He chuckled. Hearing her voice was definitely what he needed to make it through the rest of this Sunday dinner.
“Oh, wow. That was close to an actual laugh. Does that mean you’re calling to set up the next interview?”
“I told you I would, and I’m a man of my word.”
“Spoken like a true Boy Scout.”
“I’m free Wednesday and Thursday in the evenings. What do you have in mind for a location?”
“That depends. Tell me about racquetball.”
“Okay. It’s a sport played with a racquet and a hollow rubber ball, with two or four people, usually in an indoor court.” With as into personal details as Bex was, he knew that wasn’t what she was asking for, but he couldn’t help himself. He felt like a rebel today.
“Fascinating,” Bex said, her voice monotone. “I can see why you chose it as your sport.”
“Obviously.”
“It’s not the sport most kids pick. Tell me why you really chose it.”
“I didn’t—my dad chose it for me.”
“Interesting. Do you always do what your dad tells you to?”
“If I did, I’d be working at his company instead of owning my own.”
“Fair enough. So tell me, what sport would you have chosen?”
“You’re not recording this, are you?”
“Roman.” He could practically hear her eyes rolling in that one word.
Roman glanced toward the dining room windows where his family sat, eating dinner without him. “I played all the usual sports when I was little and I was terrible at all of them.”
This time, Bex chuckled. The sound was breathy and beautiful. “Big, strong, athletic you? I have a hard time picturing that.”
“I wouldn’t have called myself any of those things back then. In third grade, my mom decided that I would do better at sports if I had better awareness of my body and better coordination, so she enrolled me in dance classes. I still don’t know how she talked my dad into it. I was embarrassed at first, especially because I was just as bad at it as I was soccer, baseball, basketball, and football. But I got good at it and really liked it.”
“Wow. I did not see that answer coming. Did you dance competitively?”
“Yeah.”
“How long did you dance for?”
“Just until sixth grade. Then, one of my friends said something that really hurt my feelings, and I cried to my mom about it. My dad came in, said that I shouldn’t have gotten my feelings hurt over something like that, and blamed my ‘emotional state’ on dance. He said it was time for a more manly sport, and since racquetball was his sport, that’s what they signed me up for.”
He couldn’t believe he was telling her all of this. He hadn’t told a soul about it, ever. He rubbed at the tingling on the back of his neck, and then pulled at his shirt collar. Assuming she was going to push for more information on that, he started thinking of a response to shut her down. To his surprise, she backed off and went a different direction, and he was grateful.
“You listed it as your favorite sport, though, so I’m guessing you fell in love with it on your own at some point.”
“My mom had been right about dance. By the time I started racquetball, I was significantly more athletic, and I got good at it quickly. It’s easy to love a sport you can win at.”
“That I have no problem picturing.”
He smiled just thinking of her picturing him playing racquetball. He hoped she liked what she saw.
“Okay, how about we meet for the next interview Wednesday at seven p.m.?”
“Seven it is.”
“I’ll text you the address by Wednesday afternoon. No showing up in a suit and tie. I suggest something more along the lines of gym shorts, and an athletic shirt and shoes.” She paused for a moment, and then said, “I’m glad that at the beginning of the phone call you didn’t hang up and not try again.”
“Me, too.”
But as he hung up and walked back into his parents’ house to rejoin Sunday dinner, he wondered what in the world he had been thinking. Had it been anyone other than Bex, he actually would’ve hung up and not tried again. No, actually, he never would’ve called in the first place.
He was definitely playing with fire.
9
Bex
Anytime Bex filmed a segment for her channel, she sent all the footage to her sister, Nikki, along with a list of things she wanted to make sure made it into the final cut. Then Nikki did her magic, sent a draft of the video to Bex, and they went through it together, either in person or over FaceTime, and chatted about edits.
Today, she had been working with Nikki over video chat, and she had spent the past forty-five minutes watching Roman as they went through the footage. She paused it at the spot when they were next to the lake and he was talking about canoeing, and switched the phone camera so that Nikki could see her screen. “I swear you can see the moment right here when he lets his guard down. Did you notice?”
“I did. I didn’t know your ninja lock-picking skills had reached the level of being able to sneak in and unlock defenses as secure as this guy’s, but I’m impressed.”
“I don’t know. He noticed they were down like two seconds later and put them right back into place.”
“But you got them down a second time, so there’s hope.”
They actually came down a third time, yesterday, when they had been talking on the phone. Back at their first dinner at Buffalo Bill’s Steakhouse, she never would’ve guessed that he’d let his guard down enough to tell her that story about dance and racquetball. She would’ve listened to his stories about both for an hour, but she knew those defenses were poised and ready to snap right back into place at the slightest misstep, so she backed away. Someday, she vowed, she would get them down for more than just a small moment.
She and Nikki got to the part of the video that showed the walk back, where she’d had all her focus on the murderous deer and hadn’t been able to give any attention to Roman. But she was paying close attention to him now.
She saw the moment that shock and worry crossed his face at seeing the deer’s hollow stare, but Roman’s expression quickly turned to confidence. She saw his face the moment when they were running and he reached for her hand. And then the look of amusement and concern as he reached out to help her up after she had screamed, scaring off the deer, and fell flat on her back in the stream. She paused the video on that expression of his, mentally thanking Enoch for his camera skills and for keeping it running the whole time, even with the chaos going on. She was going to have to thank the kid with copious amounts of Taco Bell, Red Vines, and Mountain Dew—his three favorite things that he didn’t get often.
She realized she’d been staring—possibly a little dreamily—at the video when she saw from the corner of her eye Nikki shaking her head. She had forgotten that her sister could see her, and she really hoped she hadn’t actually reached out and touched Roman’s face on the screen like she had wanted to. “What? He’s cute.”
Nikki nodded. “He really is. Before I saw this interview, all I got from you was how much he irritated you, so I didn’t think you had noticed. But girl, between what I saw editing this and what I’m seeing now, you have definitely noticed.”