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Gerri is not the kind of person who usually goes for the whole Valentine’s Day thing. The year can pass her by, and she will not even notice she forgot to acknowledge it. She just doesn’t think it has anything to do with her. It belongs to a different category of woman, a flighty, girlish one with time to sigh over garish heart-shaped tchotchkes, or a glorified box of candy. The whole romantic comedy routine. Like a Marissa Tomei movie she saw in the mid-90’s, where a wide-eyed twenty-something jumps on a plane to Italy on a whim to chase her supposed soulmate, who she’s never even met. It’s like free-falling and trusting someone will be there to catch her.
The whole thing makes her feel a little nauseous. It certainly doesn’t resemble how she’s lived her everyday life up until now. Gerri isn’t bitter about this. She made a choice, and she is satisfied by how accomplished she was in her professional life, even now that she’s retired. How high she climbed, and how well she clung to the side of the boat when the whole thing threatened to capsize. Her work life became her whole life. It is what it is, and she refuses to feel bad about it for one second.
However. In her youth, and even in the first several years of her marriage, she may have held a slightly different view. It’s hard to remember, and she doesn’t want to, really. Still, yes. The younger version of her found the idea of Valentine’s Day romantic. It made her a little giddy back then when she thought of the moment where the boy she liked would do something special for her. When Baird would. Nothing showy, even then she couldn’t stand that kind of thing. But there was something the younger version of her found utterly romantic. The coming together, the choosing to be together. Choosing to find ways to show her lover that he was meaningful, that what they shared meant something.
She never accounted for Roman Roy.
Even when she was trying to game the whole thing, back when it was all a lark with a handful of phone calls between them, she’d had no idea what he would do to her life. What he would do to her.
Roman loves Valentine’s Day, but he makes a show of how little he cares about it. Gerri knows this because she knows him. A year after everything imploded for the last time, a year after she’d been sure that there was no way they could possibly come back from this, and he has all but moved into her apartment. She wakes up to him most days, clinging to her like a koala. The more shocking days are when she awakens to find that she is the one who has shifted in the night and drawn him as close as possible.
They wake up on the morning of Valentine’s Day, and her kitchen is filled with the smell of roses. It's a veritable garden in there when she investigates, spilling over into the next room. She only brings one of the prickly flowers into the bedroom when she returns with her coffee. And Roman’s.
He sits up.
“Aw, cute. You brought coffee for me, too?”
“Roman,” she says. “Some conniving little pipsqueak left the contents of an entire florist in my living room.”
Roman studiously avoids her eye, grabbing his coffee.
“Really?” he says with a smirk. “Only one florist’s worth of roses? The fuckers—I asked for ten.”
She doesn’t want to indulge him.
“It wasn’t necessary.”
He huffs a breath and goes to look at his phone, mumbles so she can barely hear him.
“There aren’t enough roses in the world for you, Ger.”
He says things like that and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Her face goes all red, like a traitor.
Roman spends a lot of time these days talking to her about ‘love languages’. Which is some nonsense Gerri recalls from so many news cycles ago it feels as dated as shoulder pads. But he’s trying, she appreciates he’s trying to do right by her now. As misguided as it is. This morning, coffee pushed to the side, he’s spending his time lying upside down in bed reading listicles on his phone and yelling for her occasionally when he finds something worth reading out loud.
“Shit, ok this one’s you.”
Gerri doesn’t answer. She isn’t sure she’s meant to. He keeps talking.
“Acts of service,” he reads. “You enjoy doing small, selfless things to show you care, and believe actions speak louder than words.”
Gerri doesn’t like how this makes her feel, the prickle of recognition on her skin.
“I’m not sure that’s me,” she says.
He hums and keeps reading. She much prefers mornings where he grips onto her hips before she can leave the bed, and fucks her with his tongue. This kind of thing, this incessant talking about feelings, unsettles her greatly. But she can’t keep her mouth shut, can’t help herself, because of course he’s gotten to her.
“Which one’s you, Roman?”
“Oh,” and his voice goes a little high. “I mean, I dunno. Whatever.”
