Archive of Our Own

Love is being a child.

He feels sick when she ignores him. Gerri’s making notes in the margins of whatever legal whatever-the-fuck she looks at in these meetings. She’s CEO now - doesn’t she have people to do that? Can’t she look at him - smile at him, frown at him, he doesn’t care. Even when he’s presenting, she looks at him with the cool, steady gaze she gives the rest of those fucking morons, who don’t know what she sounds like when she's all breathy and demanding and mean. It’s infuriating - especially because he’s got a fucking good idea, actually.

‘You look hot today’, he types out, then deletes. ‘Wanna bend me over this table later?’ goes too. She’s only just forgiven him for the dick pic fiasco and he doesn’t want to blatantly disrespect her, not if it doesn’t turn her on. He settles on a gun emoji pointing at a man in a suit. Which she looks at, presses her lips together, and ignores.

And Roman’s skin burns.

It’s this awful sort of energy that spreads all over him when her attention is on someone else. He’s not a jealous person - never thought he was - but it’s difficult when she’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him. He doesn’t want her to find someone else, someone better for her purposes. He doesn’t want anyone else to look at her tiny nose and her round cheeks.

When the meeting is over, and they’re all shuffling out, he doesn’t even look at her in retaliation. He’s deep in conversation with Laird - or as deep as he can bear to be while keeping his sanity - and suddenly he can feel her behind him, can smell her spicy perfume and her vanilla skin.

“Well done,” she whispers as she wafts past him, and means it.

He eats from that shit for days.

It’s new, this... whatever it is. New and warm and right.

She won’t go out for dinner with him, no matter how much he whines, not while his father still has his eye on them. He lists in great deal the men and women that would kill for a dinner date with a Roy, which she is unimpressed by, so he changes tact and brings Chinese boxes to her front door. It turns out, Gerri Kellman gets sauce on her chin when she eats noodles, a thin red line that might be the most precious sight he’s ever seen. He licks it off. He kisses her mouth.

The idea that he can do this still makes his head spin. Kiss her. Wrap his arms around her and press her body to his. He’d always thought that if he kissed her once that would be enough - they both did. The mystery would be gone and he could get over his little (ginormous, all-consuming, worshipping) crush. But she makes these tiny little sighs when he bites her lip; her tits are so soft and her hair smells so good. And she wants him too.

Sure, she’d deny it if he asked. But he’s not a total idiot - he can see it in her pink flush and the frustrated little rocks of her hips.

Roman smiles against her collarbone and she must feel it, because she pulls herself back in, going carefully still. He nips at her in frustration; she tugs at his hair.

“Take your top off,” he tries to sound sexy and masculine, but it comes out like a desperate whine. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

She kisses him again, open-mouthed and hard, and it might be the greatest feeling in the world - that he can make her half as hot as she makes him.

Gerri pushes him away and he feels like he might die, but she tugs her cashmere jumper over her head and he can press his face directly into her tits. God, this is heaven.

“For you, maybe,” she grumbles, and he realises he said that last bit out loud. He also realises that she’s a sex goddess, she’s the greatest thing he’s ever seen, and if he doesn’t make this good for her she will almost definitely throw him out of bed. So he kisses and nips and sucks at her, tugs her bra down her shoulders, only pulling away so he can look at her spit-wet skin and the pink marks blooming on white.  Fucking heaven.

His hand skirts over her waistband, and she raises her thin eyebrow at him. They’ve paused at second base - nothing more than topless making out and her mind-fucking him over the phone. “Go on, Rome,” she says, in her sweet voice, and he’s never going to turn her down, not if he can help it.

He’s good with his hands. A lifetime of making up for a dick that doesn’t work will do that. But when he slips his hand into her cotton panties and gets his first feel of her and she’s wet - hot and so, so wet because of him, because she’s ready for  him -  he feels like he might faint.

“Everything okay?” She blinks at him, her doll eyes and tastefully smudged eyeliner. “We don’t have to do this.”

“You’re wet,” he says, dumbly.

“Yes.”

“You’re thinking about me?”

She doesn’t laugh at him, which is nice, because he would laugh at her for this. “Fuck me or get off the pot, Rome.”

“Yeah, okay. Yes. Fucking you now. Fucking - fucking mode on.”

There’s a reason she’s the one who speaks in their games. She shuts him up.

Love is wanting to consume her.

It’s odd seeing her at his father’s desk. Her little figure, her huge presence. He spends days watching her through her big glass walls, delighting at every minuscule bit of information about her that he picks up. She files at her nails compulsively and she keeps a picture of Baird’s old tortoise on her desk. He wants to ask her about that. He wants to gnaw at her bones. He wants to own her like she owns him.

“Why are you sending Karl?” He says instead of like, all of that. “You know they’ve hated him ever since the whole hookers-in-the-office incident.”

It was too ‘Wolf-of-Wallstreet’, even for his tastes. Gerri’s mouth tightens just thinking about it. “I know. But I’ve got to get to Berlin - the bribery fiasco has gotten out of hand and they’re demanding a face.”

“You’re going to Germany?”

“Yes, Roman.”

“Without me?” Is the first thing that comes out of his mouth, and he’s more surprised than she is about it.

“Without you,” she repeats slowly, only just giving away her frustration.

She should be where he can see her. He wants to know where she is, who she's with, how they’re looking at her. He wants to cum on her skirt like a dog pisses on a wall.

She moves the conversation along, but he can’t stop thinking about it. There could be cannibals in Germany. There could be adoring young billionaires. Do they have guns over there? Will she have a gun?

He finds himself standing outside IT, rapping his knuckles on the doorframe. “Could I...” He flashes a smile at the geek behind the screen. “If I wanted to track an employee’s location. Everywhere they go. Is that-”

“Legal?”

He shrugs like he doesn’t care. “Sure.”

“Not especially.”

That’s a problem. Putting aside the fact that she’d be furious at him for doing this to her, he isn’t sure this is the kind of company culture they should be fostering right now. But... his name is on the fucking building.

“Fuck it. I don’t care.”

It takes her three hours to call him into her office, which is two hours and fifteen minutes longer than he thought it would. He stands in front of her desk, shifting his weight from one foot to another. She opens her mouth, and he can’t stop himself from jumping in.

“First of all... please don’t yell at me, I don’t have a chance of pants.”

She looks at him over her glasses, like a sexy, furious, teacher of sex.

“Don’t ever pull that shit again, Roman.”

“Listen-”

“No, you listen,” she snaps. He listens. “You have undermined me, you have insulted me, you have risked exposing our situation. It is unacceptable; do you understand?”

