Chapter 29
" Have you called him yet?"
" Nope."
" How long has it been?"
" A couple of days." Roman placed two twenty pound plates on the rack.
" So you don't want to talk it out with him?" Kofi asked as Roman placed the last two ten pound weights on the rack. The gym was finally fixed up for the night.
" I don't know." Roman shook his head. His thoughts were just so jumbled when they came to Dean that he didn't know where to start.
" I don't why you're pressuring Roman to talk to that asswipe anyway." Dolph got off the weight bench that he was sitting on. " He's the one that needs to come to Roman."
" Does it really matter?" Kofi asked.
" Of course it does. That fucker is the one that walked out on Roman. He's the one that needs to be on his knees begging for Roman to take him back. If Roman goes to him, he's going to think that what he did was okay."
" Sounds a bit like playing games." Kofi opinioned.
" Well sometimes you have to play games to see what a person is really about." Dolph advised. " If he really wants Roman he'll come and get him."
Roman was carefully listening to Dolph. He did have a point. If Dean really wanted him, he needed to make more of an effort. Just saying that he did it to protect Roman wasn't good enough.
Dolph placed his hand on Roman's shoulder. " You have a good thing going with Tyler. You have to consider that as well."
Roman nodded. He didn't want to hurt Tyler when he had been nothing but loving and supportive towards him.
" But Roman doesn't love Tyler though."
Both Roman and Dolph looked at Kofi in shock. " What did you just say?" Roman managed to splurt out. " I do love Tyler."
Kofi shrugged. " Well sure you love him. But you don't love him like you do Dean."
" What makes you say that?"
" Ro, come on. You're the kinda guy that wears his heart on his sleeve. It's pretty obvious." Kofi crossed his arms. " Dolph knows it too."
Dolph rolled his eyes. " I have no idea what you're talking about."
" Dude please. You know that Rome is still feeling a way for Dean. That's why you don't want him to go to him first. Because you know that he would forgive him too easily instead of talking shit out."
Dolph kept his eyes focused on the ceiling. " Well maybe. But you see how Ro is. He's so soft."
" Um, hello. I'm still here." Roman interjected.
" Yeah just a minute bro. Kofi and I are talking here." Dolph dismissed him with a wave.
" I know the guy is soft but you can't be hard all the time but I do see what you're saying. He did do Ro pretty bad."
" The guy is a fucking douchebag. After what he did, he doesn't deserve a guy like a Roman."
" That is true. I don't."
The three men turn around to see Dean leaning up against the door frame. Hands pushed into the front pockets of worn blue jeans. A slow easy walk as he approached the small group. " Roman deserves the best but I still want him."
Dean's eyes lingering on Roman's face as he said the last part.
" Oh hell no!"
Before Roman could stop him, Dolph clocked Dean cleanly on the jaw, sending him down to ground.
" Dean!" Roman immediately knelt next to him, propping him up with his hand behind supporting Dean's back. " What did you do that for?" He yelled at his bleached blonde haired friend.
Dolph merely sneered as he walked off. " He had that coming."
Roman stared in disbelief as Dolph walked away.
" I'm gonna go and check on him." Kofi ran off behind Dolph.
Dean was cupping his jaw with his left hand and was moving it around carefully. " Well at least nothing is broken."
" I can't believe that he hit you." Roman was still in shock. " I mean did say that he would if he ever saw you again but I didn't think that he would actually do it."
Dean slowly got on his feet with Roman's help. " Well I guess I did have it coming." He scrutinized Roman a bit in his t-shirt and jeans. " Are you done here? I was hoping that we could go somewhere and talk."
" Uh yeah." Roman looked around the room. " Wait here while I go get my bag from the lockerroom."
Roman started to walk off but then he quickly turned on his heel. " You might want to stay out of Dolph's sight. He doesn't like you too much right now."
Dean winced a bit from the pain in his jaw as he tried to smile. " Yeah I kinda picked up on that."
The setting sun bathed the street in colours of orange and pink as Roman and Dean walked side by side on the sidewalk with Roman's gym bag swinging in between them.
" You didn't call." Dean said. His eyes fixed ahead of him.
" I didn't know what to say." Dean's hair was glowing copper in the sunset. Casting a warm glow upon his face, rendering him so beautiful in that moment that Roman lost his train of thought and forgot what else that he was going to say.
