Eternal Flame (Eternal Flame #1) (7 page)

“He definitely likes you.”

Kristen didn’t say anything.

“Nick seems smitten with you as well.”

“Nick’s nice.”

“You like him?”

Kristen peculiarly looked at him. “No. Not like that.”

“I’ve seen this with them before. They get crazy competitive over girls. It could get pretty weird. You might want to watch out.”

“Okay.” She didn’t know what else to say. I mean, why the fuck did he care?

“So, who’s your favorite Level?”

Kristen stared out the window. This man went from one extreme to the next. She nervously tapped her foot on the floor and playfully raised her eyebrow. “I won the contest with you, didn’t I?”

He looked over at her and looked like he might smile. But he didn’t. “You said you and your boyfriend broke up right?”

“Right.”

“Well, now you’re single so you’re free to do whatever you want.”

I want to do you.

“I’m not really looking for anything serious,” she attested. “I think it’s best I just chill for a while.”

“I definitely feel you on that.”

Kristen pondered whether she should ask the question swirling around in her mind or not. What the hell? “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You have a girlfriend?”

He took so long answering she had to look back over at him. A dark cloud had blanketed his face. Had she asked the wrong thing? “No,” was his curt reply.

Kristen shank back in her chair. “Oh.” She stared down at the musical note embroidered on the floor mat.

Roman’s cell-phone started ringing again and he glanced down at it on the console, swearing under his breath as he picked it up. He hit the end button and slammed it back down on its face. It started ringing again but he ignored it. It rang at least four more times, stopping and starting back in between.

“You can get that if you want,” Kristen offered.

“It’s my phone, I know I can answer it if I want to,” Roman snapped.

She cringed. “Sorry.”

“If I wanted to, I would. I don’t need your damn permission.”

Kristen looked out the window with tears burning her eyes, afraid to say anything more. She wished she had stayed behind with Diego at the studio.

Kristen looked across the table at Roman and tried not to be intimidated by the seemingly permanent frown on his face. She hadn’t seen him smile since she’d met him and he’d barely looked at her since they’d gotten back in the Hummer. Even now, as he sat fiddling with the silverware and peeking through the menu on the table, he seemed to be looking at everything but her.

They hadn’t gone to a soul food restaurant like she’d asked. They ended up stopping at some burger joint not too far from the studio. If she wasn’t going to get what she wanted she wished he’d have just taken her to Five Guys instead but figured there was no point in telling him. He was going to do what he wanted anyway. He’d been doing that all day.

“What would you like to drink uh…?” He glanced up at her; then looked down at the menu again, holding it up to his face. “What was your name again?”

Kristen pursed her lips and tried to remember the good manners her mother had taught her. She knew Roman was having a bad day and she didn’t want to add to it but she didn’t know how much longer she could take this crappy, inconsiderate behavior from him. She wanted to be sensitive to whatever he was dealing with but she refused to be an enabler like his family and friends. She had her limits. And she was reaching them fast.

“Kristen,” she firmly reminded him for the fifth time in the past hour.

“Yeah. Right. What would you like to drink? You want some wine or a beer something, or…”

Kristen smartly looked at him. “No. I don’t drink. I’m underage.” Even if she wasn’t she wouldn’t touch the stuff. Alcohol made people act stupid.

His thick eyebrows furrowed as he looked over at her. “Underage? Oh. That’s right.”

She rolled her eyes skyward and pursued her lips.
Right
.

“Okay fine. What would you like then?”

Kristen tucked a stray hair behind her ear and picked up her own menu, holding back tears of frustration. “Sweet tea is fine.”

“Do you see anything you like on the menu?”

“I don’t know. I’ll probably get a salad or something.”

“A salad?” He lowered his menu and looked at her, frowning. “What, are you on a diet or something?”

“No, I’m not on a diet,” she almost snapped. “I’d just like a salad.”

He looked her over for a moment; then lifted the menu back to his face and sighed. “Cool. I don’t know what I want. I’m not that hungry. I’ll probably just have a burger.”

As if on cue, the waitress walked over to their table, promptly took their order, then quickly walked away, glancing nervously over her shoulder at Roman with a shy grin. He seemed to have that effect on a lot of women. His effect on Kristen was starting to wear thin.

Like earlier, she tried to start a conversation with him but she couldn’t pull anything out of him but short answers. She asked about the guys’ upcoming album. His solo projects. The movie project that was possibly in the works. But all she got from him was:

“Things are fine.”

