coach him. 

Up and down he moved her. It crept up on her like a snake slithering over a rock. Unexpected regardless of her search for it. Just like him. It started at the center where they met and exploded through every part of her like a cancer. Weakened her and gave her the strength of a hundred men. She fell back from his hold, until her head hit the comforter. Still, with a grip on her hips, he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He’d give whatever she needed, make the ride smooth as he could. 

She rode out the waves of pleasure, body twitching, until she couldn’t feel anything else. He forced himself to retreat again, within seconds. Exploding on the softness of her tummy. 

It was over. They made it to the other side. 

“Holy shit.” He huffed. Finally resting. It was like coming down from a high. 

She covered her face to hide the stretch of her smile. He invoked a girl-like giddiness in her. 

She was okay. For the first time in a long time—she was okay. Not just there. She had ascended. 

The war was over. 

"I love you too," she finally confessed.

Milagra’s eyes fluttered open. Focusing in the dark, before landing on his face.

It was for real. She hadn’t dreamt it. 

Minutes passed as they laid there, staring, marinating in the inevitable. His hand cruised up the muscle of her back. Kneading and massaging. 

“I missed you so much—I don’t think I know how to put it in words,” said Milagra. 

“You don’t have to…I can feel it. I felt it in the foyer on Thanksgiving. Every day after,” he revealed. “Sometimes words don’t mean as much as we think. They fall short.”

“Dramatically, huh?” Milagra questioned. 

He pushed out a laugh. “Violently too, apparently. That was a hard ass slap, woman.”

As their laugh fizzled out, something else blew in. Something more serious. Reality. The burden of remembering. He could see it all in her face. 

“I know you don’t trust me. Not with that.” His finger landed on the space to the left of her sternum. The space occupied with bone that protected her heart. An extra layer of hurt over it that he was the composer of. “I don’t blame you. I know what I’ve done. I had five years to think about it—all the ways to make up for it. I was lost, Mila. Hurt was where I was most comfortable. I know you know that feeling.” Her eyes fell heavy with tears at the rims. “I had to do the work. I had to heal. Forgive myself. I fought—I pushed through and now I’m here.”

She infiltrated his mind and got stuck there. Her ghost walked around this house like his deceased wife’s did. He was tired of living with them. The ghosts.

“What the fuck took you so long?”

She could see the road again. Their entire existence as far as they could go. Something she just couldn’t do with his son. It was dangerous. Hard, as he said. Pothole and reroutes—but the path was there nonetheless. 

This was the feeling she killed before. Ready to lay the headstone of their short-lived affair, at the end of her road, ready to turn back—here he was. The whole time. Closer than she could’ve ever imagined. Making plans to forge his way back to her. Asking God to send him signs so he didn't get it wrong this time. 

Five years ago he could’ve kept it going. Ignored that cloudiness in his chest every time he woke up and couldn’t decide if it was Milagra’s or his late wife’s face he dreamed of. He could’ve answered her text and made plans to see her again. They could’ve fell into something. Roman would’ve told himself the lie that he was over his wife—over how abruptly she was snatched from him. A bed time story giving him just enough courage to fight off the monsters for one more night. 

It would’ve been faster. Easier. 

But that would’ve only lasted so long. He had to make a decision. 

Grief is selfish. Paired with trauma, she’s envious. She would’ve tore right through them. 

“I took the long way.”

la's language★. not the biggest fan of this version. i think the other one is way better. it panned out better in my head. second chance romance is damn hard to articulate lol. i'm already working on part 2 to the original version. as always, if you read it, or even just a portion of it, i am forever grateful. feedback is always welcomed. k, bye ♡.

[tribalauthor]

The Life of a Showgirl

Chapter 2

After the mundane sexual intercourse Sophia had with her husband, she put her clothes back on and got ready to sleep.

Rex is a good-looking guy, no doubt but when he is standing next to a woman like Sophia Heyman, he just looks decent.

Very ambitious man, wants to become an important figure in the bank but as time continues he realizes he married Sophia just because of her looks. And she married him, so she could start living away from her uncle.

There is nothing common between them.

"I was thinking a lot about this, I think it's time for us to get a divorce." Rex said out of nowhere and Sophia was caught off guard.

"Pardon?"

"I've been putting up with this for two years, Sophia. I understand that you have your dreams to be in the scene and be adored by many but I am sick and tired. I don't feel like a husband." Rex explained calmly.

"You knew my dreams from the very start. I made it perfectly clear for you but it seems to me that you thought you were going to turn me into the traditional wife of your dreams." Sophia raised her voice with tears forming into her eyes.

Then she got out of the bed and started packing her things.

"I'm doing you a favor. You can go to Hollywood with nothing holding you back now and be who you always wanted to be. Who knows? You could even become Alain Delon's wife."

"I was ready to stay right here and perform in my uncle's bar because it still brings me the fulfilment I need but you decided to interfere when you complained to him." Sophia was throwing all of her clothes in the suitcase.

"Now I am the one to blame. Sophia, I want to have kids already. You don't look like a woman who would give birth soon. My friends are expecting their second or third kids already while there is not even a vision for my first."

"Okay. I wish you all the best and I hope you find your dream wife." the enraged woman zipped her suitcase. "Let me know where and when to sign the papers."

Rex reached to the nightstand and pulled the documents from there.

"Oh, you have already prepared everything."

Sophia nodded her head and smiled dryly.

"This is not a decision I made minutes ago, Sophia. I've been thinking about this for months and I think the time has finally come. If you sign this now, it ends now. No trial, no lawyers, nothing."

"Okay." a tear ran down from Sophia's blue eye.

Rex gave her a pen and she signed all the papers with no hesitation.

"I hope you are happy and find what is best for you." these were her last words and she was about to leave. She also took off the wedding ring.

"Are you leaving now? You can stay here as long as you want."

"One thing about me is I don't stay anywhere where I'm not wanted." Sophia declared.

"Let me at least drive you at your uncle's house."

"Whoever said I am going to his house." she snapped back and left the room with tears in her eyes but a tiny smile on her face.

The taxi driver left Sophia in front of Chelsea Hotel.

That enormous building brings so much authority especially in the night with those yellow and red lights.

Sophia left money to the driver and grabbed her not so tiny suitcase.

Looked at the building, sighed trying to bring

a smile on her face and headed to the entrance.

At the same time Roman was smoking cigarette, still with his black suit on.

Sophia passed through him but neither of them paid attention since it's dark outside and Sophia just wanted to go in the hotel room.

She hoped there are free rooms.

"What do you mean, Miss? The hotel is huge. Not a single free room?" she tried not to raise her voice but self control is something Sophia is still trying to work on.

"I am so sorry." the receptionist apologized sincerely.

"I beg you. I have nowhere to go." her voice

echoed in the reception just the second Roman got back in the lobby.

His curiosity defeated his consciousness and went to the mayhem spot.

"I beg you, Miss Nelson. My life just gave me an enormous slap and I can't afford taking another taxi."

Roman peeked to see that fatal woman who gives quite the spectacle and as soon as he took a look at her face, he recognized this is Sophia.

"There is my wife." he spoke with a tone of a husband who has been looking at her. "Didn't you receive my call that I am already here?"

"No. How could I know? I expected you to come tomorrow and I thought we are going to be with no place to stay." Sophia locked in the

act immediately.

"Since when do married couples meet in hotels?" the receptionist looked confused.

"That's a very interesting question that has a very long explanation, so..." Roman's director self was ready to give a hell of a storyline but Sophia wanted to end things quickly, so she interfered.

"Having sex in different places can enhance the sexual life." she spoke quietly and Roman's eyes popped out.

The receptionist was as shocked as him to hear this but since she is experiencing those kind of problems with her husband, she was interested.

"Really?"

"Oh, yes, trust me." Sophia whispered and nodded her head. "I highly recommend. Pleasure is doubled." Roman rubbed his forehead from what he was hearing. "Triple, if your man is enormous like mine." she winked and the state of shock becomes bigger. The receptionist looked at Roman as if he is out of this world and started wondering what is it really like to be with a man like him.

Then she looked down awkwardly.

"Okay, have a great night, sir and madam." she said nervously and Sophia caught her pulling the work phone immediately and smirked to herself.

"You are more insane than I imagined." Roman concluded.

"Look at her, already talking to her husband. Be discreet." Sophia warned the elder man.

He was shocked that this really worked and started questioning how many men really leave their wives unsatisfied.

The elevator came and they got inside.

"I got so many questions. What are you doing here in this time? Did you already make up your mind with my offer and are men that bad in bed?" Sophia couldn't help but giggle at his curiosity.

"I can't give an answer for the third one. But hey, I might have just a saved a marriage since I couldn’t save my own." the gorgeous woman replied with a wide smile and tears forming in her ocean blue eyes.

Roman recalled when her uncle said something about husband and he was somehow both surprised and not surprised that a woman like Sophia is married.

"Don't tell me your husband kicked you away." the Italian man looked genuinely concerned.

"No. He told me I could stay as long as I want. But everything was so ugly." Sophia broke down crying and the elevator stopped at the 7th floor.

Roman just grabbed her hand, took her to his room and she sat on the bed.

He got next to her and hugged her.

"My parents are dead. My only option was to go to my uncle's house but he would tell me 'I tried to warn you. You should have changed your priorities' and that annoying monologue of basically being a slave for your husband, so he could be happy." she sniffled and started taking ragged breaths. "Tonight before my performance he shortened my time just so I could be home earlier and do my 'wife duties'.

Roman just let her pour her sadness in peace and just caressed her soft hair.

"We did the deed which was very, very boring almost as much as he is and then he said we should get divorced. Even the papers were ready and everything. I'm sorry, I wet your beautiful suit." she got up from his chest and her eyes have turned violet from the crying.

"That man is a fool." this was the director's honest response. "I would die on a hill before I dump a woman like you. But trust me, Sophia, this guy did you a favor."

"I am aware he did me a favor but it was just very cruel."

"Sophia, you can have any man you want.

Anything you want. Especially after I make you a big Hollywood star, you would become untouchable." he spoke enthusiastically.

"You think so?" she sniffled.

"Yes. Take this as a sign, too. To work with me."

"Interesting perspective." Sophia got lost in thought. "You know what? Fine. I have nothing to lose anyway." she said and Roman was ready to give a big grin but he felt the need to say a couple of things.

"I have to warn you, though, that oftentimes Hollywood isn't as glamourous as it seems." he said and Sophia shrugged.

"Neither is marriage or life in general but we gotta cope somehow. As I said, I agree to work with you."

"Thank you." he said and hugged her. "The world of showbusiness is dark but I promise I am going to protect you from all the snakes and beasts." Sophia felt somewhat safe being in the strong grip of a stranger man who claims to be a director, her favorite one.

"You are so soft and angelic, and innocent." he examined her face. "I am going to be your shield. I just need one thing."

Sophia's stomach turned. She realized she is in a hotel room with a complete stranger and a member of the film industry.

"You are not going to make me sleep with you, aren't you?" she asked with worried tone.

"No...sweetheart. That’s not who I am" he quickly debunked her assumption.

"I just need you to stay true to yourself." he caressed Sophia's soft blonde hair.

"I told you what brings me here. Now tell me what brings you here." Sophia got curious and stared at the sculpture of a man that is in front of her.

"I love travelling around. Thus, I get more creative and tend to come up with even better ideas." he explained.

"And you live in Hollywood?"

"I do but it can be very suppressing there and my mind tends to block. That's when I realize I need a getaway."

"Is it your first time in New York?"

"No. I just love coming here."

"I realized that when you take me to Hollywood, I have no place where I can stay."

"Sweetheart, I managed to buy a whole house with the money I made from City of Strangers. You can live with me." he assured her but Sophia furrowed her eyebrows.

"With you?"

"I know it sounds weird, some would even say anti-traditional but-"

"Do I look traditional to you in any way? I don't care about that but maybe I do care about people talking. I mean if you want us to become big names in the industry, it surely won't be the best move for us to live together illegally." Roman slightly squinted his eyes, astonished by Sophia's smartness.

"Until I find you something, you are going to live with me."

"Okay." she looked at him. "When are we leaving?"

"Tomorrow. I've been here for a couple of days. I wrote my ideas in my diary and now I am ready to start organizing the movie. You are going to be the lead actress."

"Thrilling. I have to say goodbye to my uncle, though." she bit her lower lip and couldn't help but stare at that dark beige diary of Roman.

It was once light beige but with time it became darker from all that diary has been through - the ink, the bags, the rooms.

"And you write everything here?" Sophia asked curiously but didn't dare to take thenotebook, she just touched it.

"Yup. All of the ideas that came to me, I knew all I needed was a lead actress and I'm talking about a beauty no one has ever seen." Sophia nodded her head. "You are exactly what I need"

"Thank you." she smiled warmly. "I hope I do everything right just how you imagined."

"You will. You will." he nodded his head.

"You are quite a man, Roman. I have never imagined you looked like this and I mean it in the best way possible." Sophia spoke frankly and he looked down shyly.

"I'm just an Italian man, Sophia." he replied.

"Oh, your wife must be living a good life." she exclaimed and the man just shook his head.

"I am not married now, love. I've been married two times. Three times for luck, they say but it has to be worth it this time."

"I agree. Same goes for me as well." she sighed and then they made eye contact for a couple of seconds like there was an unhinged thought forming in their brains.

Roman was sure that he wants Sophia to be way more than his muse the moment he saw her but he wants to get to know her more.

Whereas Sophia just got out of her marriage but she knows this man would understand her way better and his looks and physique make her wonder how is he going to feel inside of her. Already evoking a little spicy side of her.

Both knew it would be crazy to say what they

think out loud, so they just kept silence.

"How are we going to sleep?" Sophia broke the silence and Roman looked at the ground with the fluffy carpet.

[tribalauthor]

The Life of a Showgirl

Chapter 1 (2.2K)

July 13th, 1962

New York.

The city that never sleeps.

How is it even supposed to sleep when there are so much things you want to do and see?

The busy streets and its lights can lead you to bars where you can relax after the hectic work day. For some stressful, for others mundane. Depends on your profession and your place in the hierarchy.

Tonight, however, we are heading to a very specific bar named Downtown. A word that signifies 'busy area' and a word that originaged in New York City as well.

When Paul Heyman, a pleasently successful businessman, created this bar, he wanted it to be a huge thing. He wanted to have an unhealthy amount of clients.

The big investment he made in the rent alone actually paid off in both of its meanings. He has a lot of clients but the thing that made the bar become more and more intriguing to regular and new visitors is Paul's ethereal niece - Sophia Cameron-Heyman. Or known as Sophia Marie.