His collar is too tight. On one level he knows that she’s right - he knew it was a bad idea when he did it, he’s not a total idiot - but he can’t bear how she’s fucking looking at him. Not for the first time, he wishes she really could see into his brain, wishes he could lay it out in front of her and wouldn’t have to explain.

Her mouth twists, just slightly, just in the corner, and he realises that she’s concerned. He shrugs, trying to play off whatever emotion is written all over his face. “I was worried, Gerri. There are boars in Europe. Boars with teeth.”

She scoffs at him. He wants to crawl away.

“Whatever. Fuck. I just mean - I was worried, seriously I was. Just making sure you’re okay when you’re far away in the undeveloped fucking open planes of Europe. Don’t be such a dick to me.”

He’s whining, and he knows he is. He waves his hand a little, trying to find the words to explain himself, but he can’t, he’s totally fucking blank.

“Don’t you ever feel like this?” Roman asks, finally, hopefully. Or maybe he is just totally pathetic.

“No.”

“No?”

She gives a little shrug. “I trust you, Roman.”

Well, that’s stupid of her. He’s a capital-F-capital-U Fuck Up; can’t be trusted as far as she could throw him. And considering she has to get Frank to open her water bottles for her, she couldn’t throw him far.

“Although I acknowledge that might be stupid,” she says under her breath, taps the desk. “But this trust has to be mutual, or our arrangement is over.”

He stops pacing; he knows it drives her crazy. Gerri has this huge lady-boner for rules and regulations and there’s something comforting about that - she’ll tell him what’s right and what’s wrong, she’ll punish him each time he misbehaves and won’t if he doesn’t - but it’s fucking inconvenient. He risks a glance back at her. Her eyebrow is up to her forehead, and the need to be back on her good side is overwhelming.

“Okay. I get it. Sorry.”

There’s a hint of a smile there, thank God, and his worry starts to slip away. “I’ll miss you,” he says suddenly, a blurting mistake, but she’s still sort of smiling.

“Fuck off.”

“Fine, bitch,” he says and doesn’t move. She’s already turned back to her computer. He doesn’t quite know how to do this - if he should go in with his hands or his mouth - if she’ll flinch away from him. He’d die if she did. He’d lay down and die.

She blinks up at him, more confused than annoyed at his lingering, but also annoyed. He has to do this now then - in one quick, awkward sweep, he leans down and kisses her on the cheek. He’s sort of too close to her ear, but he’s pulled away a fraction of a second later so maybe she hasn’t noticed, and he backs away before she can say anything.

It’s what men do to their wives in movies and there’s a part of him that wants to be her man. It’s wanting to kiss her on her mouth, fully clothed, as swelling music rises behind them and she pops her leg like that chick in the Princess Diaries. It’s fucking vile, is what it is.

And when he looks back through her office windows, he sees her tuck her hair behind her ear.

Love is wanting to look at her, all of the time.

“You’re so fucking hot, Gerri.”

She looks at him sceptically through the bathroom mirror. He wishes he had more eyes, so he could look at her face and her ass at the same time. He tells her that. She sighs at him.

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“I’m serious - you’re a fox. I want to lick your sweat.”

“You told your father you’d be in the office by nine.”

“Urgh, don’t mention dad while I’m trying to fuck you. It so doesn’t do it for me. Well-”

“Roman,” she interrupts, and he smiles charmingly at her. Gerri sighs but doesn’t stop him from approaching, lets him press himself to her back and hold her by the waist, fingers running over floral silk. She wears ridiculously expensive clothing all the time. It’s so fucking hot.

“Just let me stick it in you, Gerr-Bear. It won’t take more than 20 seconds.”

“Vile,” she says and waits until he looks at her to roll her eyes. “Leave me alone.”

“Hey-” he kisses her neck, that little dip at her shoulder. She pushes herself back into him just a little. “You could just watch me jack off. Can I come on your leg?”

She turns to face him, her blue eyes gone black. “You think I’d let your pathetic semen anywhere near me? You’re a pig, Roman.”

Oh, fuck yes. Fuck yes. Fuck-Fuck-Fuck- “What else am I?”

He had always found the tease of nakedness more appealing than the real thing. The idea of a body is infinitely better than the reality of it: with its fat and marks and spots. Bleh.

But.

Her heavy breasts, her silky, freckled skin, her mouth and the lines around her eyes. Her dimpled arse. The curve of her hips, the curve of her stomach and the C section scar that runs across it. Once, when stoned, he told her he wished that he had come out of her stomach; wished that he was made by her, for her, that he was Eve and she was the only other person in the world.

He likes it when they fuck before they go to sleep, and he wakes up in the middle of the night cuddling her naked body. He’s not allowed to wake Gerri up for sex anymore, because he ‘abused that privilege’, whatever the fuck that means, but if he pulls her into his arms, she sighs his name and sniffs at his neck. Sometimes he does that just to check that she’s thinking about him.

“Marry me,” he asks her one night. It’s the first time she’s come over with a change of clothes for the next day - the first time she hasn’t tried to pretend that everything with them is spontaneous and accidental. And now she’s asleep on his chest, slotted against him like she’s made for him, and he can’t stop it coming out of him.

“Mhm, Roman,” she says, her little mouth barely moving.

It’s close enough to a ‘yes’ to make his head spin.

Love is comforting. Love is wanting to comfort.

Logan Roy dies of an aneurysm, quickly and quietly, on a Monday evening.

It was peaceful, according to Marcia. He was sitting in front of his own news channel when she picked up the phone when she put it down, he was going. By the time the children reach the hospital, he can’t speak, which Roman supposes is good in a way: Kendall can cry and Shiv can tell daddy how much she loves him without him sprouting whatever poison he would if he could. Roman’s the last one to get into the room with him. He kisses his father on the forehead and apologises for not being who he wanted him to be. He leaves the room and hugs Kendall tightly.

And then everything explodes.

Shareholders practically bang down the doors, wanting to know who’s in charge, and Kendall wants it, and Shiv wants it, and fuck it - he wants it too. Gerri is unceremoniously dethroned. People on Twitter celebrate. There are film crews outside the hospital, so they hole up in a nurses’ break room and let Kendal name himself interim CEO so he doesn’t have a fucking stroke. He just wants to be home. Shiv runs out of a room so she doesn’t have to see her husband. Roman takes two pills to calm himself down and gets full-body shivers.

And then he’s standing in Gerri’s hallway and it's this huge fucking relief. She doesn’t want him to cry, or make jokes, or talk business. She doesn’t ask him to talk about it.

“Come here,” she says, and open her arms to him.