“It’s going well.”

“The movie is up in the air.”

That was it. Nothing else. He looked bored and acted like he didn’t even want to be around her. Before he’d seemed somewhat interested in her but that had all changed after their stiff conversation about whomever it was calling him on the phone. He also seemed irritated about her growing friendship with Diego and Nick. She got the feeling that her presence alone was irritating him and that made her feel horrible.

It was all she could do not to get up and walk out. But she didn’t want to leave him. This was a moment she’d been waiting on for years and while it wasn’t turning out like she’d hoped, she was thankful for having an opportunity to be in his presence and have a few minutes alone with him. She briefly wondered how Joy was doing with the Foster boys. She couldn’t wait to hear about it later.

Her mind also subconsciously drifted to Nick and Diego. Who knew she would have an attraction to them both and such wild, strange chemistry? With Nick it was more cerebral but with Diego, it was definitely more physical, from the first handshake. She didn’t understand it. Not that she’d never thought either of them were attractive but she’d never looked at them like she looked at Roman and she’d never thought of going out with either of them.

Even now, with her feeling the way she felt about them in the brief time she’d known them, she still wasn’t too excited about becoming involved with them. Roman was and would always be the one for her. Diego was sexy but he didn’t make her heart pound the way Roman was making it do now.

Nick was sweet and an awesome conversationalist but during the whole time she’d been with him, her mind always wandered back to Roman. While talking to the guys back at the Deans’ house she’d enjoyed herself immensely but she kept hoping and praying Roman would come back. She wondered where he was, what he was doing and if he was okay. She’d almost cried with relief when Ms. Austin came outside to tell her Roman was on his way back to the estate to pick her up. She didn’t like the fact that he wanted to go out with her today instead of Saturday like originally planned but after pondering it for a while, she realized it was even better. She’d get to spend time with him sooner than she’d hoped. Now that they were together and the past couple of hours had been so bad, she couldn’t help wishing she was still at the studio with the other guys.

“Heh. Heh!”

Kristen jumped and looked over at Roman, who was obnoxiously snapping his finger in her face. “What?” she shakily asked.

He silently looked at her for a moment and she squirmed as those wild sensations she always felt when she looked into his sultry bedroom eyes stormed through her lower region again. She wondered if he had any idea how beautiful he was.

“We’re going to have to hurry it up because I have to be somewhere before the party starts.”

“I know,” she crisply replied. “You already told me that.”

“Well, I was telling you again in case you forgot.”

“How can I forget when you keep reminding me every five minutes?”

He looked over at her and gritted his teeth but didn’t say anything more.

She blinked and fiddled with the buttons on her dress, slightly taken aback from the heated look in his eyes. She thought she saw him sneaking a peek at her breasts then imagined it was all in her head. This man was far from interested in her. The way he’d been acting all afternoon more than proved that.

“Okay,” she said, almost too agreeably. “We’ll grab something right quick and leave. That’s fine.”

His eyes held hers before he looked away from her again, sucking his teeth and slumping back in his chair. “Fuck. I wish they’d hurry up. This shit is taking forever.”

He looked at his watch and sighed loudly. Kristen rapidly blinked again, feeling irritated by his attitude and those stupid tears that kept threatening to fall from her eyes.

“You don’t have to do this,” she blurted out, before she could stop herself. “You can leave if you want. You obviously don’t want to be here.”

“Nah, that’s okay. I made a commitment and I’m going to stick to it.”

“I really don’t want to continue to spend time with you if this is how it’s going to be.” She picked up her fork and subconsciously scrapped it back and forth over the table.

Roman blandly looked at her. “How is it?”

“You’re-You’re being rude. You’ve been rude since I met you. Not just to me but to everyone.”

He chuckled dryly. “Really? Is that what you think I’m doing? Being rude? You obviously don’t know me very well.”

“Obviously you’re not trying to let me get to know you.”

“For what? This isn’t a date.”

She flinched at him, biting her lip hard. “I know it’s not.”

“Trust me, rude is the last thing I’m being. Believe me, it gets worse. My friends and family know that because unlike you, they know me.”

“I’m trying to get to know you but you’re not letting me in.”

“What do I need to let you in for? You won a contest to my birthday party and to spend one afternoon with me. That doesn’t get you the right or the invitation to dig into my personal life or monopolize all of my time.”

