LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)(87)

I shuffled down to the tack room and rummaged around for an old coat, a hat, and gloves. Then I grabbed the saddle Earl had found in a storage room and lugged it to Nugget’s stall. It took me a while to get her tacked up, but finally she was ready and I led her out of the barn and into the winter afternoon. She’d pulled my carriage through weather way worse than this and didn’t even blink a long-lashed eye at the swirling snow.

It took three tries and a whole lot of grunting and cursing before I finally hoisted myself up into the saddle. I clicked my tongue against my teeth, squeezing with my knee to nudge Nugget toward a trail that looped through the trees around the property. She shifted under my weight, getting accustomed to me before plodding toward the path.

As we made our way through the snow, I thought about everything I was going to lose. My chin tightened until my jaw began to ache.

It wasn’t like me to throw a pity party for myself. My mom had a saying that always snapped me out of melancholy moods and helped me spring into action to fix it.

You’re not a victim, you’re a victor.

I repeated that phrase in my head like one of Sonya and Nay-Nay’s chants. What would victory look like in this case?

Roman and me together and strong, facing the paparazzi side by side.

I thought about it some more, envisioned a strong, united front. What if I was looking at it all wrong? What if, instead of a half-cocked, homeless freak of a boyfriend, I was Roman’s steady, centering life partner? What if, instead of the two of us retreating to our lonely lives of separate solitude, we helped each other find a different way forward? Together.

I blew out a frosty breath and shook my head. I was an idiot. Maybe instead of trying to get Mom and me out of sight of the paps because we were an embarrassment, he was trying to save me from their pushy interfering ways.

That sounded much more like the Roman Burke I knew.

And what if, instead of my mom leaking his location to the photographers, they’d somehow been tipped by Polly or her helicopter pilot?

I wasn’t about to give up on Roman Burke. If he wanted me gone, which I was starting to suspect he didn’t, he was going to have to tell it straight to my face.

After turning Nugget around to head back, I felt the saddle shift under me like it had suddenly loosened. It felt exactly like what would happen if I didn’t wait for Nugget to let out her breath before cinching it again, but I knew I had.

I hopped off quickly and examined the saddle straps, noticing the flank cinch had frayed almost completely apart. That’s what I got for using someone else’s old saddle. I hadn’t wanted to use Earl’s nice one without permission, so I’d grabbed the random ancient one from the tack room.

“Shit,” I muttered. It was going to be a cold walk back. “Sorry, sweet girl. Narrowly averted a disaster there because I wasn’t using my head.”

I followed Nugget’s tracks back the way we came, keeping my face down and out of the wet flurries. I spied a stripe of weak sunlight up ahead and lifted my head to see a lovely clearing I hadn’t noticed on the way there.

I slowed Nugget to a stop and took a deep breath, moving into the beam of sun and closing my eyes. Before wandering back to face Roman and the media, I decided to take one last moment of quiet solitude to gather my strength and become the man Roman needed me to be.





26





Roman





Inside A Celebrity Meltdown: Roman Burke Hits Rock Bottom



I stood with my hands braced on the bathroom sink, my face dripping from where I’d splashed myself with cold water, hoping the shock of it would calm my racing heart. When the photographers had swarmed in, my first thought had been of Scotty. Once he’d turned and fled, my only other thought had been of escape.

I’d ducked through the first door I’d come across which had landed me in the downstairs powder room. It was a small space, every surface covered with mirrors for some reason I couldn’t understand, and the sight of my panicked expression staring back at me from every reflection had me flicking off the lights and standing in darkness while I’d struggled to catch my breath.

My mind had spun a million miles a minute, and I’d forced myself to stop and focus. Breathe, I’d told myself. Just breathe. I was okay. Scotty was okay. My family was okay. We were safe. I just needed to breathe.

After several moments, my lungs had loosened, the pain in my chest had eased, and my heart rate had slowed, the flood of adrenaline working its way out of my body. I’d let out one last long trembling breath and flicked on the lights.

An infinity of my own reflection stared back at me from all the mirrors. It was a startling and overwhelming effect, and I was just glad I didn’t have to pee because I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to watch themselves on the toilet from so many different angles. “Jesus fuck, Oscar,” I muttered as I turned on the sink. “What were you thinking?”

Splashing cold water on my face helped, and I was just drying off when there was a knock at the door. “Roman?” my sister asked, her voice tight with concern. “You okay in there? It’s safe to come out now, the photographers are gone.”

I opened the door cautiously, peeking out to find the main room practically empty, only Lolo and Trevor talking quietly at the kitchen table with mugs of coffee between them. “Where… where the hell is everyone? How long was I in there?”