Every showgirl has a stage name.

They come up with ways, so that their names sound more luxurious yet easier to remember.

Marilyn Monroe sounds way better than Norma Mortenson, right?

The same as Sophia Marie - it has more glamour than Sophia Cameron-Heyman.

It's not a new information that showgirls have to stick to a persona they create, so they can entertain the crowd.

At the end of the day the crowd is their king.

Right now, Sophia is in her dressing room, wearing sparkly bodysuit laced with pieces of diamonds.

Her blonde hair was made into voluminous curls, and it looks shoulder-length - a hairstyle that can never go out of style.

Or at least not anytime soon.

Her makeup is ready as well. Signature red lipstick, long-winged eyeliner and blush that define her oval face.

Somebody knocked on her door.

"Sophia, are you dressed?"

"Yes, uncle." she yelled and the boss of the place got in the room. The blonde woman looked at him with anticipation, wondering what is he doing here.

"Tonight, you are going to perform for an hour."

"What? What do you mean an hour? There are some new performances I wanted to debut." she clapped back at him.

"You will debut them tomorrow or any other night."

"Why is this abrupt change?" she furrowed her eyebrows.

"Because Rex told me you aren't doing your wife duties as the vows ordine." Paul was straightforward to the point.

"I am not meant to be a traditional wife who cooks for her husband nonstop and opens her legs whenever he orders her." the showgirl declared.

"Then you shouldn't have married him at the first place. Now you have to set your priorities straight."

"My priority is to perform and show my art in front of the people." Sophia decided to save the comment where she says she married Rex, just so she could live away from her uncle and cousins.

Sophia is an orphan who lost her parents in a very tragic way. Her mom died of madness when her husband died in their bed from liver disease.

The 24-year-old wife lives with her husband Rex Cameron who is just two years older than her but works in The Bank of New York.

"That was before you got married. Now your priority should be to make your husband happy and of course, to give birth." Sophia's jaw dropped from the nonsense she heard.

"Uncle, I thought I brought more money to this place. You need me here and I need to earn." the young girl tried so hard to convince her uncle but it was not really working.

"Your husband isn't a homeless man. He earns good money and my senses are telling me he will become even bigger in the bank field. All you have to do is make his day after he comes back from work - come back home in a clean house with his favorite meal on the table and his wife half-naked. In front of him, not random people." he eyed her outfit.

"I don't believe in that stuff. Nobody and nothing is ever going to stop me do what I want. I am meant to shine on my own, not to stand in a shadow of a man." Sophia got up from the seat. "And trust me, uncle, if you don't want me here, I will go to another place where they want me and Downtown will become Lowtown."

After Sophia left for the stage, Paul just gave out a deep sigh.

He couldn't help but see his ambition in her and he wasn't sure if he likes it or hates it. He knows, however, that if Sophia continues to be this stubborn, she will end up a divorceè and a spinster.

As her uncle, he is scared of that and as an only child, her mission is to continue her family but Sophia doesn't realize that.

She is still young, maybe one day she will realize, he gave himself hope.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to bar Downtown." Sophia greeted tonight's guests. "I see a lot of familiar faces but I also see new ones, so for those who don't know, my name is Sophia Marie and I prepared very special performances for tonight. Play the music!"

The beat of You don't own me started but it was rearranged with more drums, more drama.

Sophia started walking seductively on the stage to the microphone.

"You don't own me, I'm not just one of your many toys" her voice was so pwerful for a person with a baby-face like her.

Everyone seemed so mesmerized by her vocals and dancing but one person a little bit more than the others.

Roman Reigns.

A movie director that isn't a rookie but isn't from the veterans as well. Roman is 38 years old. He's been in the showbusiness for ten years and he managed to make two hit movies under his name but that's not enough to be at the top of the Paramount.

He wants to become untouchable in his field and be acknowledged all over the country and even the world as the greatest storyteller and director of all time.

However, he needs a muse and he knows it. There was an idea annoyingly roaming in his mind that he wants to do. For that, he needed a beautiful talented woman.

The more he watches Sophia - how she sings, how she dances and how she acts, the more he realizes she is the one.

"And don't tell me what to do, don't tell me what to say"

Roman was seeing the pure raw and intense dramatism in that woman which is extremely rare to see especially in a pretty face like that.

He doesn't see the potential because she is the potential in a human form.

"Excuse me, does the lady usually meet people after her shows or she just leaves?" he asked a male group of friends at the table next to his. They reacted pretty weirdly because the question has a slight lustful character to it. And also because Roman doesn't look like a man living in the present era at all.

Man buns isn't a hairstyle the men even consider of doing, neither is the broad muscle figure. People always look at him as if he is a sort of alien in a way.

In an era full of clean shaven faces, mustaches and goatees, Roman has a full beard.

"Don't get it confused, sir. She is a showgirl, not a hooker." one of them replied and Roman rolled his eyes.

"If she was one, I'd already know." the other replied and chuckled annoyingly.

"It had never ran into my mind that she might be a hooker, I just need her for 5 minutes." he continued.

"You see that short, fat man next to the bar?"

"Yes." Roman looked at Paul who was drinking and observing the show.

"That's the owner of the bar, maybe you should ask him." the most decent of the friend group said and Roman thanked him for the information.

...

"Thank you so much for tonight, ladies and gentlemen. I was forced by circumstances to cut my show short this time but I promise I will be back stronger. Thank you and see you tomorrow." she gave an air kiss to the crowd and everyone clapped, chanting 'more'.

"More?" she asked and looked around all the people and then a look of victory at her uncle.

"Who am I to say no to you?" she laughed beautifully and Roman caught himself chuckling, too.

She is so charming, it could be dangerous, he thought to himself.

"I just wanna be loved by you". she said and the song that Marilyn Monroe performed was played.

"I wanna be loved by you, just you, nobody else but you." Sophia started going around the audience and passing through everyone.

Everyone seemed so stoked by her presence almost as if God got on Earth - men were hypnotized, women were jealous because they know they couldn't have that type of charisma.

"I wanna be kissed by you, just you, nobody else but you." now the showgirl is roaming around Roman and she tried to keep her character because the man that is in front of her is one she had never seen before.

The alien man felt his heart going fast at the sudden closeness.

"I couldn't aspire to anything higher than to feel the desire to make you my own." Sophia's sweet voice sent some trembles in the big man's body.

"Ba-dum-ba-dum-ba-doodly-dum-boo." the naughty showgirl booped Roman's nose and he was left flabbergasted.

Then she continued her performance while walking to other people.

The second Sophia finished the show, the director walked quickly to the stage before she disappeared. As he reached to her, Sophia looked at him with a smile of disbelief how unreal this man looks.

"Excuse me, miss Marie, can we talk?" his deep voice scratched her brain in the best way possible.

"Are you coming from the future, sir?" she asked innocently.

"No, I just want to-"

"I am profoundly sorry, sir, but Miss Marie doesn't burden her time to speak with her admirers. She has other things to worry about." Paul interfered in their interaction.

"I just need five minutes." Roman replied.

"Yeah, you sure just need five minutes." Paul eyed the big guy standing in front of him.

"Uncle, let's see what this gentleman has to say."

"Sophia, you have to get home."

"Five minutes." she yelled at him.

Paul sighed in defeat.

"You are quite the show, darling." Roman flashed a tiny smirk at Sophia who was wearing a coat over her stage outfit.

"Thank you. I get that a lot." she replied politely. "You are new here, I see."

"Do you remember every face that watches you?"

"Yes and even if I didn't, I'd still know I haven't seen you before." Sophia's opal eyes were skipping over Roman's face like kangaroos. "Are you a time traveller?"

Roman chuckled and looked down. He isn't usually the type to get nervous from anything or anyone but Sophia is breaking this streak.

"Close, sweetheart. I'm a director. Roman Reigns." he finally introduced himself and Sophia looked at him with disbelief with a sprinkle of scepticism.

"You came here to tell me you are my favorite director?" she asked with her eyebrow cocked.

Roman expected to hear everything but this.

"Favorite?"

"Yes, are you kidding me? I love City of Strangers. One of my favorite movies." another shock thunder hit Roman. This movie is one of his favorites he has ever done, too and sadly, this wasn't his breakthrough.

"The Last Waltz, though. This is very relatable. You know, I was in a such state of shock that a man can write so beautifully about a woman because that's very, very rare." she said. That movie is what everyone thought would push Roman to new heights but sadly, it wasn't quite the case.

"Thank you for appreciating my art." he said politely. "That could be in advantage because I have a very weird suggestion for you. Not exactly weird but more like unexpected."

"I'm listening." the showgirl was full of curiosity and looked at him with her big eyes.

"Would you like to be the lead actress in my next movie?"

"Very sweet of you, but no, thank you." her answer was immediate.

"Why? I see your potential. You would be big in Hollywood."

"Who said that I want Hollywood?" she buried him with this question.

"You look like a woman that has big dreams and very big potential to achieve them. Trust me, you could be bigger than Marilyn, Elizabeth and Josephine."

"Mr. Reigns, thank you for the kind words but I'm not interested. I wish you luck with the upcoming movie, though. I will make sure to watch it." Sophia got up from the table.

"In case you change your mind." he said and she turned around to see he is leaving a list with a number and address.

"Sophia, your husband is waiting for you. I promised him you will go home earlier tonight." Paul interfered and the woman grabbed the paper quickly hiding it in her coat.

Roman started putting two plus two together but there was a little voice in his head whispering to him that Miss Marie will come back.

[tribalauthor]

The Life of a Showgirl (roman × sophia spin off)

A/N: for everyone who loved The Wisewoman and the oneshots about Roman and Sophia, I have a concept for a new story with a different plot, and even different era - the 1960s. If you are new, welcome and you can check my previous works in my masterlist. Hope you like this one too <3

Summary: Sophia Marie Heyman is a showgirl with a secret hunger - to make it big and be a timeless figure. However, the reality of her marriage stops her achieving her full potential until Roman Reigns, an underrated director with big visions, sees her and decides she is going to be his muse and breakthrough in the movie industry.

Warning: age difference

chapter 1 chapter 2

[tribalauthor]

CHAPTER 11 •PHILL IN THE AIR• (2.4K)

Another month has passed. Monique and Roman made their relationship a bit more serious. She felt more comfortable talking about her past but still avoiding the period she was with Phillip.

As Roman promised, he arranged her a job as a dance instructor in the gym he goes to. Just like the story of how they "met".

Monique was going at his house, she developed a relationship with Josephine. Sometimes Roman was coming at her place. Sometimes they did it in the gym after training.

Monique liked her new lifestyle.

She hasn't for a while missed her job as a stripper except for the friends she made there but they were meeting from time to time.

As of now, she is preparing to go to another event with her boyfriend.

"Ever since dad met you, it's like he became a social butterfly all of the sudden." Jo shared with her recently.

"Really?" Monique couldn't believe.

"Yes. He used to be very grumpy and didn't want to talk with people unless it was something work related. I think you are a good influence for him." the teen girl nodded her head and smiled softly.

Monique feels so at ease that Roman's kid is so well-mannered and actually likes her because that's rare for kids in her situation.

Monique sprayed herself with the Hypnotic Poison perfume and the pleasent smell filled her nostrills.

As always, she looked elegant and classy. She straightened her naturally curly hair and styled her bangs a bit.

For outfit she chose a strapless fitted red dress with a sweetheart neckline which gave her done boobs even more push up.

The gown is combined with matching deep red high-heeled sandals, jewelery with a small piece of ruby on it - earrings and necklace.

Roman got out of his car. He is wearing a black suit with a red tie as him and Monique discussed, his hair was slicked back, beard freshly trimmed and dyed.

He opened the door for her, not being able to take his eyes off his girlfriend...or at least that's how he likes to refer to her.

In his head.

Roman is trying his all not to pressure Monique since it got clear, she is out of a relationship which appeared to him was abusive.

Monique, on the other hand, appreciates his understanding to everything and that he is trying very, very hard to keep her and to impress her. She sees an ideal type with him and most importantly, she feels free.

An unfamiliar feeling for her previous relationship.

"Beautiful is an understatement for the way you look. I seriously gotta think of an adjective that would fit you perfectly." Monique laughed at Roman's usual witty remarks.

"Why would you have to think of an adjective that fits me, when you do?" it took some time for the lawyer to understand and he giggled.

"Touchè." he put his hands up in defeat. "Facts are facts." he chuckled and then Monique leaned to kiss him sweetely but then it started getting more serious.

Roman took a look at his watch.

"We have time for one round." he said and then Monique stared at him.

"We got time for a quickie and you don't like them. Quickies turn into whole sessions with you. And this time I don't want us to be late." Monique explained in a rather cute way while wiping her lipstick off Roman's face.

He sighed.

"I think you start to become more lawyer than me." he concluded and Monique rolled her eyes.

When they arrived in the beautiful hall, Monique saw familiar faces from the mountain weekend.

All eyes were on the power couple since they both are quite attention grabbing. There were numerous greetings and small talks.

Monqiue didn't understand what is this event for. Roman just suggested it and she agreed.

She finally feels comfortable to go out in public more...after months. The fear she had of Phillip finding her is surely fading but there is still that little lingering feeling.

That doesn't stop her from living her life, so she just really enjoys the ride, especially after she got with Roman.

As they got in the hall, everyone glued their eyes to them They are just like a celebrity couple since both of them are extremely attractive and look expensive.

Roman and Monique greeted everybody they knew and made some new acquaintances, too.

They are now looking at a baby picture, shown by a couple they just met.

"What a sweet little girl!" Monique exclaimed.

"We love her to death." the woman said.

"We waited for her a long time but finally she is here." the father smiled warmly.

"Oh, you had problems with conceiving?" Roman dared to ask.

"No, we had a problem with making a girl. She has three older brothers." the father replied and Monique and Roman were flabbergasted.

"Wow. Congratulations. Big family, woah." Monique exclaimed.

"It's tough but it's always so fun. Coming from a person who has two sisters and a brother." Roman chuckled.

"Do you two have kids?" the mother asked and the couple exchanged a nervous look.

"I have. From my ex-wife. A beautiful 17-year daughter." Roman grinned.

"Time for you to try for a son, why not?" the dad gave the couple a slow and obvious wink.

As Monique stepped out of the restroom, she ran into a man.

But not just any man.

It's Phillip.

The notorious ex-boyfriend who ruined her whole perception of love.

Her chest went tight.

What the hell is he doing here?

She forced herself not to freeze, not to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. Any crack in the mask could cost her everything. She wasn’t Juliet anymore. She was Monique — different hair, different body, different life.

There was a chance, a good chance, he wouldn’t see through it.