Stumbling towards her, sweaty hands, and then he’s on his knees in front of her. He clutches at her, presses his cheek into her soft stomach, wraps his arms around her waist, and this is it, this is all he wanted.

He knows her - knows that her mind is flashing through a hundred scenarios, calculating what’s going to happen next and how she can make it work for her. Knows that twenty minutes ago she was on a call with Frank and Karl, deciding the best way to carve up his father’s body for parts. But she’s stroking his hair all slow and loving like she has all the time in the world for this, for him.

“It can't change now,” he says, lips on her skin. “He’s never going to change now. I’m never going to not love him.”

“I know.”

“I fucking hate him.”

“Get off the floor, Rome; you’ll hurt your knees.”

She kisses the top of his head. She kisses his forehead and his cheek and he wishes he could stay like that, with her hair and perfume blocking out the rest of the world. But he realises dully that she’s right, his knees do ache, so he stands up on wobbly legs and leans on her as they walk to the bedroom.

Gerri sits him on the side of the bed. She takes off his tie first, then kneels down to take off his shoes and socks. He’s too tired to lift his arms but she manages to get him out of his shirt anyway. It’s only when she’s pulling his trousers down and settling in between his legs that he stops her: he knows where this is going, but he’s only going to make it to one tonight. “I need you,” he says, but she knew that anyway.

He fucks her slowly. He just wants to fucking look at her, the way her hair looks on the pillow and her lips look when wet. They don’t even kiss, not really - but he’s breathing into her mouth and she lets out these little moans that wash over him, help him breathe. Before he realises it, he’s crying, right over her head, and her eyebrows twist up in that awful way they do when she’s upset. He presses his face into her neck so he doesn’t have to see, so she doesn’t have to see him.

“Good boy,” she says quietly, lips tickling his face “That’s right. My good boy.”

That does him in. He sobs wetly into her skin, he is reduced to pathetic, clumsy thrusts into her. Gerri’s arms are wrapped around him now, her legs too, and he can’t name the twenty fucking feelings shouting at him, but if she keeps on kissing the side of his face with her open mouth he thinks he might be able to ignore them all.

“Oh my God, Gerr- Oh my-”

“That’s right, Rome; my darling boy,” she coos, rubbing at his shoulders and the back of his neck. “I’ll take it. Give it to me.”

And he does. Comes inside her, lets himself go limp against her body. He lifts his chin and she kisses him softly, despite the awkward angle.

She didn’t come, and that itches at him - she raised him better than that - but he’s so fucking tired and he’s so fucking raw. He snuggles his face into her armpit and closes his eyes.

“Is this - are you comfortable?”

“I'll be fine.”

She never lies to him. He loves her, with all of him.

“I'll make you come in the morning, promise.”

“Go to sleep, Rome.”

Like always, he does what she tells him to.

Love is wanting to know her.

She wears red nail polish on her toes. It’s one of her surprisingly sexy secrets, an indulgence that Gerri Kellman, stone-cold business bitch, would never have time for. But this Gerri, his stone-cold favourite bitch, who she carefully compartmentalises during the working day, sits on the edge of her bathtub and paints her nails ruby red. He rubs her feet slowly; fixated on the way she sighs and shifts.

“You okay down there?”

“Yeah,” he says absent-mindedly. At her giggle, he looks up at her a little sheepishly. “Yeah, Ger. You good?”

She’s got her glasses perched on the bottom of her nose - her distance ones, so she can see the TV. She follows his eye line to her feet and pauses for a moment, trying to figure out what he’s so interested in.

“Do you want me to paint your nails?”

“What? Shut up. No. What?”

She smiles at him in that little way she does, patient and amused. He can feel himself going red, sweaty and uncomfortable and too close. He snorts at her.

“That would turn you on, wouldn’t it, you old pervert. You wanna make me your little princess, huh? Fuckin’ - I don’t know - dress me up like a girl.”

She shrugs and changes the channel.

It takes another week, but he manages it. Okay, he doesn’t so much ask her for it as pay lavish attention to her frankly adorable feet, licking the arch and sucking hard on her toes until she sighs and kicks him away. “The polish is in the bathroom cabinet. And put your socks in the laundry before you come back.”

It’s so gross and domestic, cleaning up her house like he belongs there. He thinks for a second about throwing them on the hallway floor just to see the control-freak breakdown she would have over it. But he does put his stuff in the laundry basket; the idea sort of turns him on. Knowing that she’ll wash it, her cleaner will wash it, whatever.

“We’re going to have matching toenails,” he announces upon his return. “It’s super cute. Can we get friendship bracelets too?”

Gerri doesn’t dignify that with a response, just pats the sofa next to her and waits for him to settle down next to her. He sort of doesn’t want her to touch his feet: he’ll dirty her hands, it’s so utterly beneath her. But she does so gently, and without the slightest bit of fuss, and he decides not to tell her that in case she gets annoyed at him or (worse) feels sorry for him.

Her big, blue, lawyer’s eyes are fixed on his foot, and her hand is steady. She’s so good at this, doesn’t get a drop of the Channel polish on his skin or the white pillows. The attention is overwhelming. It makes him sweat in a nice way.

“I used to paint my girls’ nails,” she tells him, voice soft in the way it sometimes goes. “Before they had a dance or a date - Lizzie played piano, so before she did her concerts.”

“You went to piano recitals?”

“No,” she admits, and doesn’t sound guilty. “Not really.”

“What about- uh-”

“Baird?”

“Yeah.”

She shakes her head, smiles a little. “Less than I did. He was Senior Council before I was, anyway. All the time we worked together he was my boss, so it made more sense for me to.”

He gasps, and she pinches his ankle to punish him for moving.

“You fucked your boss, you little minx!”

She lets out a little laugh. “Sure did.”

He’d known that vaguely - some comment that Logan made about her move from Assistant, to Lawyer, to Council and being a power-hungry bitch. She is. He loves it about her. He wants her to laugh again. “Did you pull the slutty secretary act on him? Bend over and show him your stockings and thong?”

“In fact I did.”

He wonders if she would wear stockings for him. He wonders how she survived - walking around an office filled with sharks, biting at her calves in her knee-length skirts. He hates them all, suddenly, for ever looking at her - he pervs on her, fine, but that’s his thing, not fucking theirs. He’s mommy’s little pervert, she told him so; he’s allowed to.

“Roman.” She takes his face in her hands, kisses him once. It’s a distraction. But he’s going to fall for it anyway. “I outlived all of them.”

“Killed half of them off.”

She smiles her sexy, unbothered, I-know-the-secret-of-life-and-Roman’s-dick smirk. “Can’t be proven.”

Love is wanting to sit next to her.