" Well I didn't hear much." Dean stopped to cross the street. The walk sign came on and they crossed the street together. " But I guess Dolph did have a point. I don't deserve a guy like you and truth is I should have been coming to you and not expecting you to come to me."
Well score another point for Dolph, Roman thought.
" Because I'm the one who fucked up."
It was only when a guy walking a golden retreiver on a blue leash passed by them that it registered to Roman that Dean had led them to the park.
" I'm glad that you could admit that." Roman said as he sat on a bench placing his gym bag between them.
" Well I had some time to think about what you had said and you were right." Dean lazily pushed boot through the grass. " I didn't think about how my leaving would've affected you."
" But how couldn't you?" That had been the hard part for Roman. How could Dean just leave without even considering the effect that his sudden disappearance would've had on him.
Dean sighed, placing his left arm on top of Roman's gym bag as if it were a cushion. " I guess I was so focused on protecting you from Hunter, that I didn't stop to think how my leaving would make you feel. I just sorta figured that you would've understood."
Roman mulled Dean's words over carefully. The sun was slowly dipping below the horizon and a gorgeous deep purple sky was appearing. " I was really scared those first few hours. I thought that you had gone to do a job for Hunter and had gotten hurt. When you didn't answer your phone I was besides myself. I was so scared for you."
" I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you through that." When spoken, his words seemed so light weight as the gravity of Roman's feelings sunk in. He hadn't meant to antagonize and cause Roman undue stress but that was exactly what he had done. And to make matters worse, he hadn't even contacted him for two years leaving Roman unsure about what had happened to him.
" And then when I went to your apartment and I saw that every thing was gone and it hit me." Roman paused. Eyes staring into the distance, focusing on nothing in particular. " You were gone and it hurt so fucking much."
The raw pain was still very much evident in Roman's voice and a thick lump rose in Dean's throat. He had hurt him. He did it by himself. He could try to blame Hunter but it wasn't really his fault. He didn't even say goodbye to the man that he had claimed to love because he had been too caught up in his own feelings to truly consider his lover's.
Dean lifted up the gym bag from between them and place it on the other side of him. He slid right up to Roman and took his right hand into his own. His thumb smoothed over Roman's knuckles slowly in a back and forth motion.
A slightly chilled breeze whipped around them tossing his hair before disappearing. The sky was most a deep blue purple now. The Evening Star making its appearance low on the horizon.
" Ro," he began keeping his focus on what he was holding. " I know I sound like a damn broken record but I'm so sorry. I … I really didn't mean to hurt you. You must believe that."
Roman wetted his lips lightly with the tip of his tongue before speaking as he turned his head towards his ex boyfriend. " Then why didn't you at least call me?"
" Because..." Dean's voice trailed off. He didn't really know what to say. He had kept that truth at a distance. He shoved it to the back of his mind and tried not to think about it. Now the truth was coming to the light once more and he had to deal with it.
" I didn't know how to say goodbye to you." He answered quietly.
Dean's thumb made it's way up Roman's index finger.
" I don't understand."
Dean exhaled sharply, squeezing Roman's hand hard until they were staring at each other.
Slowly, Dean found his voice. " I didn't know how to say goodbye to you." Roman's eyes narrowed a bit in confusion. That was okay. Dean was a bit muddled up himself but he tried to unravel it. " I didn't know how to look you in the eye and tell you that I had to leave you."
Dean shifted his hand underneath Roman's and laced their fingers together. " I think, if I had tried to tell you that I had to leave that I wouldn't have gone. Because you would've asked me to stay and ..." Dean laughed a bit breaking up the solemn mood. " Fuck, this is going to sound stupid but I think deep down I knew that I wouldn't be able to tell you no. And then Hunter would've probably gotten us and I didn't want live with the guilt of putting you in harm's way."
" So you left me because you couldn't say good bye to me?" There was a note of disbelief in Roman's voice and Dean didn't blame him for it.
" I told you that it would sound stupid." Dean huffed. He pulled Roman's hand onto his lap. " I did think about calling you. Almost every single damn day I had picked up the phone to call you but I didn't know what to say to you. Part of me had hoped that you had forgotten about me and moved on and another part of me thought that if you did hear from me that you would write me off and I didn't want you to forget me."