He’s hedging, which means she’s embarrassed him somehow. Serves him right. Gerri tries to think of what she knows about Roman. She’s experienced so many different love tokens from this man, and not all of them welcome. Obviously, he is singularly talented at finding the perfect gift. Excessive amounts of Valentine’s roses notwithstanding. She can recall only last month, when he got her the silver locket for no reason other than he wanted to make her smile. It looks exactly like one she lost when she was in her forties, something she’d mourned because it had belonged to her late sister. Roman is all too perceptive. He’ll often find something so specific that it’s uncanny, getting his nails right into her skin.
“Is there one about gifts?” she asks, trying to sound casual. “Gift giving sounds like you.”
He doesn’t look at her when he answers.
“Uh, yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?”
But he doesn’t elaborate. And eventually he drops his phone, bored of whatever this game was.
“Hey, dinner tonight? You gonna let me take you somewhere? Doesn’t have to be a big thing. Like, fuck Valentines. But I mean, it can be a thing…”
Gerri doesn’t know how she can keep doing this. Playing house, playing at a relationship like some saccharine Hallmark Christmas couple. They are clearly unsuited for one another. Of course, sexually, that’s another matter altogether. But she doesn’t think she can be this person for him.
She hasn’t been with someone and actually done Valentine’s in a long time. Not since she lost Baird, and even then they’d stopped paying attention to things like that. There was simply never any time.
All Gerri has now is time. And Roman’s eyes are such a weakness of hers. Right now, he is looking at her like he can see right through her. Like he knows.
But he can’t know.
“Gerri?”
She supposes she can’t avoid it, this time.
“Sure, fine,” she says. “Dinner tonight.”
She still has to eat, after all.
Gerri hadn’t planned to let Roman back into her life at all. Though he remained in her thoughts after that ugly scene with the board vote. It seemed a cruel act that Roman had to be the Roy body offered up for the cameras, dabbing the blood from his brow. At the time she’d had the urge to grab hold of him and, do what, she doesn’t know. Take him away from this last bit of horror. Keep him company as the blood dried. Yes, even after everything Roman did to her earlier in that week. She still remembers that awful little room. The too-bright light in her face. The realization that she was worth nothing. Fired on a whim, just to prove he could.
But then, neither of them could be trusted around phones on a good day. and regardless of how much he’d hurt her, she knew where his head was at during that terrible week. She still can’t stand to think of him at the funeral. How he stood up there, an open wound. Her poor Roman. Let’s be honest. she was always going to answer when he called. And he called a few months later.
Valentine’s dinner, then. Gerri tells herself she isn’t getting dressed up for him, that she didn’t walk past the window display on Fifth Avenue and see this dress, think of how Roman’s jaw would slacken when he saw her in it. It’s just on this side of tasteful, in terms of her decolletage. But oh, she thinks of how his eyes will drift. How she’d feel consumed by it, being wanted. She thinks of him stripping it off her, and motorboating her breasts, his slippery little thing out. Coming all over her stomach.
She takes a breath and returns to her reflection in the mirror, tidies her hair and is satisfied.
They have no business fucking like rabbits the way they do, at her age. After everything. But she’s not complaining. If he would only stop trying to push this thing to be something that it wasn’t, it would be perfect.
When she steps out into the foyer to meet him, Gerri is the one who nearly staggers, embarrassed by how weak her knees get. Roman is so singularly handsome sometimes she can barely manage to breathe. He fills out his suit so nicely, he always has. It’s like he’s doing it on purpose. The cut of the pants over his ass, the way his shirt looks over his arms. His hair carefully disheveled so she can’t help but push it out of his eyes. Stops short of running her hands over his chest. Of biting his lip until he bleeds.
When she looks at him more closely, his eyes seem dewy, like he might be about to cry.
“Fuck,” is all he can say, taking her in. He sounds drunk.
How is it possible that they haven’t tired of each other yet? It’s been months, months since he started co-habiting here and she just allowed it. Didn’t mention it, simply accepted he was here to stay. Months since she moved past the creative insults, and got to touch him for real. Got to have his mouth on her, and occasionally have him inside her.
Fuck, he makes her crazy.
“Um,” Roman clears his throat. “We should go, or they’ll give our table away.”
This is of course nonsense. There’s always some way to pay or cajole extra privileges into their dining experience. But Gerri goes along with it, lets him hurry her. Whatever it is, it will be over soon enough. And her duties on Valentine’s Day as his lover, his whatever-she-was could end. And the normal rules could apply again.
