Thanks for much for the feedback and interest guys! I love this story so much and can't wait to start unfolding it for you. Right now though we have a cooldown chapter that is a bit of background filler on Roman and how he got to this particular party we're about to have. Time to flesh out the Big Dog a little more.
Hope you like it!
Wolfgirl2013, Happy to have you on board as always!
LHisawesome4ever, Yay! So glad to have you with me for the ride (because trust me, this one is going to be a ride!)
Minnie1015, I don't know where I come up with it either. I can sit for weeks without any new ideas and then something can slap me around the face for no reason and voila! The next thing you know, Dean is a PI and Seth is a dog!
SkittlezLvr79, The bromance is back and better than ever in this story. Roman and Dean's friendship completes me (although they are going to need to get to know each other a bit first!)
Rebel8954, Haha! Glad I have you hooked. Not too much intrigue in this chapter, but I'm totally going to make up for it after that. You might want to fetch your thinking cap for this story!
Skovko, I know, sorry Seth (no I'm not) but he will be an integral character and let's face it, he does make a very cute (angry, little) dog!
Cheryl24, Actually Seth is a pretty pretty Pomeranian in this one. I wanted something a teensy bit prissy (again, sorry Seth...not really!)
ViolentHugger03, Hello and welcome! Always happy to have new readers. Strap yourself in, because this story is going to get wild!
I-Am-WarKitten, Haha, trust me, this is a scenario I never knew I needed to write either and yet here we are! Loved writing this story though, so hopefully you'll love reading it too!
Guest, Many thanks!
Not-that-kinda-gurl, Aww, thanks. Can't wait for you to read the rest. This story is a good long one too, with plenty of twists and turns (although we've got a nice cosy chapter here with a bit of background to ease you all into it!)
HannonsPen, Hey girl! Glad to hear that you're ready to step aboard the crazy train again. Please keep your hands and arms inside the car at all times!
Phoenix lord of rebirth, I just had a sudden itch to write a murder mystery (no idea why) and wouldn't be satisfied until I had it all down on paper! Hope you enjoy!
xXBalorBabeXx, Welcome to another story! Hopefully this chapter will go into some more detail about why Roman took the job and what's going on in his life (because let's face it, a story can never have too much Roman!)
Wrestlingfanforever, I'm not sure how I thought of it either, but I just suddenly knew I had to write it. Hope you enjoy the rest!
Mandy, Hey there! Knew you would join the party! Seth is definitely a fun little character in this story (I think you'll like dog Seth more than human Seth!) but it's definitely a Dean and Roman story...because they're the best kind!
Here we go then...
TWO
As opposed to his new boss who lives in his office, Roman has a house on the opposite side of town. The nice side, where you can't even see the high rise buildings, or the central business district, or the J Roebling bridge and which is still the best thing to have come out of his playing football. Other than his beautiful wife and kid of course, who are pretty much the only two people who'd stood by him when his ACL had torn for the second damn time and put paid to his dreams of being a legend, or doing any work besides categorizing company files.
His wife is stood by the cooker when he gets in, still dressed in her scrubs as she stirs Bolognese sauce and helps their daughter with her history homework in the perfect picture postcard of domesticated bliss.
His daughter is sat with her hair in scruffy pigtails and is bent in so close to the paper that her nose is grazing the text. She has her tongue tip poked out too as she finishes writing and then reads the next question,
"The Statue of Liberty was a gift from – ,"
"Me," Roman growls in his huskiest timbre, before suddenly ducking down into her neck and then planting a very loud raspberry into it, which makes the kid shriek and drop her pen.
"Papa, noooo."
She sounds like Ambrose when he'd been trying to scoop Seth up, except a hell of a lot cuter and more ticklish besides and plus his real house don't have a blonde downstairs neighbor who runs a small one bed brothel and creates more smoke than a chimney pot. Unless one has moved into the basement without him knowing. He'll check later on.