“Mommy doesn’t have time to play with you right now, honey,” she says and lifts the contract up long enough for Roman to throw his legs over her lap. He can’t believe he’s getting called honey now. Gross.

“But I thought I was your favourite little boy.”

She doesn’t even spare him a look.

“Fine, whatever,” he mutters and pulls the joint out of his pocket. If he starts wiggling, she’ll throw him out of the room, so he might as well get high for this. She doesn’t love him smoking in the house, but she’s a soppy old woman at heart, and he can get away with more than she’d like him to think.

Today she’s wearing a necklace he got her. He buys her things often - tiffany rings and diamond necklaces and old lady pearl earrings - and hides them in her drawers for her to find. Although she tells him off for it, scowls and tells him that she’s got her own money, he knows the truth. When her eldest daughter complimented a gold bracelet she practically swooned. As did, admittedly, he. It’s the best thing his money can do - lay across her angel-soft skin. He wants to be that necklace, wants to grip her neck and dip into her cleavage. Sit right over her heart. Or whatever.

“Hey, Gerr? What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“Rich.” The answer is immediate. Truthful. “Are you going to keep blowing that in my face?”

“Oh, do you want some?” He holds the lit joint out to her, like a middle schooler at a party.

She sighs, but after a moment she nods and tilts her neck a little. Her rosebud lips are slightly open and he realises what she wants him to do. A buzz runs down his fingers, up to his arm, down to his dick. He lifts it to her lips, watches as she inhales, heavy and deep, and how she blows out the smoke in a business-like line, eyes never lifting from her page.

“Holy fuck, Gerri.”

“Hm?” She can make herself sound so innocent. It’s evil.

“Put that away, come kiss me.”

“No.”

He makes a high sound of frustration, throws his head back. She tuts; she tries to hide her smile.

“Don’t bother me while I'm working.”

“One kiss, woman.”

He hates begging for her attention, scraps of her. His dick is so hard his trousers might rip.

“Gerr, come on; you’re killing me. Just let me taste you.”

She huffs and sighs but reaches out, grabs his chin, and pulls him in for a chaste kiss. It’s nothing more than a press of lips, but she tastes like lipstick and weed and it makes his heart flip.

“Can you sit tight for twenty minutes?”

He thinks for a second. Probably. He doesn’t want to. But Probably. “Yeah.”

“Good boy.”

Love is wanting her to know him.

To give Tabatha her credit, she waits two whole hours before she brings it up. But when she does, Roman wishes he could just sink into the ground.

“No, I don’t mean it like that. You seem happier, you really do.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I’m serious. I approve.”

He throws his hands up in the air so he doesn’t hide his face in them. “Bullshit. You think she’s Mrs Robinson and I’m a dumb fucking - I don’t know - thinking with his dick.” She lets out a little giggle and he shifts away. “Fuck off. That’s not what it is.”

“So...” she rests her chin on her hands and looks at him seriously. “What is then?”

He doesn’t know how to explain it, really. Was never taught the words.

He wants her to castrate him. He wants to go grocery shopping with her, and pick out food that she will later eat. He learns the names of her daughters and where they went to college. He wants her to stand over him and cut open his chest with a scalpel, wants her to see his grime and grot and for her to pull it out with tweezers. He buys her a sexy nurse costume, which she flicks his ear for.

(And, when he's finally recovering from the flu that knocked him out the first week of January, she puts it on for him, leans over his chest, and calls him a sick puppy. He cums on her overflowing tits embarrassingly quickly, even for him.)

Plus: Gerri thinks he’s funny. She thinks he’s smart. He feels good when he’s around her, most of the time; he wants to be a better person when he’s around her, most of the time.

“It’s just fucking nice. It’s really nice.”

She looks at him for a long moment. He groans.

“Go on, ask me.”

“The age gap.”

“You know, if the roles were reversed this wouldn’t even be an issue, you goddamn fake feminist.”

She tries to kick at him with her long giraffe legs. “Hey! Don’t be an asshole, Ro. You introduced her as your sisters Godmother.”

“Did I?”

“Well, you introduced her as Hillary Clinton’s slutty sister, but I tried to forget about that for my own mental health.”

He laughed into his whiskey glass. Fuck, he’s hilarious.

“Be serious! Isn’t that a little...”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. Not to someone who wouldn’t get it, which would pretty much be anyone unfamiliar with the pandora’s dick box of his brain. But Tabatha’s weirdly the closest friend he’s ever had, so, whatever. He can try.

“It’s kind of a relief, I don’t know. I don’t have to tell her about my fucking horror show of a childhood or every mistake of an ex boyfriend. She just knows me.”

And the woman who calculates everything calculated that he was worth the trouble. Gerri knows that he’s a greedy pig, a fuck-up, a revolting worm - so she must see something good in him too. Something that she can care about. Does care about.

“You think it’s fucking weird, don’t you?”

“No,” she says, voice taking on that breathy, horny quality he used to hate. “I get it.”

“Ew, stop picturing it, please.”

She smiles at him, wide and smug. “Nope.”

“Gerr-Bear?”

“Hm?”

It’s the following evening, and he’s curled himself up in her nicest chair to watch her reply to, hopefully, the final emails of the night. “I’m not with you because of some Freudian shit, you know that, right?”

Her fingers pause for just a second, so quick that if you didn’t know her, didn’t love each of those short, precise fingers, you wouldn’t notice it. “What’s this about, Rome?”

“I don’t - I know you’re not my mommy. That’s not what makes my dick hard.”

She frowns just a little like she knows something he doesn’t. “Is this from therapy?”

“Tabitha.”

“Ah.”

“She said I should fucking communicate - I don’t know - it’s a bad idea. Don’t look at me.”

“Roman,” she says and reaches out for him. She’s even put the laptop down, which is pretty fucking unprecedented. That kind of treatment could make a girl feel special. Roman crawls into her arms immediately, because he’s not going to turn down affection from her, not ever, and she strokes his hair away from his face. “Of course I know that.”

“Do you? I mean, you know what people write about us. What those lawyer bitches you lunch with say about me. Shiv thinks you’ve been planning this since I was in the cradle.”

Her lips quirk into a smile but she stays quiet.

“I just don’t want you to think - I find you hot because you’re you.” It sounds stupid to his own ears. He tries to pull it back. “Your personality gives me a hard on.”

She hums as she decides how she feels about that. “Thank you. You really can be very sweet.”

“Yeah, well, only to you,” he says because it’s true. She twirls his hair around her little finger. “Communicating. I’m so going to shove this in my therapist’s fat face.”