Roman kept his hand on Dean's lap. It looked good there. " So where were you all of this time?"
" Texas."
" Texas? What the hell were you doing all the way down in Texas?"
" Well I wanted to get as far away from Hunter as possible. He doesn't have any contacts down there."
" So where were you? Dallas?"
" Nah. Austin."
" What did you do down there?"
" Lots of odd jobs."
He picked up on the tension in Roman's arm. " Nothing illegal." He soothed him.
A thought planted itself in Roman's mind. He should've dismissed it as soon as it came but it had taken root and now he couldn't shake it. " Were you seeing anyone?"
Dean slouched down a bit on the bench. " I saw plenty of people. Every single day." A knowing smirk appeared on his lips when Roman playfully tugged his hand for the smart alec answer. " I did fuck a few. Nothing serious though."
Dean brought the back of Roman's hand up to lips. He pressed the hand against his lips, holding it there. That shiver that ran down Roman's spine was as sharp as it ever was. Only Dean could do that.
Dean's middle finger drew circles on Roman's palm as he kept the hand pressed against his lips. " How long have you and mall boy been together?"
" Just over a year." Roman was trying to keep his breathing level but he was getting turned on by Dean's ministrations and he had the sneaking suspicion that Dean knew that as well.
The tip of Dean's tongue flicked out and licked Roman's little finger. The recipient's breath caught briefly in their throat. Dean noticed and kissed the finger. " Do you love him?"
Roman locked eyes with Dean's. His blue eyes were narrowed and suspicious as he turned Roman's palm towards his mouth and kissed it.
" Yeah." It came out in a shuddered breath. Roman was losing his cool and quickly
Dean kissed the palm again. His tongue darting out to swirl around the sensitive skin.
" Dean." His name came out like a moan despite Roman's resolve.
Dean's eyes glimmered in the faint light. " Does he make you feel the way that I do?"
" What are you getting at?"
Dean placed Roman's hand on top of his thigh. " I want you back Ro."
Ro.
He had always loved the way how Dean said his nickname. Ro.
It always did something to him and what it did right now was to cause his hand to slip to inside of Dean's thigh and cup the hard, warm lump that was resting against it. His teeth bit the inside of his lip as he moved his hand slowly up and down the length. God. It had been way too long.
His eyes caught Dean's who looked way too pleased about Roman caressing his shaft. Roman gave the head a squeeze through the jeans material and he heard Dean inhaled sharply and the noise pleased him.
He felt Dean's hand cupping the back of his neck and a small tug forward. He parted his lips slightly in anticipation. Then he felt Dean's other hand nimbly undoing his belt buckle and undoing the button. He watched this movement with rapt attention as the metallic unzipping sounded nearly as loud as his heart thumping inside his chest.
When Dean cupped his manhood through his lightweight boxers, he hissed. He had missed his touch so fucking much, that he was here aching for Dean to touch him properly without any barrier in between his flesh and Dean's hand.
A brush of lips against his own brought his attention back up to Dean's face. He was rubbing Dean through his jeans even harder now. That mischievous tongue darted out and licked Roman's bottom lip with its tip. Exquisite torture. Both of them moved the same time and closed the gap between them. Roman felt his insides melting when Dean's lips firmly locked with his. That soft, warm, wetness that Dean's mouth got just right was unravelling him. His free hand went around Dean's shoulder pulling him right up against his body as much as possible. When Dean's tongue slid into his mouth, he sucked on it as if it was the best tasting thing that he had ever put into his mouth. He swallowed the moan that Dean released into his mouth. Nobody else's kisses had that effect on him. Nobody.
" Oh fuck..." Roman hadn't meant to move his mouth away but when Dean's hand had slipped underneath the boxer's waistband and took hold of his cock it was bliss. He shifted his hips a bit so that Dean could have better access to his manhood. His fingers were moving slowly down it and finally a finger smoothed across the head, smearing the precum.
Dean captured his mouth again in another kiss. They were in the middle of a public park. They shouldn't be doing this but consequences be damned. He started to undo Dean's pants as well when the next question Dean asked him made him pause.
" Are we back together Ro?"
A/N: Well, are they?