“Hello, miss,” he greeted, polite but with the kind of attention that made her skin prickle.

Phillip still looks handsome but behind that handsome face, there is a lot of darnkess, a lot of trauma that he would pass on to you with no hesitation.

“Hi, sir.” She kept her eyes down, skimming past him and aiming for the hall but then she heard him stop.

“My name’s Phil.”

Monique closed her eyes for half a second, breathed through the spike of panic, and turned with the brightest, fakest smile she could summon.

“My name is Monique” she said, letting her voice rise a little higher than normal, airy, like she didn’t have a care in the world.

They shook hands. His grip was warm and she almost felt like the old electricity which was shut down for good, being revived once again.

“Nice to meet you, Monique.” His gaze lingered. There was a flicker of something - recognition, hope.

“Pleasure is all mine.” She tried to pull back, but his eyes had dropped to her arm.

The mole that Juliet once had, was gone. His brow creased for a split second.

“Are you from Vires Law?” he asked casually.

“No, I’m not a lawyer.”

She smiled again, but her pulse was in her throat. One wrong move, and he’d know.

Roman was at the bar, chatting with some of his colleagues. The moment he saw his girlfriend coming back, he smiled.

“You okay?” he asked, caressing her arm.

“We need to leave,” she said, keeping her voice light for the benefit of the people around them.

Roman blinked. “What? We just got here.”

“I know.” She forced a smile and gritted her teeth. “Please.”

Roman cocked his eyebrow in suspicion. “Monique-”

“Roman, I’m serious.” She didn’t mean for it to come out so sharp, but her throat felt tight. She lowered her voice. “I just...I don’t feel well.”

He studied her face, clearly unconvinced. “Tell me what happened.”

“I can’t.” She swallowed, glancing past him toward the restroom hallway. The space looked empty, but she he is in the same room as her.

Roman’s gaze followed hers. “Is someone-”

“Please,” she said again, this time almost a whisper. “I just need to leave.”

Just when she was ready to say an excuse, she was interrupted by a voice that spoke on the microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming tonight." her ex appeared and started talking.

"You didn't quite tell me what this event is all about." Monique gave a bitter remark.

"It's such an honor to see that so many people and activists caring about our nature deeply and allow me to broaden my branch in yet another state aka Nevada." as he was speaking his voice was echoing in Monique's mind, not being able to process the words.

"That CEO from Chicago I told you about. He actually came here and I wanted to hear about his future projects since I adore the concept of his business and I am still bitter that they didn't choose our company to represent them." Roman spoke frankly and Monique was just in pure shock.

"I want to thank Vires Law who agreed to be our partners and protect us. And I wanna thank the other law representatives who decided to join us tonight as well." everyone started clapping. "It's so great to see people that care about the future and what we leave for next generations. This is why I am so ambitious to expand this company across the country and even across the world. I strongly hope one day I achieve that and we finally start living in the world that we deserve."

"I feel dizzy. Please, just, let's get out of here." Roman suddenly started getting concerned with Monique's behaviour and sensed her anxiousness.

He just doesn't know why does she act like this.

"Let's get a fresh air." he took her hand and both sneaked out from the hall.

"Now tell me what's going on, Monique. You are worrying me" he tried not to yell at her.

Monique took a deep breath and tried to surpress her tears. As she was about to spill the beans, she spotted Phillip's bodyguards are right here, occupying the building.

"I can't. I gotta leave this place and never look back." she whispered. "With or without you. Goodbye." she turned around but there was no way Roman leaves her like that.

When they got in the car, Monique had a breakdown. She started crying uncontrollably.

Roman was extremely worried yet puzzled due to the sudden change but instead of rushing her, he just caressed her arm and hair, then pulled his girlfriend into a tight hug.

She continued sobbing and sniffling.

The lawyer started thinking what could have happened after she went to the bathroom and the thing he came up with, brought a hit of wrath in him, igniting a fire inside.

"Did somebody touch you in that bathroom? Yes or no?" his voice became extremely stern. "Be honest."

"No. I swear. It's not that." she got away from him and wiped her tears. "I just...apparently I can't escape from my past no matter how hard I try." she sniffled and Roman just stared at her, waiting to hear what does she exactly mean.

"The CEO right there is my ex-boyfriend." Monique finally said. "Who made my life a living hell." she continued crying. Roman has never seen her like this and caressed her again.

"I am here, Monique. Don't worry. You are not alone." he said.

"The fact that I am not alone scares me the most because you don't realize how dangerous he is. He is not just a CEO, Roman. He is a mafia boss. I don't know if he recognized me on the way to the bathroom, I don't know if he came here on purpose because he found me and if that's the case, we have to cut our ties immediately."

"What? Look, I don't know how you guys broke up but-"

"I escaped from Chicago. I just left a note that I'm leaving him for good. I don't really think he changed for five months. If he finds me, he will take me back with him and if he finds out I am in a relationship, you might get killed. That's how crazy he is." Monique explained.

Roman didn't like anything he was hearing and breathed heavily going deep in thoughts.

"This man is not going to stop me to be with you. Also, I am a lawyer and I will do anything to put him down, if he goes in my way. Now, please calm down, Monique. I am here. And we can go back inside."

"No." the woman did a tiny voice screech and weeped again. "I don't wanna see him, Roman." her uncontrollable crying filled the big and strong man with worry and uneasiness.

He immediately hugged her and let her cry in his chest. Then he ran his hand through her beautiful dark brown hair which was once dark ginger but he doesn't know that fact.

"I don't wanna see him ever again."

"Then we are getting out of here." Roman assured her and fired up the engine.

"Where the hell did Roman and Monique go?" Amanda, one of Roman's co-workers asked.

"Knowing them, they probably doing the nasty in the bathroom or something." Richard replied and Phillip was nearby them and couldn't help but hear their conversation.

He was feeling so different after the encounter he had with Monique. She looked like Juliet but not quite. Her signature ginger curly hair was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe she straightens it now, he thought.

Her big mole on her arm is non-existent but that could be achieved with a surgery.

Her body seemed way more different. While she used to be shaped like a greek statue, now is more like a pilates build.

But these are changes that could be made in five months since she left him.

Hearing that she has a new boyfriend is what it makes his blood boil. If he finds out this is really Juliet and she moved on from him, he is gonna go completely mad.

He excused himself to the people he was speaking to and went to the front lady who is now resting with a drink in her hand.

"Excuse me, Miss. Where is the guest list?" he asked her politely.

"Right here, sir." she put her hand in her big black bag and pulled out the list with guests. He didn't ask anything and just took it from her hands.

The lady is aware that he is the boss and can do whatever he wants. Then he started searching through the paper for the name Monique.

He managed to find it after almost a minute.

Monique Davis.

[tribalauthor]

My name is Sophia Anoa'i (roman × sophia one-shot)

Summary: Roman comes back to WWE to confront Seth Rollins months after Wrestlemania 41 where his most trusted man, Paul Heyman, betrayed him. The OTC still has his now wife and future mother of his kids, Sophia Anoa'i.

Disclaimer: this one is kinda related to Double surprise where Sophia tells the whole family she is pregnant with twins, so if you wanna have more backstory, you can read it. Full story of Roman and Sophia - The Wisewoman and the other oneshots about them are in my masterlist

no warnings

word count: 1.3k

July 14th 2025

"And now that I got the Money in the Bank briefcase, Birmingham, best believe that I will become the World Heavyweight champion very very soon." Seth Rollins promised to the crowd as they started booing him.

"Then who knows? I might face John Cena, win the Undisputed championship and do the unthinkable." he laughed out loud and the crowd gave a large reaction once again.

"I have the Wiseman to help me arrange the matches, I have the future of the company, Bron Breakker by my side, the big Bronson Reed and there is no one that could-" there he was interrupted by the OTC theme.

He's been away since Wrestlemania and as much as he wanted to be with Sophia non-stop since she is three months pregnant with twins, he had to return to work and make some money for the babies and her.

After Roman did his poweful entrance accompanied by the loud cheers from the crowd, he got in the ring staring a hole through Seth's group.

The Brons were ready to jump him but Seth made them a sign to stay still.

"What's next? Telling Birmingham to acknowledge you? You try to be me so bad, little brother?" Roman asked in confusion and Seth let out his signature laugh.

"I am not trying to be you, Roman. I am trying to be who I always have been. Also, as far as I remember, you haven't won Money in the Bank. I did...twice. Everyone remembers Heist of the Century, right, Birmingham? 10 years ago." Roman wrinkled his lips. "It's all about history lessons."

"I am the guy in WWE, Roman, no matter if you like it or not."

The tribal chief laughed.

"You realize that he is gonna do the same to you after some time, right? He betrayed me and his so called best friend. You are next in line and it's gonna be sooner than later." as a big brother, Roman warned his biggest rival. "Also, you will never be the guy."

"Let's cut this bullshit, Roman and go straight to business before I tell them to whoop your ass." Seth wanted to cut to the chase.

"This group will never thrive until I am around and you, Paul, are going to regret your decisions." he warned his uncle-in-law.

"I suggest you to be a good husband, go back home to my niece and get ready to be a father." the crowd was confused because nobody knows about Sophia's pregnancy or the fact she is Roman's wife officially.

"Plus, you would have never met her it it wasn't for me." he added and Roman crossed his arms because he is kinda right about that. "So you owe me big time for the rest of your life."

Roman just nodded his head because Paul is right but he believes that even without him, he would have met Sophia one way or another.

"By the way, she gave me full permission to beat your ass for everything you did to me." Roman said and Paul hid behind the Brons. "And I will do it one way or another."

"Birmingham, give a big applause for the Tribal Chief who is about to be a father." Seth said sarcastically but the crowd was really happy for the OTC. "Hopefully, it will be more quiet backstage now." everyone reacted to his dirty remark and Roman just smirked a little. "Paul, ain't the things awkward now?"

"Sort of. I should have introduced her to you." Paul replied and Roman was more than ready to jump him but the uncle was protected by the Brons.

"Ladies and gentlemen." there she was. Sophia came at the arena with a short white dress with deep cleavage, showing her already formed belly since she is expecting twins. "My name is Sophia Anoa'i." she announced and the pop was insanely loud. "And I serve as the Wisewoman of my husband, The Tribal Chief, and I am also here tonight to put my uncle in his place." she walked to the ring and Roman helped her to get in there safely.

Soph thanked him.

"Uncle, you look funny. All the smack you love to talk about Roman, the father of my kids, who are going to call you 'uncle' as well. You try to repeat the Bloodline magic but that is never going to happen." she put Paul in his place and the crowd started cheering. "And now you dare to say that Seth should have been the guy you introduced me to? I am so sorry, uncle, but I have no interest in going through the whole male roster. I am not like you" the audience was scandalized and Roman tried not to laugh.

"Cause how many guys you had - Brock, Punk, Roman, now Seth but you also managed Big Show, Kurt Angle, Ryback and even Cesaro. My fingers start to run out, ladies and gentlemen. Hell, I didn't have that many exes." Sophia's last name may be Anoa'i now but the Heyman nature will never fade away.

Everyobody was too stunned to speak.

"And you can make fun of my romantic life with Roman all you want, Seth." Roman's greatest rival looked surprised. "God forbid two people in love want to have some fun." she said in the joking tone.

The crowd loved what they were hearing.

"But I do that with only one man. Cause from what I know backstage used to be loud because of you and the numerous girlfriends you had around here before Becky. Am I correct?" the croud started yelling again like they are watching a generational funeral. "It's all about history lessons." she repeated his words from earlier.

Seth seemed defeated and he looked at Roman.

"I see who wins the arguments at home." this is what he managed to say. The OTC smiled softly and nodded his head in agreement. "But at the end of the day, at least I don't look like my wife's second uncle." Seth laughed again.

"If being her second uncle means I get that in my bed every night…sign me up twice." OTC tried his best to stay in character and not giggle like a little boy. "I mean y'all can make jokes all you want but I stay winning." Roman shrugged and talked to the crowd while Paul was looking mad.

"Sophia, you look like a smart woman. If you are as smart as you look, you are gonna take your dear husband, go home and be parents. The company is in good hands now." Seth spoke from the bottom of his heart. "If you want your kids to have a strong, healthy father, Roman better stay away."

"Good hands?" Sophia chuckled. "Look, Seth, I don't know what spell you did to my uncle to betray his nephew-in-law and his best friend but listen to Roman. He is gonna do the same thing to you, too, one day." she repeated her husband's words but Seth doesn't seem to listen.

"Thank you, Soph. I appreciate it but I have no time to listen cause I got titles to win. You better sit and think about ways of your husband becoming a champion again." he laughed out loud and left the ring with his group.

"I'm gonna kill him. Trust me." Roman started explaining to Sophia and she tried to calm him down by taking his hand and squeezing it. After a while he calmed down and both shared a sweet kiss.

"Congratulations." the team and the roster started congratulating the power couple.

"I am so happy for you, Soph." Rhea hugged her. "Naomi, you knew about this?"

"Of course I did." she smiled widely and hugged her sis.

"Hunter, I need more vacations." Roman spoke to the boss and the girls started giggling.

"More?" Triple H was concerned.

"I want to be next to my wife 24/7." he explained.

"We are gonna figure this out but we gotta stick to the storyline." the bald man warned him and Roman nodded his head.

"I am still mad you didn't invite me to the wedding. After all, you two first met at my office. Could have done a great speech." he seemed a bit upset and everyone laughed at the boss.

[tribalauthor]

Double Surprise (roman × sophia one-shot)

Summary: it's Joe's 40th birthday and Sophia decides to surprise him with not one but two presents

Disclaimer: if you want to read more about their story, check out The Wisewoman and the other one-shots about them in my masterlist.

no warnings, it's all cutesy

word count: 1.4k

May 25th 2025

Today is Roman's 40th birthday and he and Sophia planned a big party with his and her family.

Everyone is gathered in the big barbecue of his home in Pensacola.

The women were cooking in the kitchen while the men were outside doing some barbecue, taking turns and competing which one of them would make the best steaks.

"Girls, here are some cocktails for us." one of Roman's aunts brought several cups filled with refreshing Samoan cocktails. Everyone seemed thrilled to try except for Sophia.

"Soph, come on. You love this." she invited her while the young woman shook her head.

"Alcohol makes my stomach burn lately and my nutritionist advised me to completely cut it off." she came up with an excuse.

Sophia is pregnant. She learnt that two days ago and told nobody about it and weirdly it's been 6 weeks yet she is now starting to experience the symptoms.

Her mother gave her a suspicious look.

"So when do you intend to marry Sophia and make her a part of our family?" Sika asked his son. He really loves Sophia and he hopes she marries Joe.

