Worse for Better- Book #1 in the WF Series

Chapter 22: Stubborn

♡  Alaiya's POV:  ♡

My block-heeled ankle-length boots which I never took off because I need my feet to be warm all the time help me reach up to Roman's lower chest and sort of hear the fast beating of his heart. I mean, he did drive pretty fast to get here so I can see why his heart pace is going faster than usual.

It's even colder than it was before, but his warm body radiates heat through me and makes me feel cozy in his arms.

Should I be doing this? Absolutely not. I know what happened last time, but right now, I'm ignoring the consequences and enjoying the comforting feeling. He may be annoying and sarcastic all the freaking time, but he sure does give great hugs.

"Do you want to get in the car?" he offers by a little shiver that he felt come off of me.

I shake my head no and just snuggle further into his chest because he's giving me all the warmth I need. He hugs me tighter, and now I don't feel an ounce of coldness; only butterflies, a burning up face, and tears that are still constantly falling without my control which they have been doing my entire walk here.

I'm probably gonna get his shirt wet, but he abducted me so he can deal with it.

"What happened?" he finally asks the question I was dreading he would, but understand why he's curious.

He did drive all the way over here after I was basically crying over the phone for him to get Carson on the phone.

"Nothing." I shake my head against him even though he's definitely not going to leave it at that, but why not try.

"Alaiya." He pulls away instantly and makes me look up at him with his finger underneath my chin.

His eyes are staring at me dead in my brown ones, and are observing every angle of them to try and find the truth. I look back up at him with wet cheeks, and even in the darkness, he can see more tears falling. I know this because he wipes them away with the light touch of his thumb, careful to not hurt me in any way possible by the way he slowly does it with caution.

"Did you guys win?" I try and change the subject, making him sigh at the ground at me. "It was nothing." I raise my voice to try and convince myself of the same thing.

"Alaiya, I did not drive at two hundred fucking miles per hour thinking that something happened to you for you to tell me that it was nothing," he raises his voice back at me by a smidge in frustration.

"You drove at two hundred miles per hour?" I ask because that could be dangerous.

"It was an exagger-," he begins to defend but then stops. "-not the fucking point," he gets back to the subject, and I look at the ground as I feel the tears beginning to come back while thinking about that traumatizing look on my dads' face.

He had that same face for fourteen years. He had the same tone, language, and anger issues for fourteen years and now it's back after I thought he was finally past it.

"My dad relapsed," I mumble, intending for him not to hear me but he still does.

He sure has some good hearing.

When the words come out of my mouth, I even get hit with the realization because it hadn't hit me as hard until now.

A hand grabs my wrist lightly and pulls me back in for a hug to make me feel safe again. I grab onto the front of his shirt in hopes to make my hands stop shaking, as well as the sobs to not escape since I've never said that out loud. I've never said the fact that my dad is an alcoholic or he had relapsed out loud. If I didn't say it, I wished it wouldn't be the truth. At least, that's what I used to tell myself back in elementary and middle school.