Chapter 22 22
Roman's POV
Harmony could actually dance; I hadn't expected that. I don't know what I had expected, maybe the same rigid, clipboard-clutching energy she brought to everything else, but watching Harmony move on that dance floor was something else entirely.
She was so fluid and easy in her body, her arms above her head and her hips finding the beat. The white dress which was riding very high on her thighs was doing nothing to help my situation.
I stood by the counter and watched her, feeling immensely frustrated. Had she thought about the kiss just as much as I did?
She had walked away from me mid-conversation to go and dance, as if our kiss meant nothing to her, when it was all I had been thinking about it every day for the past week.
I wanted to talk about it—I didn't know what I would say exactly, but I wanted to say something, and she had not exactly given me the opening.
I looked down and noticed her white handbag on the counter beside me. She had left it there when she walked off. I picked it up without thinking and held it in my hand, turning it over. It was small and structured, with a little gold clasp at the top. It was so completely at odds with the practical, no-nonsense woman I had spent two weeks with in that clinic. Something about it caught me off guard.
"Hey, Roman."
Miles appeared at my elbow, slightly out of breath and holding yet another drink. "You might wanna slow down on that, Miles." I warned. "You're driving us home tonight."
Miles glanced down at the drink. "Yeah, I know. You just disappeared on me. I turned around and—"
He stopped when he realised I was not paying attention. He followed my line of sight to the dance floor, figured out who I was staring at, and started laughing.
"Oh, shut your face up." I growled.
His shoulders shook with mirth. "But I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I was going to say," Miles replied, composing himself with visible effort, "that it's genuinely incredible how fast that woman has reduced the great Roman Foster to standing in a corner, at a party. See you holding her purse like a lost husband at a shopping mall."
"Go away, Miles."
He was already backing up, laughing like a mad man and disappearing into the crowd before I could say anything else. I turned back to the dance floor, but this time, Harmony was no longer dancing alone.
The guy who had joined her was enormous, built like a giant blonde bear. He had positioned himself beside Harmony, gyrating to the music with a bottle in his hand. He was circling her loosely as she danced, saying something, leaning down toward her ear.
I slammed the handbag back on the counter. Every single instinct I had went sharp and alert at the same time. I watched him lean in again and Harmony tilt her head to hear him over the music, and something hot and unpleasant moved through me from my stomach upward.
I started walking towards them.
My knee protested the pace but I ignored it, weaving through the crowd until I got close enough to hear that they were actually having a conversation. Harmony was laughing about something, and that made it considerably worse. What was so funny? What was he saying to her that was funny?
I stepped up beside them. "What's going on here?"
They both turned to face me. Harmony's expression went immediately annoyed when she saw me, while the guy looked completely different.
"Oh my God!" He gasped. "You're Roman Foster!"
"Yes, that's me." I replied. "But who are you?"
"I'm such a huge fan, man, I watch every single UIC game, I was there for the Northwestern match last season when you scored that hat trick in the third period, that was one of the greatest things I have ever seen on the ice, I swear to God, I have told everyone about that game, my roommates are sick of hearing about it..."
"What's your name?" I asked.
He paused, caught off guard in the middle of his sentence. "Chad."
"Chad." I looked him up and down slowly. "How old are you, Chad?"
"I'm, uh.... Twenty."
"Twenty." I nodded. "And do you go to UIC, Chad, or are you here with someone?"
He was starting to look uncertain now, which was the point. "I go here, yeah. I'm a sophomore, I'm in the engineering program."
"Engineering," I repeated. "That's a lot of work. You must be pretty busy."
"I mean, yeah, it keeps me pretty occupied, but I manage to..."
"So busy that you probably don't have a lot of time to be standing in the middle of a party bothering people who aren't interested." I replied coldly.
Chad opened his mouth, looking bemused. "Oh, but we were just dancing."
Harmony grabbed my arm. "Roman!"
"I'm just talking to Chad," I answered without looking at her. I kept my eyes on him. "We're having a conversation. Chad was just telling me about the engineering program. Weren't you, Chad?"
Chad was now the approximate colour of the red lights flashing above us. He was a big guy, broader than me even, but size had nothing to do with this particular dynamic and we both knew it. He looked at Harmony, then turned to glance at the crowd behind him like he was calculating something.
"I was just... we were just talking," he said.
"Right," I replied. "And now you're done talking."
It wasn't a threat to him. But something in my voice or my face or the way I was standing communicated something clearly enough, because Chad nodded once, said "good to meet you man, big fan," and walked away into the crowd without looking back.
Harmony turned on me the second he was gone.
"Are you SERIOUS right now?" Her voice was full of fury. "What was that? What the hell was that, Foster?"
"He was bothering you. I saw it from across the room."
"He was talking to me! We were having a perfectly normal conversation and you came over and ran him off like some kind of—"
"He was circling you like a shark."
"He was being friendly! Not everyone who talks to me has an ulterior motive!" She stepped closer, which paradoxically made me want to step closer too, but I didn't. "You are a controlling asshole, do you know that? You had absolutely no right to do that."
"Hey, chill..."
"No." She held up a hand. "Fuck off, Roman. I mean it."
She turned and pushed through the crowd, and I followed her, past the drink stations and through a narrow hallway that opened into a quiet side room at the back of the house, away from the party. She stopped and turned around, and I was right behind her.