She has a little smirk that she saves for him. He wants to eat her whole. “Let’s go to bed, Rome.”

Love is not blinking. Love is not flinching.

“Goddamn Frank?”

“Excuse me, Sir-”

“I can be in here, actually, because I’m rich, and her family, and fuck you.”

The nurse opens his mouth to say some other shit but Roman’s not interested anymore, because he’s looking at the woman he loves in a hospital bed. He wants to tear his hair out in chunks. “I have to hear this shit from  Frank ? Why would you do this to me? What is your fucking problem? Are you okay? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to know,” she says, and even her voice sounds weak, and her body is so little and her leg is up in the air and in a bright blue cast. “No, no need, he can stay.”

The nurse nods and then fucks off, and Roman doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “What happened? Hey, look at me, what the fuck; are you okay, baby?”

See, when he calls her baby, she’s supposed to giggle, then look around to make sure no one has noticed, and then melt that body against him. Not twist up her face like she’s eaten something rotten. “I’m fine, Roman. I slipped, I fell, and it’s fine. Don’t fuss at me.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“No, I look like a fucking idiot. Which is why I didn’t want you here so could you just...”

It isn’t like her to say shit like that. She looks rattled. “No, I’m staying. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She sighs and turns her head. “Kendall needed you on the Perrin acquisition.”

“Bullshit. Bullshit!”

“It’s not! He needed you over there and anyway, I’m sure you have much better things to do then sit by an old lady’s bed, so-”

Roman splutters, rubs his hand over his mouth. Is she fucking kidding right now?

“Is that what this is about?”

She blinks. “No.”

“You felt old? Just because you had - what - a fall?”

She keeps her mouth shut. Won’t look at him in the face. He rubs at his face, lowers his voice, tries to be kind to her like she is kind to him. “Jesus, you know that I don’t care. Don't insult me like that.”

Gerri’s silent for a minute, just thinking and swallowing. He can’t stop himself from reaching out and stroking at her hair, the natural curls that she hasn’t been able to blow dry for two days. Two days in a hospital bed, while he was fucking about in France. The idea makes him sick.

“There’s nothing to care about,” he says seriously, which is rare for him. She smiles just a little, all sad suddenly.

“I’m twenty years older than you, Roman. We’ve got to think logically about this.”

“No! We don’t actually.”

“This is it. This is the reality of it. I'm going to start stumbling and fumbling. It’s not sexy Roman, and I shouldn’t have tried to hide it from you. I’m sorry about that. But this is how it’s going to be, increasingly so.”

“So what?”

She looks at him like he’s an idiot, which is insulting. “I don’t want you to feel tied to me. Watching someone get old and sick - I’ve done it. You don’t have to.”

“Fuck you, Gerri. Really, fuck you.”

“Roman,” she sighs.

“No! You don’t get to take this away from me - all this shit about trusting each other, you know that was real to me.”

She covers her face with her little hand and that feels like a knife in his gut. He climbs into her hospital bed, rests his head on her tits and carefully avoids touching her entire left side. He feels like he might cry. “I mean it. Fuck you. Don’t treat me like I’m some - fucking, I don’t know-”

“Roman,” she repeats, trying to stop him from saying more, and she really is crying, the sentimental old bat. He’ll make fun of her for this later; now he nuzzles his nose into her hospital robe.

“I’m with you. I’ll stick around when you lose your mind, when I have to change your diapers. I’ll plan your funeral all professional and solemn just like you’d want it, you boring old bitch. I promise; I promise; I fucking promise you, Gerri.”

She’s a silent crier, which he should have expected. He doesn’t want her to be sad; can’t cope with it. He rubs his face against her again, motorboating her lovingly until she stops sniffling. “I mean it, Gerr-Bear,” he whines and hopes she’ll find it funny, hopes that she can’t tell his heart is literally aching like he’s a total pussy. “It’s so much - I’ve got so much and I have to give it to you - I mean I don’t know where to put it if I can’t. Just don’t do shit without me, okay?”

She tugs at his hair weakly. He looks up. He thinks she’s never looked so beautiful, her blonde hair curling around her head like a halo, her wet face and pink lips perfectly crafted by someone, something, all for him. “I love you,” she says, quite simply.

He pants like a dog and kisses her hard. He might throw up. “You love me?”

“I'm surprised too. But - I do. I love you.” Her lips are still brushing his, so he feels her smiling more than sees it. “You may have traumatised a nurse.”

“Yeah?” He pulls back, wipes away the tears that look so wrong on her face, and then has to kiss her again. And again and again and- “Wanna make it worse for them?”

Love is wanting to swallow her life whole and fit it into his.

It starts off practically, accidentally.

They spend more time at her apartment because he fucking hates his. It’s bigger, sure, emptier and colder. It has these huge windows which she refuses to let him fuck her in front of, so there’s no point in having them. And when they stay at his, she has to leave early in the morning to go get changed, and he has to walk around these awful rooms that don’t have her anymore. So, he tells their drivers to hers, and he watches her get dressed before work.

But he always forgets something. It’s his toothbrush most often, which is gross but fine. Sometimes it’s socks. A few times he’s forgotten a shirt, which he’s okay with - who’s going to tell the COO that they stink? - but she has a real problem with it. He starts storing the essentials in her seldom-used sock drawer, just a few boxers, a tie, whatever.

And then, one Thursday evening, he finds that drawer empty. He bends down and kisses the handle, imagining how her hand touched it, pulled it open, emptied a spot in her life just for him.

He puts his electric toothbrush in her bathroom. She pretends not to notice. He proposes to her twice more, both times while she’s asleep.

They invite Tabatha and her girlfriend over for dinner and sure, it’s fucking weird, but it’s nice too. Dinner with her daughters is less nice, but only because they’re both so much like their mother - three blonde women sitting at a table and fucking calculating at each other. It takes four stilted dinner parties before Angela even cracks a smile - and Roman has to pretend he’s not overjoyed that she has.

One evening he’s brushing her hair - which is something she wouldn’t have done before she got thrown out of Waystar, before she’d made the change from 18 hour days to four days per week as independent legal counsel. He knows she misses it. He also knows that she’s gained a comfortable amount of weight and is lunching with her daughters for the first time in her life, maybe. Also, she has more time for him now, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t love that.

Point is: he’s brushing her hair, slipping the brush through freshly dyed blonde, when she goes very quiet in the way she does when she’s trying to find the right words. Impressively patiently, for him at least, he waits for her.

“Angie’s getting married in May,” she says finally, in her lady-like business voice. “She’s doing the whole wedding weekend thing, and she’s invited the two of us.”

Static fills his ears. He swallows. “You want me to come?”