"I bought the ring. I am thinking of taking her to Rome for a couple of days and propose there." Roman spoke quietly and his father patted him on the back.

"You are a romantic just like me."

"This is very delicious." Sophia said as she drank from the vaifala that Lisa, Joe's mother, made for her. It's sweet and most importantly - zero alcohol.

She drank it almost in a blink of an eye.

"Can I have another one? That's the best drink I've ever had." it's made from pineapple juice, coconut cream and coconut water.

Very sweet and refreshing taste.

"Of course, you can. I will make one right away." Lisa said and started making it. She loves Sophia so much and she will make her 20 more Vaifala if she asks to.

"Everyone, thank you so much for being here to celebrate my 40th birthday." Roman gave his speech after all the guests gathered at the big table in the yard.

"I know it's unbelievable that I'm 40. I mean look at least 30 but..." he joked around and everyone laughed.

"Tribal Chief doesn't age." Zilla yelled and Joe pointed his finger at him, grinning.

"I make a toast for even more great things ahead." he put his glass of beer to the front, as did everyone. Even Sophia who was the only one with Vaifala. "Cheers."

"Happy birthday again, Joe." Soph said sweetly and hugged him. Of course, she didn't leave him without a present.

Earlier today Sophia gifted her boyfriend the newest Jordan trainers and on the box, she wrote "I am so happy you walked into my life."

Joe loved it and now he is wearing the trainers.

"Thank you." he hugged her back and kissed her head. "You seem to enjoy Vaifala." he noticed her big glass.

"Your poor mother made her three or four of these." Sophia's mother, Olivia, joined the conversation.

"Be careful with the sugar." Roman kindly warned his girlfriend. "This is a very, very sugary drink."

"I know but it's so addictive.

"You better leave space for the barbecue." Joe reminded her.

"I have plenty, don't worry." she smiled at him. Sophia felt like eating the whole table filled with all those delicious looking dishes.

"This is very delicious." Sophia said as she was on her second big steak.

"My steaks turned out the best, I knew it." Roman said proudly. Then Soph started eating from the side dishes too.

"Sophia, have you been starving yourself?" her uncle, Paul, asked concerned. "Joe, do you feed my niece at home?"

"Of course. But she's been dieting lately and now getting close to the best food ever, it's normal to be like this."

"You couldn't have said it better." Soph said with her mouth full and excused herself.

The women started exchanging some suspicious looks amongst each other and kind of sensing what's going on.

"Maybe you should stop dieting, so you don't overeat." Olivia advised her daughter and Soph just nodded.

"Sophia, you look even more glowy than last time I saw you." Roman's sister remarked.

"Thank you. It's normal when your man spoils you to death." she looked at her boyfriend and he smirked.

"Spoils you...or feeds two people at once?" Olivia didn't take her eyes off her daughter. She may be a surgeon but that doesn't mean she won't know if she is about to become a grandmother.

Sophia froze.

"I knew it." Joe's aunt connected the dots. "The cocktail excuse, that unusual glow, the appetite."

"What?" Roman furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"Sophia may be pregnant." his mother leaned to him and whispered.

The whole table went silent and Sophia's cheeks were getting very red from shyness. Also, she isn't quite sure if she wanted Joe to find out like this.

Roman blinked slowly and looked at his girlfriend.

"Are you, Sophia? Should we go to the doctor?" he asked.

"Surprise?" she smiled nervously.

"Oh my God." he grinned ear to ear and immediately pulled his dear girlfriend for a hug and a kiss.

The male part was happy and shocked as hell but gasps and squeals erupted from these news.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? How did you learn? Did you go to a doctor?" the future father bombarded Sophia with questions.

"I found out a couple of days ago. I went to the doctor while you were working out."

"Is this why you were in the bathroom for so long every morning?"

"Yeah, I felt nauseous."

"Every morning I wake up and she is in the bathroom." the excited man started explaining to everybody.

"It's called morning sickness." his sister educated him. "Which week are you in?"

"Sixth." Soph replied. "And I started to feel the symptoms recently."

"Amazing news." Sika said with happiness. "I've been waiting for this kiddo to give me a grandkid."

"Paul, how are you feeling?" Jey teased the Wiseman who was standing in disbelief.

"I-I- I am profoundly happy for my dear niece and the tribal chief." he finally said.

Roman put his hand on Sophia's belly.

"Hey, little one." he started talking to it. "You are my best birthday present."

"About that..." Sophia started talking and looked around. Everybody was in ears.

"It's not a little one. It's little twos." she grinned nervously and it became loud again while Roman was standing in frozen in shock.

The men all started going to him, squeezing him and patting him.

All the guests were so genuinely happy for Joe and Sophia.

"Two?" Roman put his two fingers up. "Two of yall?" he looked at Sophia's belly again. "Two little Sophias? Or two little Joes?"

"Let's start betting." Jimmy yelled. "Team A - two girls. Team B - two boys. Team C - boy and girl."

Everyone started saying their bets out loud.

"When is the due date?" Joe asked.

"The doctor said January 19th."

The future father put his fist in front of his mouth, getting emotional.

"Around this time two years ago we met." he remarked and everyone did an "aww" sound.

"So poetic." Paul wiped a tear forming in his eye.

Then Roman was calculating.

"January 19th that means...ooh, that night after Wrestlemania, makes sense." he bit his lip and Sophia smacked his head for saying this information.

April 19th was a really crazy night for both of them. Although Roman lost the triple threat match, Sophia made him feel like a true champion afterwards...that all of it resulted not one but two babies.

"Uce may have lost then but now he became the real champ with two babies on the way." Jey said and all of the people laughed.

After everyone was done with the dinner and of course, the dishes, they went to their rooms.

Sophia and Joe were lying in his bed, he was stroking her belly and looking at her with so much love.

"Not one but two little babies." he said excitingly and went down, pulling up Sophia's pajamas, so he could kiss her stomach. He gave it lots of, lots of kisses.

"I love the three of you so, so much." he said and Soph giggled.

"We love daddy too, right sweeties?" she asked and then ran her hand through Roman's hair, removing the headband, letting it down.

He smirked and took her shorts and panties off, too.

"Time to pray in the sacred temple." Joe said as he was about to eat Sophia out.

[tribalauthor]

Facetime (roman × sophia one-shot)

Summary: Roman and Sophia are many miles apart and miss each other very deeply, so they have no other option but to facetime.

Disclaimer: if you want to dive deeper in their story of how they got together, you can check my fic The WiseWoman and you can also check the other oneshots of them in my masterlist

No warnings, it's all cutesy (but still dirty talks)

word count: 854

One thing Roman and Sophia didn't get used to is being away from each other.

Right now, Roman is in Australia to shoot his upcoming movie while Sophia is in the US doing her work in WWE. It's been almost two weeks and they feel going crazy from the absence of each other.

Today, Sophia was at a baby shower of her best friend, Cleo. She had a baby boy and gathered her closest friends and family members.

"You are next." Cleo told Sophia while she was holding her son, Benjamin.

"What? No." Soph opposed. "Me and Roman haven't really discussed it."

"He is 40, the clock is ticking." Tina added. She also had a baby last year but hers is a girl.

The girls laughed out loud.

Sophia is at Joe's house, now that she calls home. Yes, they started living together full-time and it's going better than she even imagined.

After she had a shower, did her skincare and bodycare, she headed to the king sized bed. Then something came up in her mind.

She roamed through her wardrobe and found a very sexy, beige silky pajama set with lace at the ends.

Soph had a plan to stress her boyfriend out for a bit. It's morning in Australia and he must be up for a photoshoot.

When Sophia doesn't have a schedule in WWE - she calls Joe at 6-7 pm which is 8-9am in Sydney.

The blonde woman ran to the bathroom mirror and took a photo of her in the not so cute pajamas then immediately sent it to Roman.

No text.

No emojis.

Just the photo.

After less than two minutes, she had an incoming face time call. She picked up after she laid on the bed.

"You are playing a very, very dangerous game, miss Heyman." while he sounded like he is kidding, there was a dose of seriousness in his voice.

Sophia giggled.

"I just wanted to give you a motivation for the day." she innocently defended herself.

"Motivation to fire up the jet and come back to New York, yeah." she laughed out loud.

"How are you?"

"Not good. I need you right here next to me or over me...or under me...or in front of me...or on my face."

"Joseph." Sophia wanted to scold him but she ended up cackling because he is just too funny.

"Look, I don't know how you are coping but for me, it's very bad. Very bad." he shook his head and pouted his lips.

"Don't you have hot female co-stars?"

"Get the hell outta here." he said slowly and she laughed again. Sophia really loves Joe and he loves her.

He is the person who makes her laugh the most.

"I live for that smile and laugh, you know that?" he asked and Soph tried to keep her cool. "And for those pretty tits that want to be free so bad from this top and touched by my hands." Roman shoved his face to the camera so he could have a closer look at Soph's boobs.

"You always gotta ruin everything, oh my God." she rolled her eyes.

"Now don't act like you didn't do everything on purpose. You love playing with me."

"Yes, I did everything on purpose. Cause I usually sleep naked when you are gone." Sophia lied just to prove Roman's earlier statement.

"What? How dare you?" he squinted his eyes to her and shook his head. "I guess you really hate me."

"Stop. You know that's not true." she rolled her eyes. "You are my favorite man."

"Of course I am. I am such a nice guy." he tried to be cute but Sophia laughed out loud again.

"Whatever helps you to sleep at night. By the way, I was at Benjamin's baby shower."

"Oh my God, the cute little guy." Joe beamed. He saw the baby when it was born.

"And my friends are so sure that I am next in line." she shook her head.

"Next in line for what?" he was confused.

"Giving birth."

"They may be right cause the second I come back, babygirl, trust me, I am gonna compensate for all the missed days with you." the tribal chief threatened his girlfriend with a good time. Sophia bit her lower lip.

"How many kids do you want?" she asked him out of nowhere and he started thinking.

"Everything depends on you but like if you ask me for a specific number, probably 4 or 5."

"Pardon?" Sophia almost choked on her saliva.

"That's solely a personal preference. You are the boss here. The tribal chief. You decide when and how many kids you wanna give birth to. I am here to fulFILL you- your wishes." Sophia rolled her eyes once again.

"You are such a considerate asshole, I hate you for that." she yelled at him.

"But you love me, too." he smiled sweetly.

"True." the woman agreed. "When you come back, I'm gonna throw a big party".

"I need a party with just the two of us. In my house."

"Deal." Soph smirked.

[tribalauthor]

roman and sophia side by side in my insta hahahaha (kinda thinking ab a new one-shot)

[tribalauthor]

Hi! Anon who asked about a one shot I just read what you posted and it was amazing. The “drama” between them was fun to read.

I have a question does anything spicy happen between them involving any WWE champion belts? Or does anything spicy happen between the involving costumes or outfits worn in the ring? You writing about the team up with Punk and how Roman lost some titles made me wonder.

heyy, 1) thanks for the request before, after i replied i found i had one started one-shot with roman and sophia and because of you, decided to finish it 2) thank you for liking it 3) sophia is not a wrestler so she doesn't have belts, roman and punk teamed up for real and it's linked with the WWE storyline

[tribalauthor]

All mine (roman × sophia oneshot)

Summary: After Roman Reigns loses his championship at Wrestlemania 40, he loses Sophia, too. However, at WarGames she appears to help him but at what cost?

A/N: if you want more deep dive in Roman and Sophia's story, check out my fic The Wisewoman.

Warnings: age difference, slight smut, unprotected sex

word count: 1.7K

"Roman, what is your plan for War Games?" Cathy striked the OTC with a question once he immediately got out of the room with the Bloodline - Jimmy, Jey and Sami.

"We are gonna go four versus five." he replied with a cool tone. "I think the four of us are strong enough to handle five guys. There is no team like the Bloodline. The original bloodline." Roman underlined as he pointed to the black t-shirt with the red text he is wearing.

"What about the WiseWoman?" now the interviewer put salt in the wound. Sophia has been ignoring Roman's calls for months.

Ever since Wrestlemania 40 ended, their relationship has changed a lot and Roman has gone mad because of that.

"I am not gonna let our relationship die." he declared. "Soph, I know you are watching this." he looked into the camera with his deep brown eyes. "I know I'm not a champion anymore but I beg you to come back by my side. I am gonna take the title back and we are gonna be happy again." Sophia is the only person who can make The Tribal Chief beg because he loves her to death.

"You can either join us..." now it's the ongoing segment between the Original Bloodline and the New Bloodline.

Solo is trying to convince his brothers and cousin to join his forces and become the most dominant faction in the wrestling business.

However, Roman doesn't have plans to forgive his cousin for taking away the Ula Fala and creating a new bloodline team.

"Or the four of you will die where you stand." the new Tribal Chief said with low voice and the crowd started reacting to everything and booing him.

Solo handed the mic to Roman and he slowly grabbed it from him, putting it next to his mouth, ready to give his answer.

"Ladies and gentlemen." a familiar voice interrupted the OTC. A very smooth, angelic voice which is Roman's favourite.

The crowd seemed to have a great reaction as well because the pop is insane. They've been waiting for the WiseWoman too.

"My name is Sophia Heyman." he looked behind and saw his girlfriend looking as mesmerising as always.

Sophia is wearing a blazer dress which is her signature style. This time it is fully black one with red belt and red long boots.

The Bloodline pattern.

Her body straight of the magazine, her legs long like a model's, voluminous blonde hair and lips so red that Cleopatra is pulling her hair from envy.

Roman was looking at her in disbelief or more like double disbelief because a) he can't believe she is actually here b) he can't believe she looks even more beautiful than the last time he saw her.

Make it triple because he is ready to forgive her right here and right now although he has been ghosted for a long time.

"Maybe my math is a little off but there is no way to do Wargames with 4 vs 5." she started explaining and the crowd was strongly reacting.

"That math does not commute with the WiseWoman. No. No. No. No. No." she said five No's for a reason.

"So it's not going to be 4 vs 5. It's gonna be 5 vs 5." Sophia had a smug expression and pointed number five with her fingers. She did everything to help her boyfriend for the upcoming match.

The fact that she has been ghosting him doesn't mean she stopped loving him. She just needed time.

As she pointed her hand behind her, CM Punk's music played.

"Why did you bring this guy out here?" after the segment was over, Roman was mad as hell that Sophia, out of everybody, decided to bring his biggest enemy in the business.

Now it's just the two of them in the locker room. Sophia was a bit surprised that this is his first reaction to seeing her and everything.

"Because you need help. You can't go 4 vs 5. Have you seen Solo's guys?" she asked rhetorically.