She sees the place he’s taking her to, and she almost doesn’t believe it. It isn’t even somewhere Gerri’s heard of. Japanese, but not whatever is fashionable, and she would know. It’s small, homey even. The tables aren’t done up to impress, more on the side of a cafeteria than a fine dining establishment. Gerri finds she’s annoyed that Roman’s done this. That she is having to sit in a barely-comfortable chair on Valentine’s Day, trussed up like a thanksgiving turkey in a place that will surely give her food poisoning.
“Roman,” she hisses.
But he pretends not to have heard her.
He makes small talk with the server, talks like they’ve met, makes the usual kinds of off-color jokes. He’s like an excitable puppy, looking at the simple handwritten menu.
“Get the chicken katsu ramen,” he says to her. “Just trust me.”
Gerri is still making up her mind, but Roman orders a bit of everything. Like he’s at Jean-Georges getting the tasting menu. She dreads the coming food, though the smell is enough to make her salivate. The dishes come out bit by bit, as they become ready. And when she tries it, the ramen broth is obscenely good pared with the chicken katsu. And the ramen itself is just the right texture, enough that she simply devours it like a woman possessed. So she braves the next dish, and a little of the next. By the time she gets to the sashimi she feels full, but she can’t resist a taste.
“Jesus Christ,” she says.
The sashimi is perfect, but in a way that isn’t showing off. It’s just good.
Roman looks smug, but he deserves to.
“I know, right? Fucking incredible.”
“I thought you were trying to screw with me.”
Roman laughs, but he looks at her like he simply adores her.
“I would never fuck with your Japanese food, Ger.”
And just like that she’s transported back to that time in Japan with him. It was not so long ago, but God does it feel like an age. Initially, she’d been furious to be saddled with babysitting duty after his colossal fuck-up. But Roman surprised her. He’d shown up, done the work. Most of all, he’d charmed her. There may have been a shared meal here and there. Gerri wasn’t made of stone.
Gerri had felt like this even then, she realizes. Roman had smiled at her over the table at some little place in Japan, and spoken animatedly as he shared his sake. And some part of her felt like it was in free-fall. It wasn’t a bad feeling, but it was strange. It made her nervous, but still she couldn’t help but stare at Roman, and think. Oh, here you are. I’ve found you.
And now Gerri is here with him in another Japanese restaurant. Because the fact is, she’s in love with him. Has been for quite some time. She loves him and it utterly terrifies her. Roman doesn’t know. She sees this now, and of course he doesn’t. Because she hasn’t told him. Looking at him now, you can see how he carries this uncertainty in his body. Like he thinks he is one bad act away from losing her again. So, he digs deep and tries to find some new gift or trinket or otherwise fanciful thing to gift her. Wraps it up, presents it with a flourish. Anything to make sure the sun will rise again.
Gerri immediately thinks back to those ridiculous love languages, and she realizes she’s had it completely wrong. The Roys are the ones who use gifts as a cover, who give and receive empty, expensive things that will sit in a corner unnoticed before being dealt with by a housekeeper. A horse for a daughter you spend little time with, a harp for whatever flavor-of-the month is in your life. Even the more homely canned cranberry sauce is social currency. The reality is, gift-giving was the only safe way for Roman to show affection for his family without getting torn to pieces. So, he became exceptional at it. But he’s not the same as them.
Roman, who repeatedly keeps trying to talk to her, searching for soft things, meaningful things to say. Her sweet Roman, who showed up to a knife fight offering Logan love. Of course gifts aren’t his so-called love language. If anything, it’s something like spoken words. Words are what he needs. But it’s startlingly clear to Gerri now that Roman also needs someone to do this for him. Someone who will be brave and say out loud all those things, even the terrible things he’s afraid are true. Roman needs to be surrounded by a cocoon of words from someone he can trust with his most tender parts. And Gerri is not sure she is capable of all of that. Sure, the twisting of the knife she can do. Saying the dirty, unsaid things that lurk in the dark. But she is not sure she’s brave enough to show up when Roman needs it most, with nothing but love in her pocket.
Well, she sure as hell needs to figure out how if she wants to be someone he needs, the same way she has begun to need him.