“Well, yes. You don’t have to, but - well, I’d appreciate if you would attend, as my-”

“Boy-toy? Trophy wife? Sexual plaything?”

“My partner.”

He pulls her up into his arms, kisses her hard on the cheek and the nose. “God, Gerr, you're serious?”

“Yes,” she says, then: “Jesus, hands off my ass, Roman. This is serious.”

He gives her a squeeze. “Let me celebrate this, come on. Don't rain on my parade.” She’s effectively promised that she’ll still be with him in eight months time. And that she’s willing to put up with the looks and the snide comments. Also, she's wearing her basic White-Lady Lululemons, which she only does if she wants him to palm at her. She sighs indulgently and gives up the fight, laying her head on his collar.

“So I'll tell her you're coming?”

“Yes. Absolutely. I'll be the best guest at the whole goddamn weekend.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Roman,” she hisses, eyes all narrow.

“Let’s just go back, huh, Gerr? How about a spa trip?”

“This is my daughters wedding,” she says, furious with him. “Probably the only event that I can’t just send a necklace and fruit basket to.”

“It could be a really nice necklace?”

The car stops. She’s not budging. “We made a commitment, Roman, you don’t get to back out of now.”

Which is true, but - at the time he didn’t quite compute the fact that he was going to spend a week with her family, who basically think he’s a strange indulgence that their mother will soon snap out of. At least Lizzie finds him amusing - Angela just glares at him.

“I play nice with your family,” she reminds him, one eyebrow raised, and he sighs. She’s right, almost all the time - it’s comforting and irritating in equal measures.

“Okay. Fine. But if Lizzie starts airdropping paparazzi pictures of me again-”

That smile when she knows she’s won is the most beautiful thing. “I’ve talked to her.” She presses her little hand to his chest, stopping him from stepping out of the car. “You’ve got this, Rockstar.”

He looks at her for a second, making sure that she means it before he scoffs. “Whatever, bitch.”

As soon as they step out of the car, the front door flies open, and the horror begins.

“Mom!”

A private little smile appears on Gerri’s face when she opens her arms. Roman had always thought Lizzie was the needy one, but Angela’s clinging to her mother in a way that seemed ridiculously soppy. Even when Gerri pats her back awkwardly and she backs away, she ignores Roman. “Richard! Come say hello, sweetie.”

Out of the open door walks what looks like the most boring man on the entire planet. He’s wearing a Knicks jersey, for fucks sake. What is this?

“Ms Kellman! So good to see you again, ma’am. How was the journey?”

“Oh, fine, thank you,” she says, her smile going big and fake. “Slept through most of it.”

Richard seems to realise Roman is there and looks at him curiously. Figures. “And this is...?”

Angie wraps her arm around her fiance’s waist and shoots Roman a wide, fake-ass grin. “My step-daddy.”

Love is tiring and hard.

It takes seven more months to actually get around to reading Logan Roy’s will, and when it comes, it’s horrid from the outset. Kendall is fucking shaking in a corner, Marcia’s dressed in head-to-toe black like a Victorian widow, and somehow Cousin Greg got into the room, like a dog hungry for scraps. The first fight was started by Shiv, who was furious that Roman brought Gerri - which lasted until a picture of her Christening was handed out by some lawyer they’ve never seen before. Roman peaked at it over her shoulder. Their father is holding his much longed-for baby girl in one hand, the other resting on Gerri’s hip. ‘My angel’, he wrote under it, which is revolting, but it makes Shiv go pale and pull Gerri into a tight hug. Besides, Willa appears on Connor’s arm, so Shiv redirects the hate pretty quickly.

They all get a picture, as it turns out. As if it would make them forget that the old man didn’t give a shit about his children. As if it would make him ignore the scribbled ‘No.1 Boy’ under Kendall’s picture.

“He’s cheating us out of every fucking penny,” Kendall says, and the naïve bastard still sounds surprised. “You’re seeing this, right?”

“Do you really want his blood money?” Gerri’s hand on his arm tells him he’s being too harsh. He tries again. “We knew this was coming.”

“Can we have a little respect here, please?” Shiv snaps, from where she’s curled up at Connor’s side, and she’s genuinely upset. Their brother rubs at her shoulder. Good old Connor. As long as he gets his money, he’ll accept anything. It’s sort of fucking zen.

“Sorry,” he mutters, but means it.

He’s staring at his own photo - taken when he was 15, and his father had just quite literally smacked the tongue ring out of his mouth - when the lawyer pushes a battered picture over the table, to Gerri.

A picture of the three of them - Baird and Logan, these two massive, Scottish guys, and crowded in between them was Gerri, a curvy little thing who was all curly hair and big eyes. “Holy shit,” he says, and makes a grab for it. “You’re not a real blonde, Gerr?”

“Yep, and it wasn’t Santa who put the coal in your stocking,” she says, tone careful. “Let me see it, Roman.”

“Yeah, yeah, wait,” he shoos her off. “Let’s see what personalised card he’s given you.

He turns it over, and his stomach is in his mouth.

‘My woman,’ he’s written. ‘you know how I’ve loved you’.

It takes a minute before he realises what he’s reading, and that’s only because he’s saying it out loud. “My woman?”

He must have stood up because he’s pacing and Gerri has gotten up too, and his hand is shaking and he can’t think. “Why’s he said that? Why the fuck has he said that?”

Her whole face is eyes, wide and frantic, but her tone is steady when she speaks. “I don’t know.”

“Fuck off!” He’s laughing but not really. “You don’t know? Is that the line you’re going for? You don’t know?”

“Jesus, stand down,” Kendall says, physically getting in between him and Gerri. He wants to push him away, wants to look at her face. “He's fucking with your head, man. That's all this is.”

“How do you know what the fuck this is? Gerri?”

Gerri’s licking her lips, Gerri’s backed into a corner far away from him. Does she think he’ll hit her? What has she done? “You can tell me, honey-bear. Did you fuck him? Have some affair? A tit-job in return for a pay bump?”

She flinches like he really did hit her, and his heart and his gut sinks into his shoes. That was a cruel thing to say because that’s something she does especially for him. He wants to take it back. He wants her to smack him hard. He wants to shake her until she explains.

“You don't get to call me a slut, Roman; don't you ever call me a slut,” she says, but her shoulders are down like a kicked dog. It’s unnatural. Shiv’s asking what’s happening and Tom’s trying not to look smug that someone has a worse relationship than he does.

She leaves quickly, but the sound of the door slamming lingers. Ken’s physically pushing him back into his seat, and he slaps his brother’s hands away like he did when they were children. He feels like a child sitting in a too big seat. “Let’s get this over with.” Even with his hand over his face, he can feel them looking at him, all of them just fucking staring. “Well? Hurry it up!”