"We would have handled them perfectly. Our team is unmatched. I prefer to lose with my people than to win with a guy I can't stand at all." Roman was sure he doesn't want to work with Punk and Sophia doesn't feel an ounce of grattitude from her ex-boyfriend.

"You're welcome, by the way." she snapped at him. "I do everything to help you and rise at the top again and this is how you are thanking me?"

"Thank you for what? For bringing my worst enemy in the picture or for the fact that you have never contacted me for 7 months?"

"My uncle came back to fix all of the mess that happened with Solo and the New Bloodline and now he is in a hospital again but this time because of you who decided not to show up to help him." Sophia raised her voice since her patience has been tested.

Roman Reigns went mute because he knows Sophia is right.

"The fact that I haven't contacted you doesn't mean I didn't miss you. But the circumstances forced me to do that. The circumstances also forced me to call CM Punk, my uncle's best friend, for help because I knew he wasn't gonna say 'no'."

"I got sick watching you getting beaten up every single week. You lost at Crown Jewel. If you lose at Wargames, what's gonna happen? Do you think you are gonna be a Rumble contender or in the Wrestlemania card?" when Sophia Heyman talks business, she gets more terrifying than Paul himself.

Roman got so tensed up from this conversation that he started pacing around the room, heavy breathing and thinking about everything Sophia has told him.

About the alignment with CM Punk.

About Paul.

And mostly, about him and her.

About them.

And the magical relationship they had before the main event of Wrestlemania 40, Night 2.

"I gotta think about this."

"Why don't you and him have a meet up next Friday at Smackdown prior to Wargames?

Roman sighed loudly.

"If I say yes, would you let me back in your life? Put an end to the ghosting thing and come back to me?" he asked with a lot of hope in his voice.

He really wants her back and he is ready to do anything to get her.

Sophia grinned.

"Yes, my Tribal Chief." she said with victory.

Roman followed her with a big smile on his face. He missed her. Her voice, her eyes, her smile, her body.

Everything.

Therefore, he didn't hesitate for a second and brushed his lips against her, both feeling the spark that never left them.

*1 week later*

The relationship became the same as it was. Roman and Sophia were meeting up, going to nice places, giving her expensive presents, working out togetger and having passionate sex.

This week has been full of escapism but tonight is important because Sophia has to stand between Roman and CM Punk.

The long term rivals.

Her uncle has told her amazing stories about CM Punk but her boyfriend told her the exact opposite.

For her, CM Punk was just a friend of her uncle who has seen her couple of times when she was little and that's it.

However, during these months she kept in touch with him, trying to get to his good side and make him agree to be Roman's match partner.

She saw he isn't as bad as her boyfriend painted him to be. In fact, she sees him as a good man with strong values just like Roman and maybe that's why he doesn't like him that much.

Right now the Tribal Chief and CM Punk are in an agreement...sort of, regarding their collaboration on WarGames and WiseWoman being right in the middle of that visible tension going between the two guys.

"One time." the elder man showed his index finger, imitating the sign of acknowledgement. "One favor."

Roman looked around in confusion.

"I owe you a favor?"

"No, you don't owe me anything. My friend, our WiseWoman owes me a favor." that were the last words and CM Punk got out of the table, leaving Roman and Sophia alone.

"WiseWoman." he called strictly.

"Yes, my Tribal Chief." she replied timidly, knowing exactly what he is going to ask her.

"What's the favor?" bingo.

"My Tribal Chief, let's get through WarGames tomorrow night and we'll have all the time in the world to talk about it." Sophia gave the most mysterious response possible, leaving Roman suspicious.

*after the match*

The OG Bloodline with CM Punk scored a victory against the bad guys. They are finally down and everyone seems happy.

When the winners got out of the cage Roman immediately ran to kiss Sophia, more passionately than he has to in front of the camera.

The crowd became even louder because of that.

When they separated, he looked at Punk and mouthed 'All mine'. He is obviously jealous of the elder man. Not only because of Paul but now because of Sophia as well.

He won't let anyone steal her from him.

However, Punk doesn't fear Roman and he doesn't care how he feels, so what he did is pull Sophia for a hug.

The Tribal Chief was mad, his whole face wrinkled making him look scarier than ever, staring a hole through CM Punk.

He wanted to control himself but jealousy is stronger than him. He pulled Sophia out of the embrace.

The madness he was feeling prevented him from hearing the loud reactions from the crowd.

The locker room was full of heavy breaths and strong smell of sex since the Tribal Chief and the Wisewoman were in a very, very heated session.

Sophia's back is against the wall, Roman is deep inside of her, filling her up as if he wants to plant a baby in there.

"Whatever that favor is, I want you to know and to make it abundantly clear that you are mine, Sophia Heyman." Roman grunted while Sophia was moaning from the intensity of her boyfriend's thrusts. "You understand me?"

"Yes, my Tribal Chief." she breathed out and as she felt the climax is near, Sophia tried to cover her mouth with one hand, so she could muffle the moan explosion that was about to occur.

However, Roman grabbed both her hands and put them over her head.

"No, babygirl. You are gonna be heard." he said and Sophia felt the anticipating hit of pleasure.

[tribalauthor]

Hi! I don’t know if your asks open. If they are would you be able to write a little one shot about Roman and Sophia? If your asks are not open sorry for bothering you.

heyy, you are not bothering at all 🫶🏻 glad u like the roman and sophia oneshots but currently i am focused on another story (built for sin) 😭 if i get an idea ab them i will write immediately ✨️

[tribalauthor]

CHAPTER 10 •CAUGHT• (2.5K)

"I am incredibly sorry for that awful meeting." Roman said as him and Monique got back in his car.

"It's okay. It actually went better than I expected." she spoke frankly and he started the engine.

"Oscar literally called you Monica and Willow painted me as the greatest womanizer in human history."

"Well..."

"What do you mean 'well...'? That was the old me."

"Haven't you for a second thought that Willow might have had some feelings for you after your intercourse?" Monique started thinking.

"No. Doubt it."

"She was 21 years old. Her freshman year in college." Monique tried to insert some logic in Roman and suddenly his eyes widened from the realization.

"Oh my God. You have never thought about that?" Monique realized men don't think about anything at all.

"The past is in the past." he decided to get away with that, although that he is right.

"As a woman, I understand her bitterness but still the way she got with Oscar was not it." Monique tried not to take any side in this situation since both of them were wrong.

"You would suck as a judge." Roman remarked and Monique chuckled. "And now we ain't gonna go to the bar, are we?"

"Well, you can always go and see the other girls including the newest angel Adeline who is 22 years old." Monique shrugged.

"Nah, I think I prefer private dance from Bambi...in my house." he said and let out a cheeky smile.

"Your house?"

"Yeah. I am alone tonight."

"With a sleepover or?"

"Well, if you ask me, I'd prefer you spend the whole night at my place like a normal person, so yes, a sleepover." Roman was certain.

"I don't bring any clothes and stuff."

"I am gonna give you one of my T-shirts, problem solved. We got extra toothbrushes, I got toothpaste and for the makeup removal, we can figure something out from Jo's stuff." Roman really wants Monique to spend the night with him since he has an immediate solution for everything and she could feel that too.

"Touching her stuff without asking her?"

"Don't be dramatic. What do yall need for makeup removal? Just a little pad and makeup-removing water. We are not gonna rob her, come on." he spoke as if it's not big of a deal. He really is a girl dad.

"Okay." Monique agreed. She needs company right now more than ever. "But I don't know about the private dance."

She glimpsed Roman making pouty lips.

"I mean, ballet ain't my specialty." she added and Roman's expression drastically changed to annoyed one.

"I want Bambi special dance, not Miss Nikolaeva special dance."

"Oh but you remember her last name, huh?" Monique teased him.

"I gotta shut up." he concluded and chuckled.

"Welcome." Roman invited Monique in his 'modest home' as he described it but in fact, it's not really modest.

A house, cannot be described as that especially in this economy.

"You'd like something to drink? Wine? Whiskey? Bourbon? Tequila?" Monique started blinking excessively from the range of alcohol she is being offered to.

"Don't give me alcohol because that's not going to end good." she said.

two hours later

"Once my boss accidentally sent the whole company an email with nudes of his wife." both of them were already little more than tipsy. They were sitting on the couch in the living room with glass of bourbon on the table.

"Stop."

"Yup. She is 56."

"Freak has no age." Monique started waving her finger.

"True but...it was very embarrassing for our dear boss." Roman shook his head and snorted from laughter.

"Well, we all make mistakes. My first days in Honeyz were lowkey a mess. My first client for private dance had a hell of a time because I kinda didn't know what to do." she covered her face.

"He is still a lucky guy." Roman said and sighed. "But I am the luckiest." a grin appearred on his face and got a little closer to her. "I am waiting for your performance."

"It's time to retire Bambi, huh?"

"No." his deep voice became raspy.

"Samuel said that I can become your personal dancer." Monique got reminded and chuckled.

"Oh, I'd love to. That's an amazing idea."

"Don't take it too seriously." she rolled her eyes and Roman grabbed his phone.

"What to play, what to play?" he started searching around and then the dramatic instrumental of Earned it by the Weeknd started playing.

"You are something else." Monique shouted and got from the couch sitting right in front of Roman, ready to perform. Still with the elegant attire and the heels.

She unbuttoned the one button on her dress and exposed her lingerie all to the sultry beats.

Roman started drooling when he saw the beautiful red lingerie set she put on, making him sure she knew they are gonna lay tonight one way or another.

After that she walked to him, making different kind of movements that turned him on. Then she sat on his lap, looked him deep in the eyes and grabbed his face.

"Okay, time for action." he whispered and devoured her lips. He really is an impatient man as Monique already concluded.

They could feel the burning taste of the alcohol on each other's lips. While they were making out, Monique started unbuttoning Roman's shirt.

"How about you strip dance for me now?" she asked between the kisses, joking around.

"There's no way I get myself off of you." he replied as he went back to devouring her lips and taking her bra off, revealing her beautiful breasts.

"Really?" she asked and got off his lap.

Then she knelt between his spread thighs and unbuckled his belt, looking him deep in the eyes and he was biting his lip from the excitement.

Roman loves Monique's blowjobs. Every time she put her mouth on his dick, he goes in ecsatic mode.

There is literally nothing that could ruin that eagerness and excitement. Most men would feel insecure and would be like 'Where she learned all of that?' but Roman couldn't care less.

He was all for the moment.

Monique also felt excitement. She has that weird kind of attachment to Roman's not so little friend who never failed to make her feel good.

Although she wouldn't like to use the word 'attachment'. Not anymore. Not after everything she went through with Phillip.

Roman, however, likes the word more. He also feels weird attachment to Monique but it's not just her body, it's way more than that.

As Monique slipped down Roman's pants and underwear, she started sucking him off.

...

After a long night of having heated sex, Monique and Roman fell asleep on the couch in the living room and with a fluffy blanket that Roman threw on them.

Right now it's morning, the sun has risen and people start going to work or school yet the lovebirds are in a deep sleep. So deep that they didn't even heard someone entered in the house.

Not deep enough to not hear the scream that came out of Josephine.

Does she know about Monique? Yes.

Did she expect to see her today lying next to her father naked? No.

Once they heard the scream, they woke up abruptly and looked at the teenager with horror as she was looking at them.

"Good morning, Jo. This is Monique. My girlfriend. I um- what are you doing here this early?" Roman tried his best to keep calm yet Monique felt like she wants to shoot herself immediately and Jo was completely flabbergasted since she has never expected seeing this view on a Wednesday morning...or ever.

"I forgot some of my textbooks here." she managed to reply while Monique barely could look her in the eyes and when she did she gave her an awkward smile.

"What's going on here?" Willow flashed in the house as well and as she saw the view, she raised her eyebrow. "Your dad thinks he is still in college, sweetie. I am really so sorry. Gotta make sure to book you a hypnotherapy session to erase this from your poor head. Now go and get your textbooks." the daughter didn't wait for a second invitation.

"Couldn't even make it to the bedroom, huh?" she put her arms on her hips.

"Yes." Roman replied in the most unhinged way possible and Monique was reaching for her underwear which was far from the couch.

As Willow saw the younger woman struggling she came closer to them and took the red lingerie to hand it to her.

"Thank you." she whispered.

"What time is it?" Roman asked while he was looking for his underwear.

"Eight twenty." Willow replied and his eyes widened.

"Holy shit." he muttered and got up immediately, exposing his naked body and Willow turning away.

"Don't act you see something you have never seen before." he got triggered for a bit and started searching for his underwear which happened to be under the table.

"Maybe I don't wanna see it anymore." she clapped back as Roman put on his black Nike underwear and Monique was already all dressed up.

Willow took a look at her and how pretty she looks although her bun is a mess, makeup is obviously erased and her face is slightly puffy.

When Monique and Roman went to the bathroom to brush their teeth, they just exchanged looks of terror since they didn't expect this kind of morning after the amazing night they spent.

"What do you plan to say to your daughter?" she asked quietly after she spat her toothpaste in the sink.

"The version that Willow knows."

"What?" Monique whisper yelled. "You can lie to your ex-wife all you want but your kid?"

"You want me to tell her the truth? She would feel awful. I mean, especially after the things that happened with her mother. Jo mustn't know the truth." these were his last words before he checked the clock. "I really gotta go cause I have an important meeting. You can call an Uber.

They went out of the bathroom and got downstairs.

"Girls, I am leaving since I am getting kinda late." Roman walked fast.

"You want a ride?" Willow asked Monique.

"Nah, I'll just get an Uber, it's fine. Jo is rushing to school anyway." she politely declined.

"Well, we can drop her off and then I will drop you off to your place." as much as Monique didn't quite like this idea she threw a fake smile.

"Okay." she said.

"So...how did you meet my dad?" Josephine asked as Willow was driving. The teen was on the passenger seat and Monique was behind.

"Fun story. So I teach salsa in the gym that your dad goes to. And usually the class is for women only. But one day, as I was about to start with the class, he suddenly got into the room, the only man there and wanted to sign up." Monique told the same story they said to Roman's colleagues.

"Of course. He must have had a feast." Willow murmured.

"And did you sign him up?" the girl continued the interrogation.

"Well...he got quite the attention from the ladies and I think this would have been a distraction for him and them but he said he really wanted to learn salsa, so I suggested giving him private lessons." Willow just let out a loud sigh.

"This is so him." she said.

"Honestly, I knew something was going on because all of the sudden, he fixed his beard, became less grumpy and started using ridiculous amount of cologne." Jo has been connecting the dots.

"And now is he a pro at salsa?" Willow asked, catching Monqiue off guard.

