Haunted - Sunny Wolfe Page 0,28

get the three-carat one.”

“Stop being silly.” I led him to our table and put the two boxes out in front of us. “There is one for each of us. Open.”

Roman opened his. There was a nice leather cuff bracelet and at the center was a heart. The heart was made of leather with lace stretched over it. It was manly and very rock ’n roll.

“Oh God, it is…wow, Beth, it means everything. This is our leather and lace, right?” He tried to put it on his wrist.

“Of course.” I winked at him and helped him as he leaned over and kissed me. “Please note how totally bad ass it looks. You can wear it and not look like a douche.” I smiled and he kissed me again.

“Let me see yours.” He opened the remaining box and saw that my gift was a necklace. It was gold, with a beautiful but simple chain, and had a gold heart similar to Roman’s. The leather was stretched over the gold heart with the lace overlapping it and the gold in the outside lining kept it all in place.

“Can I put it on you?” He stood behind me and put on the necklace. He turned me around and put his hand over my leather heart and I wrapped my hand around his leather bracelet. It was a gesture that became a thing for us. By us doing that simple gesture, we decided it was our silent “I love you.” Anytime one of us did it, we would be telling the other “I love you” and nobody would be the wiser. It was our secret.

“I can’t believe you did this,” he whispered.

“You brought them home to us, the least I could do was make them pretty.” I leaned up to kiss his cheek.

“When did you do this?” he asked in wonder.

“I gave it to the jeweler when you went to the restroom after we picked out our rings. He had it ready for me today.”

He kissed me and said, “Dance with me.”

Chapter 16 – Roman

We danced the night away. An hour had passed and everyone was still drinking and dancing.

Eric came up to us. “Joey is getting sleepy, so Tara and I are taking him home.”

“Thank you, Eric, for everything.” Beth kissed him on the cheek.

Eric leaned down and whispered in Beth’s ear. “I’m happy for you. I love you, you know. We had too many good years to eclipse the bad ones.”

Beth hugged Eric and he hugged her back. Then he turned to me and shook my hand. “You, my friend, are a very lucky guy.”

“I know.”

“Be good to my son,” he said with a stern tone that sounded friendly enough but I got the message.

“I will be and you have my word. I will be the best stepfather ever, but I know who his real father is. I will never try to take that away from you.”

Eric smiled. “I think I like you, Roman.”

I thought I like him too. Man, he was intimidating.

Then Joey came up to us. He kissed his mom on the lips and told her that he loved her and then he turned to me. He hugged me. “Remember, you promised to share her,” he whispered.

“I will never go back on my promise to you, Joey,” I whispered back.

Then they left.

I turned to my wife to start the next dance and then I heard the words, “May I dance with the bride?”

It was Berg.

“Only one song.” I scowled and then I handed Beth over to him. I looked over at Eve and held out my hand for her. She walked toward me and then she did a curtsy and we danced.

“Eve, thanks for everything. I owe you. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t even know if we would be here.”

“You don’t owe me anything. You two are happy and that’s all I wanted. You were her dream, Roman.”

That choked me up for a moment, so I changed the subject. It was bad enough I cried in front of Beth, but I would be damned if I cried in front of her friends.

“Well, if I didn’t know that you had a boyfriend, I would say that you and Berg look mighty chummy dancing all night.” I laughed and her face turned red. “You like Berg, don’t you?”

“He’s not my type. Besides, I am seeing someone else.”

“I don’t see him here, so where is he?”

“Working but he promised the next event he would come. He told me he couldn’t wait to