That night he returns to his apartment a few billion richer and alone.

It is so fucking cold - no one had been inside except the cleaners for two months - three? - but that was fitting, so he leaves it like that. All of his nice clothes are with Gerri. His phone charger is on her bedside table.

But: he’s got his booze. He pours himself one drink, then another, then drops the glass on the floor and starts gulping from the bottle. Eventually, he drops that too, but it’s okay because he’s drunk most of it. He cries. He crawls on hands and knees to the bathroom to piss and wakes up there four hours later. The bathroom tiles are sort of comfortable, so he settles into them. Gerri’s supposed to look after him now; supposed to stroke his hair and call him a disgrace, supposed to wrap him up in bed and leave him two ibuprofen. He wonders if she ever stroked Logan’s hair, and throws up on the floor.

Two days pass, then seven, then twelve. He knows that because Ken calls him every day, like a fucking mother hen, peck peck pecking at him. Suddenly he understands why Kendall used to hate him so viciously when he would try and get him through whatever withdrawal he was in the middle of. All Roman wants is Gerri, her hips and voice and shoes next to his in the hallway, to have her and taste her and rub her on his gums. He can never bring himself to click on her number, but he thinks about it all the time.

It’s the next morning when Shiv calls him.

“You’re acting pathetic,” she says, which is true. “Kendall says you’ve been drunk for two weeks.”

“Kendall’s a fucking narc.”

“Grow up.”

“No, you,” he replies weakly. “Whatever he’s told you is a lie. It’s good.”

She sighs like he’s an idiot. She does that a lot. Roman stares at his empty fridge more, as if he could make it change. “Listen, Roe - I don’t like you and Gerri.”

“Thanks.”

“No, shut up. The idea of it. But you’re the most fucking normal I’ve ever seen you, the happiest, probably.”

“I was, yeah,” he sniffs, and she must be walking on eggshells around him because she doesn’t make fun of him for that.

“You’re going to let dad ruin the best thing that’s ever happened to you?”

Roman hangs up, thinks a moment. The old man’s probably laughing at him from up there - or down there - either way, knowing that he’s pulled one over on them one last time and that Roman had let him, fuck up that he is. It takes a moment and a tall glass of scotch, but he opens up his contacts and clicks on his ‘MommyGf’.

“Gerri, it’s me, please don’t hang up.”

“So.”

“So,” he agrees. He’s standing in the outskirts of her living room like if he gets in too close she’ll remember what he’s done, until she waves him to the couch and stands a little away from him.

“I’m going to speak, and you’re going to be quiet. And then we can talk about this, but I need to finish first, okay?”

There’s a joke in there he’s not allowed to make. Would probably be too fucking depressed to anyway. He nods dully.

“When Baird died... it was the worst time in my life. I’d married him the year I started working at Waystar, the year after I graduated collage and I’d spent my entire adult life being part of a partnership. We had our girls, and he supported me through that, and my time at law school, through the company, kept me safe. And then he was suddenly old.” She tries to smile, and Roman realises that she’s never spoken like this before. “And then he was dead. I was alone; totally adrift. Personally, professionally... I didn’t know what to say to my daughters, I didn’t know if I was going to keep my job and Logan - he was very similar to Baird in some ways. We had flirted, sometimes, as friends do, but I think my vulnerability-” she says the word like it’s odd in her mouth- “was attractive to him. And you know how he is when he’s found a new thing: he was enamoured. It lasted all of two months. Roman, it was no love affair.”

He swallows hard and she looks just as uncomfortable. “Why did it stop?”

“I had no interest in becoming the next Mrs Logan Roy. When my job became secure, I ended it.”

Roman had to ask. He pulls one knee to his chest and tries to get his head on straight. He doesn’t particularly want to ask it, the one thought that has been swirling around his head and he can’t beat it out. She’s a cold, hard woman who can look after herself. But he saw how her eyebrows twisted and her eyes went wide like a little girl’s. She was genuinely terrified.

“Did he-”

“God, no. I chose to do it. Logan was a lot of things but - no.”

She moves hesitantly, cautiously, but when he doesn’t protest, she sits down by him. If he touches her, he’ll forget it all, so he puts his hands on his lap. “It was advantageous for my career. I’m not proud of it, but I won’t apologise for it either.”

“Fucking hell. ‘Advantageous for your career’?”

She narrows her eyes at him, at this sudden change of tone. “Not all of us have the benefit of a last name.”

“I can’t fucking believe this-”

“Yes you can!” She splutters, pushes her hair out of her face. “Yes you can, Roman; you know what I am. What’s this about?”

“What is it ever about?” He needs a fucking cigarette, he can feel the absence of a packet in his pocket. “You have a reason for everything, all the time. So why the fuck are you still with me?”

She doesn’t answer for a long time, maybe thirty seconds, and when she does, her voice is all shaky. “There’s no reason for me to be with you. It was poorly justified from the start - your father was a sensible manoeuvre, for a woman in my position at that time. I loved Baird very much, and he made sense.”

He laughs, wants to cry. “What?”

“I mean - I've always known what to do and why I should do it. Always. And then you came in, and were so exciting and interesting and wonderful, under all this, you know.” Roman catches himself smiling just a little. “You make me do shit that I never do. And I thank you for it! I enjoy it, God knows why. Honestly, Rome, I have no idea why I want you.” She breathes in, and when he meets her eye, she’s desperate. “But I want you.”

He is angry and hurt and bitter. But Gerri is scared.

He throws his arms around her, and it’s awkward at first, because neither of them really hug outside of bed, not often, but she curls into him and he’s not been this happy for two weeks - a lifetime of two weeks, a never-ending two weeks.

“Promise we’ll never do this again?”

She wipes her nose against his shirt and then looks up at him. “Which part?”

“Oh, gross, fuck Gerri.”

She lets out a little giggle, then another, and then he’s joining her, laughing like idiots on the couch.

“My therapist is going to fucking love this.”

She nods seriously.

Love is an agreement.

Gerri is asleep next to him, flat on her back and snoring quietly. Even in this dullness, she looks like an angel: the yellow light of the city makes her hair and her tits glow gold. He wishes he could take a picture of her, but she’d probably kill him, so he stares at her through bleary eyes until he can barely keep them open.

He can’t bat off the sleep anymore. He settles back down onto his back and pulls her in, nudging her until she turns over onto her side, and then again until her head is on his chest and she’s wiggling adorably against his side.

“God, Gerr marry me,” he says like he always does.

