Teaching Roman by Gennifer Albin Read Free Book Online Page A

same time. I felt my best friends’ heartbreaks as acutely as I had ever felt during any of my own break-ups, and right now I was too consumed with Cassie's sadness to really think about Brett.
    “You’re a good friend.” Roman paused and his eyes flicked to the path that had brought us back to our villa. “I should go. I wanted to be sure everything was under control.”
    “I’ve got this. Don’t worry." But even as I spoke I didn’t want him to go. A variety of ways to keep him here flashed through my mind. I could set an accidental fire or faint or offer him that drink. Inviting him to stay for a drink seemed like the least dramatic or dangerous way to keep him from leaving.
    “Can I get you that drink?” I asked. “Since I ruined your night.”
    “I was home reading,” Roman assured me. “The only thing you ruined was my loneliness.”
    I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the way my stomach flipped over when he mentioned he was lonely, and went inside to grab a bottle of wine. My hands shook while I rummaged through the drawers for a corkscrew. I finally found it and dropped it on the floor. Thankfully Cassie was passed out or I probably would have woken her. Nothing short of a nuclear strike would get through to her right now. I’d played nurse to her drunk-ass enough times to know that.
    “So was it a bad book?” I asked, hoping that I looked casual as I brought him out a glass of wine.
    “Why would you think that?”
    “I usually don’t feel lonely when I’m reading a good book." In fact, when I cheated on my textbooks and let myself read a romance novel or the latest bestseller, I was barely aware of my own existence.
    “It was work stuff. Apparently, I don’t know how to take time off from school.”
    I raised my glass in a toast. “I hear that. I plan to spend most of my time here hiding my textbooks from Cassie so she doesn’t take them away.”
    Roman laughed at this and shook his head. “But you're on vacation. I come here all the time. It isn't vacation when it's home.”
    “It’s still your semester break. There’s no reason you need to be reading either!” My words rushed out in a jumble. I’d begun to tremble and it had nothing to do with the cool breeze wafting up from the ocean and everything to do with the insanely sexy man standing next to me.
    He held a hand up in surrender. “I’m not judging. I just hope that you have a good time. I know you’ve been really stressed out the last few weeks. I know you were worried about Jillian.”
    Of course, he wasn’t being judgmental. That wasn’t Roman’s style
    “Sorry. I get a lot of shit for being so focused on med school and graduation.” It was hard enough to explain why I wanted to spend another five years in school let alone that I needed to be prepping for those years right now. Class for Cassie and Jess existed on a period by period and semester by semester schedule. Neither of them planned to go farther than getting their B.A. I couldn’t blame them for that, but I also couldn’t explain to them why I had to be looking so far ahead all the time.
    But Roman only snorted at this. “With this job market, most of them will wind up in graduate school.”
    “Speaking from experience?” I asked.
    “I wouldn’t call Interpersonal Communication my calling.” He shrugged and took a sip of his wine, his lips lingering on the rim, long enough to make me jealous of the glass.
    “What is?”
    He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head.
    “Come on,” I pleaded.
    “Poetry,” he said finally.
    “Really?” I couldn’t quite imagine buttoned-up Roman Markson as a poet.
    “You don’t have to sound so surprised.”
    “Watch your I-statements,” I reminded him, tapping his solid chest with my index finger. My body responded to the slight touch, aching for me to step closer to him, but I ignored the urge. “What kind of poetry?”
    “Actually it’s song writing for the most part,” he said. “Hence why I’m