"So, how's the new boss?" his wife asks casually as he slaloms round the countertop and puts his hands on her hips before nuzzling into her neck and kissing the gap between her shoulder and her jawline, which still smells like the perfume she'd put on before her shift. Along with the coconut shampoo she always uses and something else which he thinks might be the Bolognese sauce.
It's more or less what he had done to their daughter, except crucially without the childish raspberry blowing part and knowing it the little girl seated behind them makes a soft bleurgh noise and then sticks out her tongue, since clearly she is worried that the two of them will get cooties, which she and her little school friends are pretty much obsessed with now, like it might be the biggest threat to life since typhoid, or the invention of gunpowder, or possibly the Black Death. Not that Roman particularly minds it and especially if it means her swearing off boys. Because if she can keep it up, or possibly move into a nunnery, then he figures he will die a very happy old man.
"Do you think you can work with him?"
"Who?" Roman grumbles, reaching around his wife to try and swipe some Bolognese and getting a spoon across the knuckles for his trouble.
"Your new boss," his wife huffs at him fondly, "Is he nice?"
Roman blinks.
"Uh, yeah, he seems like a good dude. But boy does he need to learn how to file," not to mention him needing an actual apartment. Although he doesn't say that part.
"Oh? What does he do?"
"Private Investigating."
"What?" his wife blinks at him, "You mean, like Magnum?"
"Kind of," Roman grins, "But, you know, without that big ass old moustache, or the Ferrari and now you mention it he doesn't have the flowery shirts."
"Isn't that dangerous?"
Roman pauses for a second as his mind flickers over his conversation with Dean and the part about the guy who had thrown the tire iron, not to mention all the temps the guy has been through.
He shrugs,
"Nah. He just needs help sorting his files out. Has a dog named Seth though. Real nippy little thing, so I'm pretty sure at some point I'm gonna get bitten. If you consider that dangerous?"
His wife raises a brow,
"So you're not going to ask to go with him on stakeouts, or whatever it is he does?"
"Of course not baby girl," Roman snorts, although he peels himself away from her to grab a bottle of water from the fridge, in the hopes that she can't hear his sudden awkward throat clear, or feel his big hands tense across her hips, since really he's never been good at lying to her. Which is probably how she'd known that he was going to propose to her before he'd got the words out,
"Baby girl will you – ,"
"Yes."
"Because I know how rough the last twelve months have been for you, what with the injury," she carries on in the present day, "And how much you miss the big excitement of game day. And I know that office temping isn't exactly your dream job. But we really need the money and – ,"
"Hey," Roman pulls her closer and then rocks her gently from side to side on the tiles, like a thirteen year old couple at prom in junior high school, "We're gonna be just fine. You hear me baby girl?"
Sucking a breath in she nods into his shirt front and then, like flipping a switch, she's back to being a mom again and one of the strongest damn women in his universe. Up to but not including his mom, who honestly is probably kind of tied for pole position. Along with his sisters and his grandma and his aunt.
"Honey, go wash up for dinner," she tells their daughter, who is watching from the table, "We can finish your homework after your bath."
Her wide child's eyes flicker over to her father, who nods in reassurance.
"Go on now baby girl, because while you're gone I'm gonna fill in these questions," crossing over to the table he pulls her booklet in close and then pretends to totally mess up her answers, "Now, let me see here. What did Ben Franklin invent? Huh. Now let me think. Was it the phone or the hoverboard?"
"Nooo," she squeaks, as he picks up her pen and pretends to ink robots into the answer box.
"The sooner you wash up, the sooner I stop."
"Okay papa, okay," she huffs back at him, sounding like her mother as she wiggles from her chair and then takes off in a trot along the hallway.
Roman grins,
"Or was it the refrigerator?"
"Papa stop."
His wife has moved back to the stove to serve the food up, but he knows for a fact that there's something else that's on her mind, in the same way that she knows whenever he's lying to her and what's more he knows precisely what that something is too, since it's pretty much all that the two of them talk about. Or at least it is since his god damn ACL had given out.