"No. We still got a work to do." she replied.

"When we go to visit grandma, I am gonna make him dance in front of the whole bloodline." Jo said mischievously and Willow giggled.

"I'm gonna wait for clips." she replied and Monique just laughed nervously.

"And are you and dad serious or?" Josephine asked another question but that's the worst question she could come up with.

"Yes. I mean it hasn't been long since we've been dating and that's why he hasn't introduced me to you yet." the ex-stripper tried to reply in the calmest way possible.

"You are very pretty, Monique." Jo remarked as she turned to Monique.

"Thank you, Josephine. You too. Perfect mixture of your mother and father." she complimented the teenage girl.

"Don't even try. She looks just like her father if he didn't have a beard." Willow shook her head as her eyes were on the road.

"Do you have kids?" Jo asked.

"No."

"You are one lucky bastard." Frank said to his dear friend who he was visiting since their workplaces are close. "That shit can happen to you only, I swear to God."

"I didn't know it could happen to meet a woman like Monique, honestly. I have never had hopes, you know." Roman replied.

"But when it happened, everything works for your favor. What do you mean you start falling for a stripper then you hire her to be your fake girlfriend and then mysteriously getting fired."

"I am not happy she lost her job. Because it's kinda because of me. The conversation I had with her boss..." Roman scratched his neck.

"No matter how it happened - most important thing is that now you are the only one who gets her for himself." Frank tried to sound smart.

"She still doesn't wanna get serious, though." Roman slightly pouted his lips.

"Do you have any idea why?"

"Well, she doesn't really share about her past but from what she said, I understood that her past relationship ended pretty bad. I have no idea what that man has put her through but I am positive that he is the reason she doesn't want any commitment." Roman gave his verdict.

"Could be. Could be." Frank nodded his head. "If she decided to become a stripper after their break up...things must be serious. Hasn't she shared more details about that person?"

"He is older than us."

"What? Oh...oh." a lightbulb just appeared in Frank's head. "Here's the deal. She was dating a sugar daddy who wanted lots of lots of sugar but she didn't like that. However, Monique got used to that rich lifestyle and wanted somehow to maintain it...by being a stripper and then find someone younger who would last longer in bed and give her more passion and pleasure. There, you have it." Frank pulled his arms up in defense.

"I think there is something way deeper. She mentioned something about lying-"

"All men lie. What a shocker. He probably was hiding multiple kids and mistresses." Frank shrugged.

"Possibly."

"I mean, it's not that important. I don't know why are you so deep into this. The woman is insanely pretty, she wants you for sex and little hangouts. The perfect life. I don't know what more do you want." the frustrated best friend shook his head.

"I want to know her mind, not only her body, Frank but I guess you just don't get it." Roman sighed and continued with the work he had to do.

[tribalauthor]

CHAPTER 9 •THE EX AND THE EXIT• (3.2K)

previous chapter

Monique and Roman returned from the weekend trip on Sunday night and now Tuesday came aka the meeting with the ex-wife and her new boyfriend.

sunday night

"You could stop here and I will walk." she explained to Roman.

"I don't think so. Look how dark it is. I would be the biggest sociopath if I leave you to walk alone during this time." Roman insisted. "Tell me where you live. I promise, I'm not gonna come to your house unless you invite me yourself."

Monqiue just let out a loud exhale because there is just no way somebody can argue with this man.

"You know, if you tell me you have no lost cases in court, I would believe you, 100%." she said and Roman chuckled.

"I am not a defence attorney. I specialize in corporate law. Representing big companies such as Apple, Chevron Corporation and Ford."

"All three?" Monique seemed shocked and Roman nodded his head.

"Another one was supposed to join us but Virus Law won the deal." the big man sighed in regret and Monique slightly giggled because she loves the inside joke name he created for the rival company.

"Which one?"

"Inenergy." Monqiue's stomach flipped. "This company is in Chicago but now they are spreading around the whole country, Vegas included."

So Phillip wants to create more drug mines in the country, she thought to herself.

"Every cloud has a silver lining, trust me." Monique managed to say.

But that doesn't have to mean Phillip is gonna come to Vegas, right, she asked herself.

"I guess." Roman shrugged and then Monique started giving him directions.

Now it's Tuesday morning but Monique has to go to the bar and rehearse for tonight then she is gonna sneak for a little while. Therefore, it's best for her to take the outfit with her at the bar.

Looking at the wardrobe, however, she has no idea what to wear, so what she did is to call Roman on FaceTime.

"Hey." he said with his deep voice, looking like he is at his office already.

"Hey, can you talk for a while?" she asked.

"Yup. For the next hour until my meeting." Roman replied sweetly.

"What are your visions about my outfit for tonight? What do you want me to give off?" she asked him. "Because I have no idea what to wear."

"Whatever you like, really. I liked that cherry dress I saw you at the cafè." he recalled how beautiful she looked with it.

"But we are not going at a cafè, we are going at a restaurant. So it has to be something more elegant. How does this look?" she took out an assymetric white blazer dress.

Roman gave a nod of agreement.

"With some red pants underneath for example." he gave an idea.

"That's a dress." she corrected him.

"What? Ain't that a blazer?" he came close to the camera and now his face is in a funny frame.

"It's a blazer dress. It's gonna be like this." she put the dress in front of her, so Roman can have a clear vision."

"Perfect. To show off your beautiful thighs a model will envy for." he grinned and Monique slightly shook her head trying not to laugh.

"I am going to listen to your advice and combine it with red heels and a red bag."

"Red is my favourite color." he said with his big grin still on his face.

"Same." Monique squinted her eyes suspiciously. "My hair is going to be straight, though because after dinner I head back to work."

"Okay. Whatever you like, Moni."

"Moni?!" Monique wrinkled her whole face.

"Isn't it cute?"

"No one has ever called me that."

"Cool. It's my original thing then. I am gonna call you that in front of Willow."

"Fine. Whatever you say. You are the director." she rolled her eyes. "What is gonna be my profession?"

"What we said to my colleagues- dance teacher." she really liked her old days as a dance teacher in school.

"Okay. And the same story of how we met."

"Yup. Same script." Roman nodded his head.

"Alright. Then, see ya tonight and good luck on the meeting." Monique wished cutely.

"Thank you. Have a great day." he replied back and they hung up.

"You got a lot to tell us." Vanessa said the second Monique got in the rehearsing room. No 'hi', no 'how are you'.

"Oh my God." she grinned and shook her head. "Well, the whole lawyer community believed we are together but I got another problem. I have to sneak later because I have a meeting with him, his ex-wife and her new man." Vanessa and Maria's jaws hit the floor.

"That hot daddy has an ex-wife with a new man. Girl, he better be Michael B. Jordan cause there is no way." Vanessa said in disbelief.

"And you are gonna act as his fake girlfriend?" Maria asked excitingly.

"She may not be a fake girlfriend anymore, who knows?" Vanessa poked her arm and they started laughing out loud.

"No. Everything is the same. I just know a little more about him. That's it." Monique said. "Anyway, what did I miss?"

"We got a new colleague." Maria replied and she didn't look very pleased.

"Yeah, and she stole the whole bar during this weekend. Do you know why? Because she is a fucking 22 years old, lightskin with big fake ass BBL. Everyone ate her up. The stakes went high this weekend." Vanessa said with bitter tone. They obviously don't like that new girl.

"So Samuel wasn't angry I was away?" Monique calmed down for a bit that he might have forgot about his encounter with Roman.

"No. He is actually very happy from the profits." Vanessa said and there was a big sigh of relief.

"What? You thought he was mad at you?" Maria seemed confused.

"Well, I missed two days also the money Roman gave me is solely for me. He talked with Samuel and somehow convinced him." Monique whispered.

"Get out of here and marry that daddy, I don't know what else to tell you." Vanessa shook her head.

"Stop."

"Girls." Samuel entered in the room. "Monique. In my office." he said and got out of the room and the girl grew a bit worried.

"What's up?" Monique asked as she closed the door of his office.

"Sit down." he said and looked more stern than usual. "Did you have a good weekend with that lawyer who would pass as a wrestler?"

Monqiue furrowed her eyebrows.

"Yes. I am sorry if the meeting with him was uncomfortable. If you want I would give you part of the money-"

"Nah, I don't need a cent from that money he gave you. Don't worry. Did the girls tell you about our newest angel - Adeline?"

"Yes."

"Well, she came here Friday morning, begging for the job. I can't say no to such a beautiful and young girl like her. There is no way, so I hired her."

"Good. Hope she likes it here. I can help her with the training."

"She doesn't need such. The thing is she asked for every-night shift. Poor girl needs some money." Samuel spoke with pity. "And at first I told her that currently I have enough angels here but then I sat down and thought: Hm, maybe one of them has to go away. But who? All of my girls are amazing. Then I recalled that the angel that was supposed to be here that night is making money somewhere else. So, in a way that angel already flew away." he spoke in a narrator's tone as if he is telling a fairytale.

"No, Samuel. You can't do that." Monique was in denial.

"I definitely can especially after the money I made this weekend." he replied coldly. "You can always go to another bar. You are not that old. Better yet you can spend time with the lawyer and work as his full-time fake girlfriend or private dancer thus earn money." these smart-ass suggestions only angered Monique.

"Thank you so much for the ideas." Monique decided she is not going to beg. "I hope Adeline brings a new wave of success in this place. I see, she needs this job more than I do, so okay. I still have to thank you when you took me here when I needed it most." that's the perfect mixture of heartless Monique and graceful Juliet. She stood up.

"Good luck with your future endeavours." Samuel said and she thanked him. "You can say bye to the girls."

After Monique did that, she immediately started going to another bars and look for a job.

"You are extremely beautiful but we are full." one bar owner said.

"You are 31? I think you should consider another profession, darling."

"You are too skinny."

"You are too fat."

"You should think of marrying somebody"

"Isn't it time to give birth?"

She came back to her house and threw herself on the bed, crying. All of this was like a confidence breaker and she really started thinking about everything.

When she started this job four months ago, she didn't realize it really should be a temporary thing.

It's just that because she got away from Phillip, she thought she had all the freedom in the world but rules are all over us, everywhere. Of course, girls in their 20s are going to be preferred. Of course, she has to think about a form of settlement that doesn't necessarily have to include a man or kids.

She had dreams.

Dreams that she never accomplished, not because she couldn't. Phil was more than ready to help her but when she learned the whole truth about him, she realized she doesn't need help from a man like him.

"I know that this job isn't your dream one and there is a specific reason you do it, for example, fast way to earn some money. I can arrange you whatever job you want because I know you aren't going to do this your whole life."

Roman's words echoed in her head. She hated that he is right and more aware about her than herself.

The time has come, so Monique started to get ready for the dinner. She played herself some pop playlist that would boost her confidence.

The pretty woman took a long, everything shower, then started doing all type of self care - body, hair, skin.

Eventually, she decided that her hairstyle is going to be a curly bun to match the elegance with the outfit she picked.

Since Roman mentioned his favorite color is red, Monique decided to put on a red lacy lingerie under the white blazer dress.

The makeup is consisting of light coverage foundation, nude eyeshadow, not very long eyeliner, contour, a little bit of red blush and bright red lipstick.

For scent she used the Cherry Smoke perfume by Tom Ford. She decided she is going to make Roman's head spin tonight.

Just right when she gave herself one last look in the mirror, Monique's phone rang and it's no other than her date.

"Hey." she picked up.

"I am in front of your house, Moni." he said and she almost rolled her eyes from that new nickname he invented for her.

"I am just ready and coming, Romi." she replied back.

"Romi?" Monqiue just imagined his flabbergasted face he did.

"Moni and Romi." Monique said as she was getting out of the apartment, clacking with her stiletto high heels.

"You know what? I like it." he gave his approval and Monique giggled.

"It's cute, yes." she went down the elevator and then went out of the building, seeing Roman's car right in front of it. "I see you. Gotta hang up." she announced and hung up before he could even say something.

Roman took a look at Monique and how mesmerising she looks. Elegant. Classy. And somewhat powerful. She gives off those rich wives you see in the TV series.

Roman got out of the car and went to open the passenger door for Monqiue.

"No need of such formalities." Monique said and hugged him. Roman sensed the pleasent smell of cherries and he completely melted into it.

"You smell amazing." he deeply inhaled from her neck and then placed a few kisses.

"Thank you." Monique replied with giggly voice, since she knew it's going to work.

"What time is it? Do we have time for a little quick session?" Roman took a look at his watch.

"I don't want to be late. I think we left a bad impression to your colleagues." Monique was certain. "Also I don't want anything to get ruined."

"Alright. Alright." Roman put his arms up in defense and let Monique get in the car then he also got in there. "You look...uff. I can't even describe it."

"I thought lawyers have rich vocabulary." Monqiue teased him.

"Ravishing. Alluring. Spectacular. But my favorite word for you is graceful. It describes you best." he spoke honestly and Monique threw a tiny smile.

"Even when I dance?" she furrowed her eyebrows.

"Especially when you dance." he underlined and fired the car. "By the way, we are gonna make this quick and then gonna drop you off to work. I will come just a bit after that if I have to."

"About that...today Samuel fired me."

"What? Why?"

"Because a new younger girl appeared and she made an insane profit this weekend and since I was away, he decided he doesn't need me anymore and yeah." Monique explained, trying not to get too vulnerable in front of Roman but he sensed her sadness.

"Have you tried other bars?" he asked.

"Yes. I tried with at least 20 of them and I got humbled real quick - they are full, I am old, I am fat, I am skinny, I should change my goals and now I don't know what to do."

"First of all, fuck them. Their loss. Look at you, Monique. You are the most gorgeous woman I have ever laid my eyes upon." he said in a matter of fact tone and Monique pressed her lips. "It takes everything in me not to stop this car right now and fuck the shit out of you, with the deepest respect, and ditch this stupid meeting." he specified and the woman couldn't help but laugh out loud. "I'm serious. Don't let these stupid ass fat uncles tell you shit. This is your life and you will do whatever you want. I told you I can arrange you a job wherever you want. I got enough connections. Take your time now, think about it and tell me, okay?" he asked and she jusy sweetly nodded her head like a puppy.

Monique starts to build some sort of comfort and trust for Roman and she hopes he doesn't screw this up.

"Also if you need mo-"

"I have saved enough money. I would be fine for a while." she interrupted him before he said anything. Not small part of that money is from him.

"Okay. But just know, you are not alone. I can help you with whatever you need." he reminded her and quietly thanked him.

The not so fake couple entered in the fancy restaurant where Willow and Oscar were waiting for them.

Monique locked eyes with Willow who looked completely stunning - an elegant brown top with fallen arms which made her breasts pop out. A girl can envy for natural chest like this.