“I’m not trying to dig into your personal life; I’m trying to get to know you,” Kristen emphatically pointed out. “That’s usually what happens when strangers agree to spend time together.”

“Well, I’m not interesting in sharing details of my personal life with you.”

Kristen reared back and rolled her neck at him. She didn’t want to get ghetto on him but he was making it very difficult. “But it’s okay for you to ask me questions about my life?”

“I was trying to diffuse an uncomfortable situation. Make light-hearted conversation.”

“Well, what the hell do you think I’m doing?”

“This isn’t normal for me.”

“You think it’s normal for me?  And I’m not trying to monopolize your time; I’m trying to take advantage of an opportunity that was given to me, one that you agreed to when you signed off to participate in this contest.”

“I’m starting to hate I did.”

Kristen’s heart stormed in her chest. Her hurt brown eyes scanned his. “That makes two of us.”

He either didn’t hear her or he didn’t care enough to respond; he just turned away from the table and looked out the window, drumming his fingers loudly on the laminated surface. “Fuck,” he sighed again. “Where are they with that damn food?”

Again, as if on cue, the waitress appeared with their food and hurried away again, bumping into a table and two chairs as she glanced back at Roman with wide eyes. Kristen briefly wondered if the waitress would have the same response if she knew how much of an asshole he was. She was thankful the waitress came along when she did because things between them were getting really ugly, and she didn’t like it. She hoped sharing a meal together would calm them down and get them back to a place of human decency.

Roman immediately dug into his hamburger, chewing loudly and humming to himself as he continued to look out the window. Normally Kristen would think his humming was as melodic and heavenly as his singing voice but this evening it sounded like the Devil humming the Freddy Krueger chorus.

She tried to concentrate on her salad but it tasted like rubber to her. She was having a hard time swallowing and it seemed to keep getting stuck in her throat. She tried sipping her tea but it wasn’t helping. She just wanted to leave. At this point, she didn’t give a fuck anymore. She just wanted to get the hell away from his rude ass. This was crazy. They didn’t even know each-other; weren’t even a couple and they had spent a good deal of their time together in tense silence or arguing. This shit was crazy-ridiculous.

“Am I taking you back to the family house or the hotel?” he asked, still looking out the window.

Kristen paused for a few minutes, not wanting to talk to him again right away. She moved her salad around with her fork. “Back to my hotel is fine,” she choked out. “I have to get dressed for the party.”

Roman rolled his eyes skyward and snorted. “Oh yeah. That.”

Kristen sighed in aggravation and pointed her eyes at him. “Why don’t you tell them to cancel it if you’re not in the mood for one?”

Roman got quiet for a minute, chewing softly. He reached for his glass and took a long sip of the wine he’d ordered. His face took on a softness she hadn’t seen all evening. It made her want to reach out and touch him. How the hell did he manage to have her emotions all over the place like that?

“Because it means too much to them,” he quietly said.

Kristen eyed him for a moment, taking note of the genuine emotion in his eyes. “Oh.”

“This birthday is very significant for them.”

“Why?”

Roman’s eyes stared aimlessly out the window. He was quiet for several minutes. Before long, that hardness was back. He looked over to her, gesturing towards her salad. “Are you done?”

Kristen glanced down at her half-eaten salad and resumed eating. “No. I still have a little bit left.”

Roman threw his burger down on his plate and shoved it away, wiping his mouth hard with his napkin. “Yeah well, as soon as you’re done we’ll get out of here. I’ve lost my appetite.”

Kristen looked at him, anxiety gripping her chest. She hated this back and forth with her emotions. They were about as screwed up and twisted as his. It was difficult for her to stay mad at him and she hated that. “I’m sorry,” she timidly said.  “Did I say something wrong?”

“No. I’m just ready to go. I have things to do.”

Kristen swore and slammed her fork down on her plate. “Oh my God, would you please stop saying that? I know that already!”

“Obviously not. It’s taking you forever just to eat one damn salad.”

“You know what? I don’t even have to finish. This shit is ridiculous. It was your damn idea to get something to eat. We could’ve just stayed at your family’s house if this was how the day was going to turn out.”

“God no. That would’ve been torture.”

“You know what? Screw this shit. Where’s the waitress?” Kristen looked around for the waitress, her pretty face twisted with exasperation. “Let me get a damn doggy bag so we can get out of here.”