Full from dinner, but not too full. That’s always the sweet spot. But Roman is staring out the window of the car in silence, leaving Gerri alone with her thoughts.
“That was lovely,” she says out of the blue, and cringes.
She sounds like an old lady complimenting her hair colorist.
“It’s ok,” Roman says. “I know you hate this shit, I just…it’s been ok hasn’t it? Our disgusting mess?”
Gerri smiles at him softly.
“It has.”
She suddenly has the need to touch him, to ground herself. Just to confirm that he’s here, that he still wants her. She reaches forward and puts a hand on his thigh. It’s hardly risqué as far as she and Roman are concerned, but the look he gives her makes her feel very warm.
“I don’t hate Valentine’s Day,” she says quickly, needing to tell him something of what’s been going on in her mind.
Roman looks a little unconvinced, and so she has to qualify.
“Alright. I hate it. But you’re an exception, don’t you know that?” she is starting to feel a little desperate. “Please tell me you know that, Rome.”
Roman takes pity on her, and leans over to kiss her. She pulls him closer, feeling crazy, feeling needy. Feeling like she has to have him as soon as possible.
The car arrives home, and they barely make it inside her apartment. It’s revolting, it’s absolutely exhilarating the way she can’t stop herself from pressing him to the wall like a bug on a pin, hissing obscenities into his ear while he grinds against her.
He comes in his pants. Which isn’t a roadblock for Gerri. In fact, she’s got a written tally on a legal pad in her office with response times. How quickly she can make him explode, and seeing if she can break her record.
Gerri doesn’t care, so long as he gets a move on with her.
"Undress me," she says, breathlessly. "Hurry up, Roman."
"Fuck."
She wants to consume him, she wants to crawl inside him and feast on all his soft parts. Wants to be consumed. Her back is going to protest in the morning, but he takes her on the floor. He tears her dress, getting it off her. She doesn’t care. Just wants Roman’s mouth, his hands pressing inside her. Yes, like that. Just like that. She makes a deep keening groan when she comes all over his face. Roman laps at her like a man dying of thirst, the delicious aftershocks still going until he pushes her over into another one.
And then they’re left there with just themselves. The frenetic energy gone, replaced by a comfortable lethargy. Gerri winces when she sits up, and finds Roman watching her, a smirk on his face.
“Your floor sucks,” he says.
Gerri snorts.
“Maybe you should learn to wait until we get to a bed.”
“Me?” he says, and he laughs in her face, because she is so often the instigator, so often the one who can never be patient. Gerri wants him now, always now.
“I’m going to install a fucking rubber gym floor,” Roman says. “The next time you injure your grandma back.”
“For your old man knees,” she retorts.
“Fuck you,” he sniggers.
And she feels a strange sense of joy overtake her, that she is here with him, that he has chosen her. She loves him. She loves him. She loves him.
They are comfortable in each other’s presence now, moving about the bedroom easily before crawling into bed. Roman has his phone out again, and Gerri can see the light of the screen reflected in his eyes.
“Do you think…” she says, before she loses the nerve. “I was wondering, about that whole love language thing?”
Roman looks up, and she’s aware that this is delicate, that it is all so goddamn fragile and delicate.
“You’re actually interested?”
“I’m actually interested.”
He doesn’t look nervous to tell her, he doesn’t look fully relaxed either. But Roman can never deny her anything. He scrolls down and shows her the phone screen and she lets out a breath in recognition.
“Words of affirmation,” she reads out loud.
“It’s nothing,” he says, sinking down into the bed. “Who fucking cares? Some dipshit with his finger up his ass probably came up with this whole thing.”
But Gerri knows he does care, cares very deeply. She can tell by the way his voice rasps, and the way he’s avoiding her eye.
She doesn’t know how to tell him she already figured it out, that she does in fact know Roman as well as he knows her. She’s not sure he’ll believe her.
What she says instead is.
“I think it might be important.”
He huffs a breath out.
“Yeah?” he says.
Gerri wriggles so she is leaning back into him, pulling his arm so it wraps around her stomach.
“Yeah.”
When Gerri tells Roman she loves him it is the day after Valentine’s. But she does say it, she needs to say it. And his smile is like the sun.