She is also a natural curlie but her hair is dyed in a honey blonde shade. She stood up and the white elegant trousers hugged her natural perfectly shaped butt.

Monique's jaw almost dropped and started walking to them.

"Willow is wow. Can't spell her name without wow. Why you didn't warn me she is so beautiful, what?" Monique whispered to Roman. "And she gave birth, goddamn. I could never tell."

"She does look like Monica Belucci, oh my god." Willow whispered to Oscar as he couldn't stop looking at Monique.

"Young Monica. Yes." he agreed. "But somehow with even more grace." then Willow glared at him.

"Good evening" Roman greeted them as they got near the table.

"Good evening." they replied.

"Monique, meet my lovely ex-wife Willow and her dear boyfriend, Oscar." she shook hands with them saying "Nice to meet you" and all the other niceties. Monique took a good look at Oscar.

He seems a couple years older than Roman. He had a grayish not so voluminous hair, he may go bald sooner than later, rectangular glasses, no beard, fair skin, tall and slim figure. The typical style for a literature professor.

Now Monique realizes that love is such a crazy thing because how do you go from a man like Roman to a man like Oscar.

As long as she is happy, she thought.

"Nice to finally meet you, Monique." Willow smiled at her.

"You are making it sound as if I was holding her in a cage and prevented her from meeting you." Roman remarked as the two couples sat down.

"You look very beautiful." the ex-wife said to the new girlfriend completely ignoring her ex-husband.

"Thank you. You too. I mean, you look amazing for your age." Monique complemented Willow and Roman snorted.

"What's so funny, Roman? The fact that you dyed and trimmed your beard doesn't hide that you look like her uncle." Willow bit Roman back. "How long have you been together?"

"A month." Monique said.

"That's cute and what do you do for a living?"

"I'm a dancer."

"Dancer...yeah, Roman has a thing for dancers. Every single time. In elementary school Josephine had a ballet dance teacher and he was all covered in drool everytime he saw her."

"That is not-"

"At the concert day he didn't even look at Josephine, he was busy looking at the teacher." Roman had his arms crossed and bit his inner cheeks.

"You didn't catch me with the dance teacher in our bed, did ya?" Roman bit back in the calmest way possible and left Willow speechless for a second. Oscar just cleared his throat.

"Well, I am not a ballet teacher. I am more like from the Latin side." Monique replied to the question, hoping she breaks the ice.

"Interesting." Willow drank from her wine. "And how do you feel about Roman having a kid?"

"I mean I used to work as a school dance teacher too, so I love kids. I would like to have one day."

"One day." Willow repeated quietly. "And when do you intend to introduce Monique to Josephine?" Willow turned to her ex-husband.

"Whenever both of them feel ready. Is the cross examination done?" Roman started getting a bit annoyed because his wife became like a prosecutor examining two defendants.

"No. Does your mother know?"

"No. Our relationship is still very fresh and we'd like to keep it lowkey." Roman replied.

"Lowkey but you took her with you for all of your colleagues to see. Doesn't make any sense." Willow started becoming suspicious. "Ain't that weird? Do your parents know?" Willow turned to Monique.

"I am an orphan." she replied and the ex-wife immediately felt bad and Roman was in shock because he also had no idea that Monique has no parents.

Every time she has to say she is an orphan, her heart always cracks, since the grief can never go away.

The ex-husband glared at his ex-wife.

"How about we order? Oh, there is Sunday roast." Oscar said excitingly, looking at the menu but the tension is still strongly roaming around the table.

[tribalauthor]

CHAPTER 8 •MOUNTAIN TALKS• (2.9K)

previous chapter

The annoying noise of the alarm woke up Roman and Monique. She reached her hand to the nightstand to turn it off but Roman turned around and covered himself.

"Come on, Roman. We gotta get up." Monique got in a sitting position.

The man turned around quickly. He forgot for a second he is sleeping next to Monique and now gets to wake up with her.

He saw her messy curly hair, all natural face and sleepy eyes. She looked at him as well. His eyes looking smaller, his man bun almost loose making his hair go down.

"Why are you even more perfect?" he asked with his morning voice which is way deeper than his actual voice, almsot startling Monique.

"Goddamn." she swore. "Good morning to you, too."

"You slept good?" Roman asked as he started fixing his hair into a tight bun but it was too curly for that.

"Yes. You are a natural curly, too, huh?" Monique teased when he saw him.

He looks good, too good even, she thought.

"Yeah. Genes not from my Italian mom but from my Samoan dad." Roman explained.

"You look good like this." she said while staring at him with approval.

"You think?" he asked and made a little curly bun. "Willow used to say I look like a caveman."

"A very hot one, though." Monique added with a smirk.

"Has someone ever told you you look like Monica Belucci? Are you two related by any chance?"

"I actually got this one before, yes. But when I am with my straight hair usually. Not like this." the woman pointed at her voluminous curly hair. "Now I look like Julia Roberts and Monica Belucci had a daughter." she said and Roman took a focused look on her and his jaw dropped.

"You are really onto something, holy shit." he agreed. Then his phone rang. "It's Jo. On FaceTime."

"I'm going to the bathroom." Monique whispered and ran like a thief there.

"Hey, little one." Roman picked up and there was his beautiful angel.

"Hey, dad. How are you?" she asked him.

"I was just thinking of calling you. How is everything?"

"Pretty normal." she shrugged. "How is the weekend going so far?"

"Surprisingly well. I think I kinda underestimated my dear rivals." he explained.

"Did you push all the women away with that strong cologne or it had the opposite effect?" she giggled.

"Let's say it's all normal." he chuckled meanwhile Monique's head is pressed against the wall to listen to their little conversation. She couldn't help but feel bad about that kid and the lifestyle she has to live. "Do you wanna see the room? It's actually sick." the dad started doing a room tour. Monique let out a slight mute giggle while listening to it since he sounds adorable as a dad.

That's a trait she has never noticed in her ex-boyfriend. Although she understood why he didn't want kids, she noticed he is cold towards them too and that's one of the red flags that she decided to put behind.

Now everything makes sense and she thinks a man like him shouldn't have a child anyway. No kid deserves to have a parent who owns mafia business in disguise.

"There you are, guys." Richard said when Roman and Monique appeared to the function in all sporty outfits. Roman is wearing black sweatpants and black Nike t-shirt while Monique is wearing black top, black Nike leggings and a sweatshirt just in case.

They really look like a couple with those unintentionally matching outfits.

"Okay, everyone is here." Harry, another lawyer from Vires Law had a list of the participants' names. "Let's go."

"Before that, let's start the hiking trip with a joke. Does anybody know why mountains have hats?" Kevin started going with the jokes again and everyone looked not so thrilled.

"Because they have peaks." he said and started laughing but the group was sitting there with a poker face.

"I didn't drink enough coffee for this, neither I brought alcohol. Let's go." Roman shook his head and lead the people who laughed at his remark.

"I actually realized I have never connected with Vegas' nature like that." Monique concluded while they were in the forests surrounded by beautiful greenery. Tall trees, beautiful flowers and sketchy bushes.

"For real?" Roman asked her and she nodded her head. He was carrying a backpack with stuff for both of them like the good fake boyfriend he is.

"It's a good workout. We could do this alone sometime." he suggested.

"Definitely." Monique replied because she wasn't sure if they are being listened to.

Roman took a look behind him and there was one of his colleagues staring at Monique's butt. And it was like a motivation for him to keep going.

"Hell of a road, right, Spence?" Roman asked him out loud, startling the shit out of him.

"Yeah, very curvy and well-shaped." he concluded.

"I know. Be careful of the big bumps cause you might trip, you know what I'm sayin'?" the Samoan man asked as he showed off his big biceps.

"Right. Gotta be careful." Spence said wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"He was staring at my ass, was he?" Monique murmured.

"Yup. Shamelessly. I mean, I understand but..." he replied quietly.

"Do you consider yourself the jealous type?" she asked curiously.

"I actually don't know."

"What do you mean?" Monique whisper-yelled.

"Well, I have never been in love to tell. No one has made me feel jealous, so I have no idea." Roman shrugged, leaving Monique in complete shock that a 40-year-old man has never been in love. "What about you?"

"I wouldn't consider myself a jealous type but somehow I've always found myself with jealous guys." Monique explained. "And for the record, I mean long before I even became a..."

"Got it. Although I get that some men are territorial. Jealousy is just a form of self-doubt which I don't have, for example." he explained and Monique agreed.

"That's right. It's one thing to be jealous in a sweet way and another, to cross the line."

"What do you mean 'cross the line'?" Roman furrowed his eyebrows.

"One of my ex-boyfriends didn't even let me speak to other men unless he is next to me or something." she confessed, meaning Philip. He loved her so much to the point he became extra toxic and possessive.

"Pff. That's a heavy form of insecure man. No, that's a boy." Roman was shocked by Monique's narratives.

"Oh, he isn't a boy. He is older than you." she replied back and the eyes of the Samoan man almost popped out of his body.

"A grandpa?" he even stopped from the shock.

"Shh." Monique signified to be more quiet. "Not a grandpa cause he doesn't have kids, to begin with."

"Well, of course, he would be jealous. He was afraid you could leave him for a younger man with fit body, taller, bigger, stronger, more stamina, you know?" he said with a cheeky tone getting closer to her.

"Don't underestimate him. He looks good for his age, works out and his stamina was shockingly high. Everything was perfect but he ruined our relationship." Monique sighed.

"What did he do?"

"Lied about something very important. And if I hadn't found this out, he would have never confessed to me and I would have probably still been with him, living my life in delusion." she suddenly realized how much she has shared with Roman and instantly regretted.

"Does he have something to do with the choice of your path right now?" the lawyer has a lot of questions for Monique, starting to solve the puzzle little by little.

Just when Monique was about to say something to change the subject because she already said more than enough, Richard and his wife Dorothy interrupted their conversation.

"You guys are extra fast." Richard concluded with a heavy breath, leaving Roman annoyed that he interrupted something important while Monique was grateful that he saved her from that conversation.

After the hiking ended everyone went in their room to freshen themselves up, including Roman and Monique.

"You go first or?" Roman asked his fake girlfriend.

"I was thinking together." she replied and took her clothes off.

"Together?" he asked with a surprised tone and raising his eyebrows. "You want to?"

"Yeah, I want to." she replied certainly and was left with no clothes.

Water was dripping from the enormous shower and there they were - Monique's back pressed on the glass cabin which were all foggy from the water and their heavy breathes.

Roman was up against her - their wet bodies glued and ready for the next step. As of now, they are having a makeout session filled with deep and slow kisses.

"Now I have more time, right? There is no rushing." he asked hee while placing kisses down Monique's neck.

"Yes. All the time you want." she replied and when he heard this, he got so excited. Roman dreamt of meeting up with her somewhere else and having sex with her in a place different than that dark bedroom.

Now he can take the best look at the beautiful naked body of Monique as if she couldn't get more perfect.

Same goes for Monique. She looked at Roman's perfect shaped athletic body with a rather oversized not so little friend, his long hair, his tanned skin. Everything about him ignites a fire in Monique - a rather unfamiliar fire she didn't even feel with Phil.

It's something different this time. This is a man she knows almost nothing about yet she feels weirdly captivated and in heat everytime he is around her.

Roman just knelt on the floor, looked at her deep in the eyes and started devouring her down there.

Meanwhile, in the other room right next to theirs there was Sarah, Willow's friend, who were talking to each other.

"Does he look in love?" Willow asked on the other line.

"I can't tell that but they look like they've known each other for a good while." the woman replied.

"He said she is younger than me but didn't specify how much. Is she really that young?"

"Well, she ain't 20 if that's what you mean. I don't know how old is she but she looks very youthful, very beautiful eyes. She reminds me of young Monica Belucci." the friend started describing.

"Monica Belucci?!" there was a shock in Willow's voice. "I shouldn't be surprised. Men are all about looks. She is probably with him because of the money, I fear."

Suddenly Sarah heard a noise. A noise of a moaning woman in the neighboring bathroom, so Sarah went close to check.

"What's going on?" Willow asked her and Sarah shushed her. Yup, that's a woman who is getting the dick and she knows that woman is Monique and the supplier is Roman.

"I don't think it's only about the money, bestie. They are going off in the bathroom." Sarah said the truth.

"Of course. Yeah. That infamous tool I got fooled by 18 years ago." she replied with a rather bitter tone. "His ass better be careful and not get her pregnant, though. I don't think Jo is ready for a sibling."

"Well same goes for you, Willow." the bestie smartened her up.

"I am not the one with the younger partner. That woman probably is fertile as a bunny. I have to discuss this with them on Tuesday."

"Look, just don't look too bothered, okay? You don't love that man, you never did. You found your ideal person, you have an amazing daughter, you are a hot chick, pull yourself together." Sarah gave Willow a hype speech.

"Thank you so much, Sarah. You are so right. Gotta leave you now. Bye."

"Bye."

"Dad has a girlfriend?" Josephine startled her mother. She obviously heard their conversation.

"What? Who said that?" Willow played dumb for a while.

"Don't lie. I heard you." she furrowed her eyebrows, resembling her father and now Willow is flabbergasted because she basically has no other choice but to confess something that Roman should have.

"Yes, he has a girlfriend." Willow exhaled loudly.

"I knew it." the daughter started laughing out loud which brought confusion to her mother because she didn't expext this kind of reaction. "He is such a bad actor, I can't."

"You noticed something?" Willow asked curiously.

"Yeah, lately he has a different glow. Feels like he got a few years younger and sprays himself with way too much cologne." Jo giggled. "I wanna see his girlfriend."

"No. You won't tell him you know about this." Willow said with a strict tone because in that way she will appear as the gossip girl. "Why do you seem excited?" she was still shocked at Josephine's reaction. Usually, teenage girls get upset for things like these.

"Because dad deserves to find his true love as much as you do. You think you are the only one out of you two who deserves to settle?" this question was like a slap in the face for Willow.

"No. That's not the problem. The problem is how is this woman going to act towards you. That's my biggest concern." the mother confessed.

"I trust dad and his judgement. I have told him my requirements for his future girlfriend and that he has my blessings, so I am more than certain, he chose a great woman." Jo spoke wisely and Willow was left speechless once again.

"Girls, are you ready to go?" Oscar shouted from downstairs since they have dinner appointment.

"Coming." Willow shouted and Josephine left the room leaving her mother dumbstruck. She looked at the mirror and fixed her dark curly hair.

The bathroom was filled by Roman and Monique's moans from the orgasm that just hit them both. The sex between them is way too good to be true and way too good for people who are in one way strangers.