He sucks in a breath,
"Have they run out of overtime?"
Her shoulders slump in defeat a little,
"Yes. I asked today and they couldn't give me any, which I kind of knew was coming. But I thought I had a few more months. Because I mean, it's been fine while Marie's been on maternity and they needed the hours covered, but she's due back next month and the hospital doesn't want to pay for two people to be doing the same shifts, which I can't blame them for, but that extra money has been keeping us going and so without it – ,"
"We'll think of something," Roman rumbles in return, trying not to sound as damn guilty as he's feeling, since he's the whole reason they're in financial straits. Because after all, he's meant to be the husband. He's meant to be the breadwinner. He's meant to provide,
"I'll just find another job in the evenings," he offers, "Or take some extra temp work outside of the Ambrose job, because I know they sometimes have more out of town stuff."
"Or we could rent out the basement."
He blinks,
"What?"
"Well why not?" she shrugs, "I mean, it has its own entrance and its own kitchen,"
"And a spider colony," Roman snorts, although he figures that even their arachnid filled basement beats living in a two roomed brownstone office like Ambrose does and so therefore it isn't the worst idea ever.
"I mean, all it would need is a clear out and some paint. Ooh and maybe some nice new cushions and a pastel color scheme."
Damn, he loves her so much. Reaching towards her as she pulls off her apron, he pulls her against him for the second time that night and then kisses her on the lips in the way that he hadn't when their cootie fearing daughter had been watching them before.
Breaking apart, she blinks up,
"What was that for?"
"For putting up with my sorry broken ass," he grins back, "And for somehow always trying to make the best out of everything."
She raises her brows cheerfully,
"Well, it is for better or for worse and you did help me through some pretty bad cravings when I was pregnant, remember?"
Roman chuckles at her,
"What? You mean the dill pickles and ice cream? Damn, you're right. You owe me a whole lot."
"Ha," she rolls her eyes and then tiptoes back up again, but for a sweeter kiss this time and more reassuring, "Besides, none of what's happening right now is your fault babe. Plus you lost way more in this whole thing than me, because you lost your career and your sponsors and your buddies."
Because, oh yeah, hadn't that been a kick in the teeth? His former teammates having less and less time to hang out with him and then him gradually being left out of get togethers and team stuff. Or else having to work when everyone else was socializing, since he no longer had a three hundred thousand dollar wage. Or, come to think of it, even a shred of that,
"You need to be happy too Roman," she says, rubbing her thumbs over the whiskers of his face fuzz and blinking up at him sadly. He smiles at her,
"Hey, as long as I've got you and our kid then I will be," he rumbles soothingly, giving her a peck on the head and then pulling her as close as he can physically get her. At which point their daughter walks in and covers her eyes,
"Eww. Gross."
"I'll give you gross kid," he growls in response to her, striding across the kitchen and then sweeping her up, before letting her little body fold upside down completely, with her knees hooked safely over his hefty forearms as he walks around and listens to her squealing.
His wife lifts up a brow,
"I hope you know what you're doing. Because if she gets sick before dinner then don't say I didn't warn you."
But she's grinning as well because how could she not? And for a second Roman briefly forgets that he's careerless and working in a glorified slum downtown, with a man who collects lost pets instead of payment and brushes his teeth out on the fire escape and who is also the only reason he'll be getting a paycheck this month. Provided he lasts longer than the other temps have, or that he doesn't get eaten by a Pomeranian, or mutilated by the chainsaw wielding hooker from downstairs.
Because now he comes to think of it, working there might be dangerous – and crazy, because yep, it is definitely that – but damn if it doesn't also make him excited to be dealing with something different.
He's a bit of a weird one.
Bring it on.
Okay, so next week we start to get into the mystery element of the story. Expect some intrigue and let the guessing begin. I'll see you there!