“Mhm, okay.”

“What?”

Gerri looks up at him, her eyes big and round. When did they open? “I said ‘okay’.”

He jerks up, and she whines about him startling her but his blood is pumping in his ears and he thinks this is a cruel, cruel dream. “Pinch me. Pinch me!”

She does, sharp and pulling at his chest, just like he likes. And he’s still awake. And she’s smiling at him, and he doesn’t think she’s joking.

“You don’t need to fucking, I don’t know, think about it?”

“I have been thinking about it. I want a ring, Roman.”

He’s suddenly awake, more awake than he’s ever been in his entire life, and his hands are shaking so he puts them on her cheeks.

“Yes.”

“And you’re telling your siblings, not me.”

“Yes.”

“And we’ll need to discuss prenuptial arrangements.”

“No.”

She raises an eyebrow at him, which looks so sexy he takes his hand off her long enough to turn on the bedside table. “You realise I would take you for everything you’re worth, right?”

“If you leave me, I'll walk off a tall building.” he says seriously. “I mean it, I won’t give a shit about the money.”

She hums in a way that means they’ll discuss this later.

“Don’t use that face on me, Gerri; I’m not going to be able to get it up again tonight.”

She slaps his arm. He pulls her closer. “Just say yes. Let’s be married.”

“Yes.”

His blood rushes from his head. “Huh?”

“I love you. I’ll marry you, Roman.”

“Yes? Yes!”

She’s shoved her face in his neck so he kisses her hair and her forehead, lifts her hand up and kisses that too, wants to jump up and down and tell everyone he’s ever met, ever. He can’t really get it hard again, but he does hump against her a little just because he’s romantic like that. He feels like he did the first time he did coke. He feels like he did the first time Gerri came on his face. He feels fucking better than he’s ever felt in his entire life.

“I need to go piss,” he whispers because he fucking does and he doesn’t want her to see him freak out in case she rescinds the invitation to marry her.

She kisses his nose and rolls over, settles into her pillow. “Say hi to Tabs for me.”

And when Tabatha is squealing down the phone at him, and he can barely hear her because his heart is throbbing in his ears, he stubs his toe on the shower. And he suddenly realises that he’s going to use her shower forever now, put his shampoos next to hers, fuck her in it, pull her hair out of the drain.

It’s fucking bliss.

“Geraldine Caroline Boseman Kellman,” he starts and then stops.

He was the one who pushed for it to be a whole thing, with their families invited and flower arrangements. Gerri looks like a queen, even when she’s scowling at him for using her full, Hicksville Kentucky ass name, in a long golden dress with a neckline that might make him come in his pants on his wedding night. His wedding night!

“Yeah, Rome?” Gerri says lowly, just for him, but he doesn’t know what to say.

You’re the first person who didn’t treat me like an idiot, even when I acted like one, and I’ll worship you forever because of it. You’re my favourite person to talk to. I want to be in every room you're in, for the rest of time. You’re cunning and kind and scheming and sexy and ruthless and I think you might have been made for me. I’m about to have a panic attack.

“I promise that I will never sleep with anyone else, ever again. Unless Hillary finally answers my DMs.”

“Oh my God,” Shiv says from somewhere behind him. He doesn’t give a shit.

“And only if she’s down for the threesome.”

People are laughing and scoffing, which is good because he can feel himself tearing up. It’s okay, though, because Gerri’s eyes are all misty too, and he knows she understands. “Thank you, Roman.”

“And if you die before me, I will never get hard again.”

Gerri waves at the officiant. “Okay, well- can we finish up now?”

“Just-”

Tabatha groans as if her wedding ( ‘ritualistic love celebration’, to be exact) wasn’t revoltingly long and soppy. There were doves, for fucks sake, and three sets of vows.

“Wanted to say, in front of our dearly beloved: you’re the love of my life, Gerri. It’s you and me.”

She’s slightly pink, from excitement or champagne or being the centre of attention, which she hates. But she loves him. He knows that now. The man tells him he can kiss the bride, and he can’t believe it, can’t fucking picture that, and genuinely thinks he might have vertigo.

And Gerri, careful, calculating, wonderful Gerri, stands on her toes and kisses him hard.

Love is really nice, most of the time.

It’s a Sunday afternoon and Gerri’s thighs are around his ears.

“Did you miss me? Oh, I know you did. Trust me, I missed you too.”

“Stop talking to my cunt, Roman. It’s odd.”

“But-”

“Why don’t you kiss him instead, huh?”

No word of a lie - his heart fucking stops.

“You call your cunt a ‘he’?” Four years, and there’s still so much he doesn’t know about this woman. Four years, and she can still make his heart stop. “Gerri Kellman, you’re my dream woman.”

“I know, honey, but get on with it. Chop-chop.”

It’s that Sunday evening, and they’re cleaning up after dinner they made, and isn’t that a domestic fucking image.

Gerri’s been learning to cook, like the nice little (semi-) retired woman that she is, and it means he’s stuck with cleaning up the globs she leaves on the counters. Cleaning. It’s fucking embarrassing, but every time he complains about it she reminds him that she could get remarried, so, like, whatever. She picks up a dirty wooden spoon and frowns at him. He loves that frown.

“We have cleaners! I pay for the fucking cleaners.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times-”

“Yeah?” He shifts past her. If her cramped kitchen didn’t present so many opportunities to rub himself against that perfect ass, he would buy her a new apartment just to be rid of it. He turns back to the pasta maker. “Well, I didn’t listen.”

He registers the sound before the sting. And then he’s yelping, reaching behind him to press a hand over his abused ass cheek. “Hey!”

She’s smiling at him, the old pervert. She waves the spoon in the air as if she didn't just smack him with it, as if she's just a sweet little lady.

“You’ve got tomato sauce on my trousers! They're Hugo Boss! Shit!”

A shrug. Smug, perverted bitch. She’s possibly perfect. “If you’d washed up, this wouldn’t be a problem.”

He sighs, knowing she’s right, hoping she’ll hit him again. “Yes, mommy.” When Gerri holds out the spoon, he takes it, obediently going to the sink and ignoring the way she twisted her mouth, trying not to give away her amusement.

“I’m going to call Lizzie,” she tells him.

“I’m going to tell everyone you beat your wife,” he yells at her back.

She snorts, throws up her middle finger, and his chest goes gooey with love for her all over again.

And Roman knows about love, now.

He knows that love is turning off the lights when she falls asleep with her glasses on the end of her nose, even though it drives him crazy that she does.

Love is kissing that nose.

Love is sleeping with his back facing her, and waking up with a hand on her tit.

And love is squeezing it before going back to sleep.