𝐑 𝐎 𝐒 𝐀 𝐋 𝐈 𝐄 ' 𝐒   𝐏 𝐎 𝐕

Why do I keep getting stuck having to spend time with Roman King?

Between our Biochemistry classes, our internship with our professor and the incident that caused us to have to teach the youth hockey group together I have spent more time with Roman in the past month and a half than I have in the past two years of our time here. My mind wanders back to my professor's request that he threw onto us a day before we left for the away game in the laboratory when we were assisting with his research.

"I need you both, together, to go through all the references and check every single one."

Professor Erikson's request was met with stony silence from both Roman and me, for many reasons. First, this was going to take hours and hours of work to ensure all the references were correct. Second, it means spending all that time with each other for the first time since we slept together.

My eyes flicker over across the table in the library, landing on Roman's frame as he is hunched over the books flipping through them. His glasses perched on his nose, he pushes them on top of his head, rubbing his eyes. Already having been here for over an hour, we haven't even made a dent in our workload.

Sitting in silence for most of our time here, aside from the odd question here and there to double check the reference is correct, my tapping breaks that silence. Awkwardness has surrounded our table ever since we both sat down and we haven't talked about our night together. We've both been pretending it never happened by keeping the minimal conversation about any topic aside from that night.

"Can you stop that?"

Roman's voice interrupts the constant tapping of my pen against the table in the library. I can tell it frustrates him, as it has been doing for the past ten minutes I've been doing it. Standing out against the silence of the library, he's been shooting glares my way.

The secluded area we have taken up has books surrounding the large table we acquired as we reference check all the references for our professor's research paper. Grunt work basically. I stop my tapping and a smirk graces my lips before I tap the pen against the table even faster than before. Roman breathes a sigh before reaching over to snatch the pen off me.

I look at my watch. "Fifty-three minutes."

"The amount of time I've been planning your murder for?" He questions and I purse my lips.

"Hilarious," I deadpan. "It was the amount of time we hadn't argued for. But then again we weren't talking."

"Not my fault you're irritating and make it easy to argue with you," He smirks, and I motion for my pen back. He holds it out before pulling it back. "Just don't tap it."

He gives it to me, only so we can carry on, and I push my bottom lip out. "But I can tell it annoys you and that pleasures me."

"You have some weird ass kinks," He scoffs, and I chuckle. "And I've met some girls with some real freaky ones."

"Now this I have to hear." My eyes light up with humor as I turn towards him, placing my pen down. Placing his own down, he leans back in his chair, deep in thought.

"Foot fetishes are big ones for some real weird reason. I've had multiple girls ask to suck my toes." He scrunches his face up in disgust, as do I.

"I'd rather sit through another one of your hockey games," I shiver, and he chuckles. "Ok, what else?"

"One girl wanted me to put lipstick on. Another girl wanted me to pretend I was a corpse and then all I could think about was that one Brooklyn-Nine-Nine episode. I deflated real quick," He explains, and I am now laughing at his expense. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up."

"Oh, I will. What kind of girls do you meet?"

"I question that myself sometimes, they seem perfectly normal. Then they bring out this weird ass kinks." He furrows his eyebrows, and I shake my head. "Oh, come on, you're telling me no guy you've been with has had weird kinks."

"Not weird ones, no," I exasperate. "Just the typical ones like being tied up, the ones who want a threesome with another girl—" I point to him. "Which no, has not happened."

He raises his eyebrow. "But the being tied up one has?"

"Guess you'll never find out."

"Never say never. Last weekend proved that," Roman comments and I tense. "Can we—"

I stand up. "Want anything from the coffee shop?"

He sighs and shakes his head. Once he does, I cannot get out of there fast enough. Making my way through the library and down from the third floor where we had camped out, I head through campus and to the closest coffee shop. Stepping up to the counter to order, my eyes flicker up to the large menu that hangs above.

"I'll take an iced tea and a chocolate chip muffin."

Paying for everything and carrying my drink along with the bag with the muffin placed on top, I head back to the library. Climbing the stairs, Roman is still where I left him. His hair falls over his glasses, clearly in need of a haircut, and as soon as I sit back down, he lifts his head up.

"You drink more iced tea than anyone I've ever met," Roman comments on my iced tea addiction. Something he sees regularly when we have class.

"My mom has a coffee addiction, and my dad tried his damn hardest to make sure I didn't have the same, since it's a lot of caffeine. But then I got addicted to iced tea," I laugh as I explain why I am addicted to this.

"Still better than a million cups of coffee a day though." He shrugs, and I nod my head before we carry on working.

𝐑 𝐎 𝐌 𝐀 𝐍' 𝐒   𝐏 𝐎 𝐕

Her brown hair cascades down her face and past her shoulders as she leans her head against the window of my truck. Her legs pulled up to her chest as her eyes are closed and she soundly sleeps. Having left the library past midnight, finally finishing the referencing check, we were both on the verge of falling asleep right in the library.

As soon as she got into my truck, she was out like a light. Pulling up to her apartment building, I park up and turn off the engine before reaching over to shake her lightly.

"Hollywood," I shake her and aside from a little mumbling and her adjusting her position, she makes no reference as to being awake. "Lia."

Not even a response to her actual name? Damn, she sleeps like a brick. I shake her a little more for a few more minutes and she finally stirs awake.

"I fell asleep?" She questions as she rubs her eyes and sits properly.

I nod. "You did. Has anyone ever told you, you resemble a brick when you're sleeping?"

Hollywood glares at me through her sleepy eyes. "I only respond to people I like."

For the next few moments, she gets her bag and before she can reach for the door, I reach over to grab her arm gently. Her head whips around to face me. "Come to my game tomorrow night. We need to talk."

"We don't need to talk," Rosalie insists, and I sigh at her stubbornness.

"Yes, we do. Because unless we do, things will remain awkward for the next two years. So come to my game. We'll talk after and we can go back to hating each other with none of the awkwardness," I explain to her, and she thinks it over.

She sighs. "Fine, I'll be there."

With that last parting comment, she gets out of the truck and makes her way inside her apartment building.

Tomorrow will be interesting. That's for sure.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

𝐀 𝐔 𝐓 𝐇 𝐎 𝐑   𝐍 𝐎 𝐓 𝐄

「 You are not going to want to miss the next update! Next update will be on Thursday as I'm going away on the Friday and then Monday's update will most likely be on Tuesday as I only come back on Monday. This update schedule has a mind of its own lately with the days changing so much.

Thank you so much for 100k reads on PO! 

Q. What do you think will happen with their talk?」