They exchanged a deep kiss in this ecstaic for them moment.

More intimate than it has to be.

Stares.

More intense than it has to be.

Bodies.

Still close.

Breaths.

Still heavy.

Big grins on their faces from how good they make each other feel.

They decided to order room service once they were all ready and now there is a big table of various food in there - three course meals.

"I wanna ask you a question." Roman spoke as he ate from his steak.

"Yes?" Monique replied. She was eating a steak too.

"Seeing how much of a good time we have together, why do you think it won't work between us?"

Monique swallowed her bite.

"First, my job. No man would be okay for his girlfriend to do lap dances for other men. Second, my past. Which is a topic I don't wanna talk about. Third and not last, you have a kid who might misunderstand me and hate me. Is this enough to understand?" Monique shoot with the sharp truth but Roman look completely unfazed ready to shoot back.

"First, my daughter gave me her blessings to find myself a good woman, so she isn't a factor. Second, I am not gonna ask you about your past and I don't care honestly. Third, I know that this job isn't your dream one and there is a specific reason you do it, for example, fast way to earn some money. I can arrange you whatever job you want because I know you aren't going to do this your whole life." he immediately replied to everything.

"I hate that you are a lawyer." Monique rolled her eyes. "But seriously I am like this today because of my past relationship. The way it fucked me up...all the lies, manipulations and possessiveness. I don't wanna experience this all over again."

"I understand. I am going to wait until you feel ready."

"Look, I don't wanna waste your time. Your woman can wait for you somewhere and as of now, I can't offer you anything different than sex." Monique was honest and Roman chuckled.

"I don't want any other woman, Monique. I want you. That's why ever since I met you, I have never missed a performance. However, the time we spend there is not enough for me. Also, I wanna know more about you, I already told you."

"But I don't want you to know about me. At least not yet." she declared and then softened the tone.

"Okay. I am not gonna pressure you anymore. We just go with the flow." Roman put his hands up, understanding where Monique is coming from and that the things may be more serious than he thought.

"Thank you." she breathed out.

"But I'd like to take you on dates, too. Cause I might not be allowed in the bar anymore or your boss might tell you something." Roman explained in a cutely guilty tone.

"What did you do?" Monique's eyes widened.

"The money I'm going to give you are solely for you and he agreed. I mean I persuaded him. Maybe threatened him as a legal entity." he scratched his head and Monique slapped her forehead.

"Oh my God. Why did you do that?"

"Because it's unfair for him to get any money from something you do outside of his place. He will get his one way or another. 40% is kinda form of exploitation, considering he makes money for the entrance and drinks alone which are not very cheap." he explained and Monique grew anxious a bit.

"It's gonna be fine. Don't worry." Roman caressed her arm to comfort her since he felt her anxiety. Behind that beautiful and stoic face there is really a pure soul full of anxiety. "You are not alone anymore, Monique."

[tribalauthor]

CHAPTER 7 •LABELS• (2.6K)

previous chapter

"And you know lawyers sleep differently, right? First, they lie on the one side, and tnen we lie on the other." the stand-up lawyer spoke. He is from the host company, of course and his name is Kevin. The audience has been forced to listen to his not-so-good jokes for the past half an hour.

There were some laughs in the hall, most of them fake.

"You owe me big time, Rich." Roman spoke to his friend. They were all gathered in round tables sorted by companies, of course.

"It's not that bad, come on." Monique tried to cheer him up. She's been a witness of far worse things and events she has been with her ex-boyfriend, so this one feels rather refreshing.

At least for her.

"And what does a lawyer order to drink? Just-ice." now suddenly everyone laughed except Roman and Richard.

"Personally, I'd like some more rum." Roman said out loud, poured himself more from the strong liquid and everyone laughed.

"Mr. Reigns, you'd like to join the stage?" the stand up comedy lawyer asked.

"No, thank you." he drank.

"Please, come forward. You are pretty infamous with your humor." the lawyer on the stage insisted.

"Go." Monique whispered to him.

"Kick Vires Law's ass." Richard hyped him up.

"Oh my God." Roman muttered.

"Yes, go off, honey." Monique shouted and started clapping then everyone followed her.

Roman stepped into the stage and grabbed the mic from the stand.

"First off, let's thank Vires Law for gathering us all here and organizing such a special weekend." Roman spoke and everybody clapped again.

"But I am kinda scared, I'm gonna be honest. Y'all have probably seen or at least heard about the movie How to Lose a Guy in 10 days?' Right? Right?" the Samoan man started looking around the audience and a lot of people nodded their heads. "Well, I think I am living in another version of this movie How to Lose a Hot Girl in a Weekend?" there was a sound of laughter.

"I mean take a look at Monique - that pretty lacy dress, we almost got late again because of my men instincts, you feel me? But she is just so gracious and perfect therefore I fear after this weekend she might leave me, I don't know, yall, I don't know." he shook his head and everyone laughed but Monique was making hand gestures indictating she won't leave him for something like that and all eyes were on her. Acting like a loyal girlfriend which she once was.

"Yeah, she is reassuring me now but who knows what will happen on Monday. Damn, I should have prepared a contract for her to stay with me even when I take her to a place full of lawyers." Roman said with note of regret and he received another positive reaction from the crowd. They have more sense of humor than a person would think.

"Of course that applies to all my colleagues who brought new partners or friends with them, too. Us, lawyers can be too much at times, I know. That's why most of the people standing here are aware that two lawyers don't work with each other. I wish somebody told me that 18 years ago but I had to learn this the hard way. Most of us had to learn the hard way." the audience laughed again and started clapping. "Okay that's all from me. Make sure your glass is always full and have a great time." Roman stepped out of the stage.

"In just a few minutes, you outdid Kevin and the whole company." his colleagues praised him.

It's really not as bad as everyone thought it would be. The atmosphere is very nice - just people trying to escape from the gray routine and have some fun time with their partner or friends.

Monique felt weirdly alright. This is like a better version of all the snobby events she attended with Phillip.

One thing is common - she is not being herself.

Right then she had to act extra dilligent and that she cares about boring conversations with the high class and stuff and not to be way too touchy with Phillip who she really loves.

Now, she has to lie that she is the girlfriend of the hot lawyer and act like they are deeply in love which is not true.

But who really is she?

Behind the mask of Monique, Juliet is a really pure innocent, soul. That's why she got triggered when Roman told her to be herself. She doesn't want to show her true self in front of nobody.

She did that mistake with Phillip and she is never repeating it again.

Right now, it seems like the just-ice is starting to break between lawyers (probably because of the alcohol) and you can see different mixtures of groups getting to know each other.

"You are a dancer?" a woman with jet black hair and icy blue eyes was shocked when Monique told them her profession. Her name is Lucy and she is just three years younger than Monique.

"Yeah." the exotic dancer replied.

"What kind of dancing though?" another woman whose name is Georgia, asked her.

"Latin dance." Monique whispered.

"Ooh, you gotta teach us hip movements." Lucy said.

"They are important, yes. If you really wanna drive your man crazy." Monique started explaining and took a look at Roman who was also talking with bunch of people. Suddenly he turned around, sensing someone is watching him and locked eyes with Monique.

The way that dress is showing perfectly how her body is shaped is making him weak. No matter that he already has seen her with no clothes on, Monique still makes him drooling over her.

"Ah, you probably spin Roman's head, don't you?" Lucy teased her.

"Look at how he looks at her. Goddamn." Georgia and Lucy acted a little bit excited.

Suddenly the music became louder than it was and the DJ played Hips don't lie by Shakira and the girls started hyping Monique up to go to the dance floor.

Thanks to the wine, she feels like dancing and she remembered she wanted to dance like Shakira when this song came out, so Monique kinda mastered it.

Roman approached her doing little dance movements and took her to the dance floor.

They both marched to it in such a cool couple-ish way and then Monique started moving her hips like Shakira just possessed her.

"I actually knew she could dance like this." Roman shouted but doubtfully somebody heard him. After that Monique slightly grinded on him, leaving him speechless. He loves the way her hips move. Roman noticed the insane hip technique this woman has. Ever since their first night he knew she is a problem.

A beautiful problem.

More people started joining them on the dance floor and everybody couldn't take their eyes off of the sexy dancing machine. With that black lacy dress and deep cleavage, she is a pure goddess.

Some men were more obvious with the stares. They just couldn't help but look at that gorgeous woman that is Monique. Of course, Roman saw that.

"You can look but you can't touch." the Samoan man said with sass and continued dancing.

The drunk fake couple got back to their room after the party came to its end since the group has to prepare for hiking tomorrow.

There were many positive emotions radiating from Monique and Roman due to the fact that they had an amazing and carefree night.

"We brought quite the attention." Monique chuckled and Roman grinned at her.

"Of course. I mean look at us." he said cockily and the woman laughed.

"I actually had a great time." she nodded her head.

"Shockingly, same. My expectations were very low but this is actually fun. I gotta admit, it's because you agreed to come with me which I am thankful for." the lawyer put his palms together, acknowledging the sacrifice Monique made. "You could have been working but..."

"I think I slightly needed some time away from work, so thank you for persuading me to do this. With all the dancing I did tonight, I remember my younger days, my old dreams that I never achieved and yeah." she sighed.

Roman took a look at her, sensing a note of sadness. He wanted to know what happened to her but wasn't sure if it's the right time to ask.

"You are welcome." he replied politely.

"Can you please unzip my dress?" Monique turned her back to Roman, lifting her hair up. He did what she asked and the zip went down but she didn't take her dress off.

"Are you ashamed of me now?" he teased her as he looked at her.

"Non-working time." she reminded him but then she recalled. "Oh, but you are paying me so-" Monique was about to take off her dress but Roman stopped her.

"I didn't pay you to be my sex slave, I paid you to accompany me. Don't feel obligated. Go and change, do what you like. I want you to feel comfortable." there was a slight sterne in Roman's tone but he wanted to make himself clear.

Monique really appreciated what he said. She quietly thanked him and went to the bathroom.

Why is he like this, she thought, trying not to freak out because she definitely didn't expect that.

Meanwhile Roman was giggling like a school boy because he couldn't believe he is actually spending a full night with Monique.

It was a goal for him because he always has to leave the bar and can't have her fully for himself but right now she is all his and the thing is he doesn't care if he has sex with her or not.

He doesn't want her body right now, he wants to know more about her. He has never been that curious of a woman before.

For now, her sole presence is enough for Roman and he hopes someday she will feel comfortable enough to open up.

Monique and Roman are all washed up and ready to sleep. They are lying on the bed, facing each other.

Roman is getting lost in her beautiful Bambi eyes that captivated him since the very beginning. Meanwhile Monique realized she spent a whole day with him today and she liked it which is a bad thing. But the way he looks at her makes her melt.

Just like the first night they met. She will never forget that exact look.

"I almost forgot. We gotta set up an alarm for tomorrow. How about 8?" she turned around to reach for her phone, ruining yet another beautiful moment.

"Okay." Roman whispered and when she was done, she turned in his direction.

"We better go to sleep cause we have 6 hours. Goodnight." Monique turned around and Roman dragged himself slightly closer to her. "On a second thought." she said and turned back to him again. "I know men's tricks."

The man was actually happy she turned back to him.

"You are smart for your age." Roman concluded and the exotic dancer rolled her eyes.

"I'm 31, not 21." she said.

"You are 31? Damn. I thought you were 25." he seemed quite shocked.

"Is this the age I am gonna be in front of your wife?"

"Ex-wife. Let's be precise." Roman politely corrected her. "The only thing that connects me with that woman is my daughter. I hope my poor baby is okay with that house full of lunatics."

"So she lives with her new man?"

"Correct. And Jo told me some not so bad but rather disturbing facts about that household. I gotta call her tomorrow and check on her."

"You must." Monique nodded her head. "It must be hard for her to have separated parents."

"For sure but she acts like it's all good. I mean the day me and Willow told her we are getting divorced, it was bad but I made sure to arrange the best therapist for Jo. You probably heard the reason behind-"

"Yes. And it's awful. I am sorry this happened to you and to your daughter as well, of course." Monique replied with sympathy. She really feels sympathetic towards this whole situation.

"She definitely hates her birthday month now. The announcement happened weeks before Christmas and her birthday." Roman dived into more detail and Monique's mouth dropped.

a) because that is just so vile thing to happen to a kid

b) she realized this is the month and the year she got together with Phillip

"I am literally so sorry for your daughter...and you, of course. Do you blame yourself...that your ex-wife cheated on you? Cause most of the people do."

"We are both to blame, by the way. We met in college. She was a freshman and I was junior. See, back in my college days I was a crazy man, I admit. I see a pretty woman and she has to be in my bed."

"But...how is that different from now?" Monique got puzzled for a bit because this is how their encounter began.

"Hear me out." he put his long index finger slightly in front of her.

"One night. We spent one night together and then guess."

"She got pregnant." Monique's jaw dropped.

"Mhm."

"No. How old was she?

"20 and I was 22. It was too late for abortion and I am not the guy who would leave a woman be a single mother. So we got married, she dropped out of college, of course. Thankfully, I was already working but I had to lift myself up in the law world and bring money for three and yeah. Then we started living in tolerance. We never loved each other but we had that respect, you know? I mean, we had a whole kid together. Until her white knight appeared."

Monique thought this was a really tough case. As a woman, she understands Willow wanted to find her true love which it wasn't Roman obviously. From a mother's point of view she isn't sure if this was the rightest decision. Cause apparently Roman settled.

"And you were faithful to her all this time?" Monique asked.

"Yes. I swear, I was. Life taught me a lesson. That's why no matter what. The day I married her, no, the day I found out she was pregnant, I swore to stay loyal to that woman, no matter what. I wasn't interested in other women. I was only interested in my family." although Monique was impressed in a way by what she was hearing, she didn't let herself completely to believe in what Roman was saying.

"And after the divorce..." she continued digging.

"After the divorce, in a way, I went back to my old roots, got a little, oh God, teenagers use this word but I'm gonna say situationship. I was in something like that. She caught feelings while I didn't want anything serious, so I left and now...me and you. Now that's a term of a relationship that is yet to be invented."

Monique laughed at his last sentence. He has that witty fun sense of humor that is awfully reminding her of her ex-boyfriend and exactly that trait is what mostly made her fall for him.

"Seriously? What are we?" Roman asked.

"Pretedning couple." she shrugged.

"Not in front of my colleagues and ex-wife. When it's me and you like this? What are we?"

Monique thought for a second.

"Customer and supplier with extra special benefits."

"I can't decide if I love this or I hate this."

"You have time to figure it out. Now let's sleep." she closed her eyes and Roman switched off the lights.