Jock Romeo (Jock Hard 6)

“Wrong? About what?”

“My very short-lived hiatus from men. It was stupid—I don’t need to give them up. I just needed to find the right one.” The words are accompanied by a smile. “I wouldn’t be here with you if I thought I wanted to be alone—I wouldn’t do that to you. Lead you on, I mean.” Lilly takes a dainty bite of bread and chews slowly. “This is so good.”

She still hasn’t answered my question.

To keep myself from asking again, I stuff some bread into my mouth, too. It goes down like cardboard, almost getting lodged in my throat.

“I think that…yes. I would like to try to be your girlfriend. We can label it, can’t we? While we’re just starting to date?” More chewing and swallowing. “Then we don’t have the confusion later. Don’t have to worry about having ‘the talk.’” She uses air quotes around the last phrase. “Yes. I want to be your girlfriend—I would be proud to date you.”

Proud to date me.

I sit up straighter in my seat as the server comes back to the table. “Are we celebrating anything special tonight?”

Lilly and I exchange a look.

“Um, yeah.” My words are less articulate than what I’m used to spouting, but I should probably get used to the fact that she strikes me dumb. “We’re celebrating our new relationship.”

EPILOGUE

ROMAN

“Honey, I have something I have to give you—take these and put them in your pocket.”

Before I can ask what she’s doing, my mother is pulling open the pocket of my jacket, and I catch a flash of bright red as she shoves something at me.

“I would give them to Lilly herself but don’t want to embarrass her. Just put these in her bag before you leave and she’ll be none the wiser.”

“Uh—what are these?”

I go to pull them out but stop short when my mom says, “Lilly’s panties—she must have left them after Thanksgiving, and I’m not going to ask what they were doing on the floor.”

“Oh my g-god.” I shove them back inside my pocket as far as I can shove them. “It’s n-not…we didn’t…”

I mean—yeah, we fooled around, but there was no penetration if you don’t count tongues and fingers.

“I should hope not—not under my roof,” Mom proclaims stiffly, nostrils flaring. “But I will say this: it’s good to see you behaving like a normal twenty-two-year-old, and it’s good to see you having fun. Dad and I were worried you took school too seriously to ever let yourself fall in love this young.”

Fall in love?

Is that what this is? “Uh, thanks?”

“I’m serious!”

At that moment, Aunt Myrtle enters the kitchen, shuffling through in a muumuu, pink marabou slippers on her feet.

“If Roman’s bedroom is rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.”

Mom goes slack-jawed. “Roman!”

“Mom—nothing happened in my bedroom, I swear!” Nothing except some oral and a hand job. Does that count as nothing?

She wouldn’t understand that Lilly and I are on an edging quest so I won’t come as fast when we have actual sex.

Aunt Myrtle hums softly as she putters around the kitchen, pretending to ignore us, tsking as she brews herself a Nespresso as if she were Gen Z.

“Jack said to see if you have Fritos,” she randomly announces, turning toward me. “I knew I came in here for a reason.”

Mom nods. “Yes, I bought him Fritos.”

My friends—and girlfriend—are crowded in the living room of my parents’ house, something that’s become a habit for them since Thanksgiving. Jack loves hanging out here as much as my mother loves having him—I think it reminds him a little bit of home, and he is craving that. So almost every weekend, if none of the four of us has plans, we come here.

It’s not my first choice in hangouts, but who am I to deny my new friend a family away from his family?

So much has happened since the last time we hung out here, too.

At the end of the football season, Lilly left the cheer team. Since then, she has been volunteering at a local dance academy and teaching classes to beginners. She loves it, is less stressed out, and finally gets to do what she loves best, but at no cost to her sanity.

Were her parents pissed off?

Absolutely.

Has Lilly stopped worrying about what they think? For the most part. Their opinion has been ingrained in her since she was born, so a part of her still worries when she does something they don’t agree with, but she’s been happier since she quit the cheerleading team.

We were all really proud of her.

Well, her roommate Kaylee wasn’t, but honestly? We’re both graduating at the end of the semester, and Lilly wants to get her master’s degree; she feels her focus should be on that rather than a career in dancing that won’t lead to anything further than more pulled muscles and sprained ankles.