just for a bloody contract | Roman Godfrey au

ch. 28 • sleepover

After that was done, I went to Roman's room. I was surprised he hadn't come up yet. I went into his bathroom to change. It was stunning. It was definitely bigger than mine, had a waterfall shower, two sinks, and a long marble counter. It was well-lit too. I could live here.

With admiration and everything, changing did longer than usual. When I came out, I saw Roman sitting on his bed. I took a step back all of a sudden.

"You scared me," I said. "You really have your way of just popping up everywhere."

"Well, this is my room," Roman turned and looked at me. He discarded his coat. "No silk pajamas tonight?" he snickered.

"Not when there's very clear signs of invasion of privacy," I replied and actually took the time to look at his room. I'd been here a couple of times, but each time, it was focused more on Roman and less on the place. It was a spacious room, with most of the furniture made of dark wood. There wasn't a lot up on the walls, just one old painting of a lighthouse and the ocean he probably never bothered to take down.

"So, where do I sleep?" I asked, looking at his black couch and back at his king-sized bed.

"On the bed, where else?" Roman knocked it off like a dumb question.

"Where are you sleeping?" I asked.

"On the be-" Roman paused and looked at me then sighed. "The couch," he answered, his voice falling two notches down.

He started unbuttoning his shirt, and I don't know why I shrieked.

"What's the problem now?" Roman continued unbuttoning his shirt.

"Why are you changing in front of me? You have a bathroom," I pointed.

"You've seen me shirtless before. And if you don't want to watch, you are always welcome to close your eyes."

"Roman, the only time I saw you without your shirt was also when you had a corpse by your feet and half your face was covered in fresh blood."

Roman stopped what he was doing, came closer to me, leaned in, but then reached for something behind me. A normal t-shirt. My heart just beat unnecessarily fast. 

I looked at him and pondered over what to do. My thoughts came to a temporary stop when I did see him without his shirt. He was really something else. But he put on the tee on pretty fast, so I clicked out of it.

"Roman," I said. "I'll sleep on the couch. You don't have to sleep on your own couch when you have a bed that big."

"Nonsense," Roman looked at me again. "I'm not letting you sleep on a couch. I'm fine on the couch. I'm not going to die."

"No, really, you stay. This is your room. I'll be fine. I've slept in actual unsuitable places. That couch actually looks comfortable."

"You're not letting me win this, so fine. I sleep in the blasting cold, so I have a whole collection of blankets you can choose from."

I picked a woolly one and snuggled under it on the couch. "Goodnight, Roman," I yawned.

"Night," he said and turned off the lights.

Roman didn't joke when he said he loved sleeping in the blasting cold. In the middle of winter. That woolly blanket did nothing because I was curled up in a ball and still shivering. I wanted to stop my teeth from chattering, but it was instinctual.

"Liana, wake up," a voice said. I opened my eyes to see Roman looking down at me. "I told you that wasn't going to do it. You're sleeping on the bed."

"I'm fine," I said.

"Yes, of course you are. The chattering teeth for the past 20 minutes were just my mind playing tricks on me."

"Ugh, fine. But you're not sleeping here. We can share," I said. I don't know why I said that. Maybe because I was half-asleep and had no control over what I was doing.

"Alright," Roman said as he scooped me from the couch and gently placed me on his bed. He then threw two blankets on me, which woke me up completely.

"Sorry," he said. "Here, let me help." He lay the blankets out on top of me, then went to the other side, and got into bed.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling, now just a pool of pitch black, really. It was cold, but these blankets were very warm. For some reason though, I couldn't sleep.

"Roman? Are you awake?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. I felt him turn to look up at the ceiling too. "I don't know what else to say but thank you," Roman said. "Really. And not just for today."

"You don't have to thank me, Roman. It's what anyone would do."

"No; no they wouldn't. They'd stay put with my money but not do anything at all beyond that. But you actually- I don't know how you did it. I really don't". I realized he was talking about Pryce's lab fiasco. Maybe he finally realized I did it for his own good.

"If you want to know, Daniel helped. Maybe that can stop you from hating him so much," I looked at Roman with a so-what-do-you-think look. The moonlight from the window showed me that he seemed to accept that.

I looked back at the ceiling and felt Roman turn again. I knew he fell asleep, and it was time I did too.