Teach Me to Please | Please Me #1 - Chapter 24: Chapter 24

In a rush, I climbed off the table and hastily began packing up my supplies. Roman helped me, straightening out his shirt as I fixed my hair. When his parents walked in, their eyes widened in total surprise.
"Sienna!" his mom smiled brightly. She looked at her son busily stacking away papers. "I didn't realise you guys had a tutoring session tonight." I looked out the window to see that the sun was setting.
"Erm, yeah." I awkwardly replied.
"Sienna had somewhere to be after school and so she asked if she could move the session back by a few hours." Roman quickly explained. Both his parents nodded in understanding.
"Well, good thing I bought extra macaroni." She chuckled and handed Roman a shopping bag. "Help me put these away, my feet are so tired."
I quickly interjected feeling like an intruder, "I-I can help if you want."
"Nonsense!" Mark, his dad, brushed it away. "You've already been working hard with tutoring."
"And you're our guest." Roman's mom carried on, stacking yogurt pots in the fridge as Roman shoved a frozen bag of chicken cubes in the freezer.
"Now, tell me, Sienna." The voice of Mark made me whip my head around to face him as he unpacked the shopping bags on the counter. Bacon, carrots, mints, orange soda, and so much more. "How many slices of garlic bread do you like."
How many slices of garlic bread – shit, they weren't asking me to stay for dinner, were they?!
I waved my hands about, "Oh no! It's okay. You don't have to –"
"Of course we do!" Roman's mom argued. "It's almost dark out and I'm cooking dinner anyways. I'd love for you to join us, Roman never has his friends over very often –"
"Mom!" Roman cut his mom off in pure embarrassment.
"Oh shh!" his mom lightly slapped his shoulder. I looked at her face. She was so excited that Roman had a friend – even though I didn't know if Roman and I were friends – but the look on her face was so bright with happiness that I'd feel so guilty to refuse.
"O-Okay." I finally gave in.
❦❤︎❦
Sitting at the dinner table with Roman and his parents was another type of awkward. Although, the food was delicious. It'd been ages since I had had good old macaroni and I was pretty sure everyone was a sucker of garlic bread, even though it completely broke my diet, but I'd feel horrible to be so fussy.
I could feel Roman's awkwardness as he sat opposite me, scoffing down mouthfuls of macaroni. Roman didn't have any friends and so this whole situation must've been very new and very uncomfortable for him. Especially since I wasn't just the girl he was tutoring; I was the girl he was doing... other things with.
"So, Sienna." His mom decided to strike up conversation. "Do you and Roman share any classes together?"
"Erm, no." I answered. "Roman's more... he's smarter than I am, hence, the tutoring." I nervously chuckled.
"How long has the tutoring been going on?" his asked.
"Two months or so." Roman answered. Two months?! I mean, I knew we had been doing this for a while but two whole freaking months?!
His mom smiled contently and took a bite of garlic bread. "And you two are friends?"
Roman and I shared a look. Were we friends? We never said we were. We've never hung out outside of this whole deal thing.
But you probably know too much about each other to just be strangers.
No, we weren't strangers. We were... urgh, I don't. what do I even know about Roman?
He likes science, he wants to be a neurologist, he likes to box but ironically doesn't like violence, he has a fifteen-year-old sister named Skye who also listens to Lana Del Rey, he likes listening to The Neighbourhood, he wants to be valued more for his mind than anything else, he likes Hot Cheetos, he's going to do great things, oh, and he has a huge c –
"Yeah." I quickly cut off my rambling thoughts. "Yeah, we're friends."
I watched as Roman gave me a look of surprise and noticed a little sparkle in his eyes. Sparkle? Sparkle, Sienna? Shut up.
I gave a soft smile in return and witness how his lips tug up as he takes a sip of juice. Friends. We were friends. I knew things about Roman that no one else did and it would never bother me to call him a friend.
"Well, you should stay for dinner more often." His mom declared. "Any friend of Roman's is welcome in this house."
A sudden relief lifted off my shoulder as I watched the smile beam on his parents' faces.
"You should visit the gym for often too. I'm sure Roman could use an audience." Mark suggested with a chuckle.
"Dad." Roman groaned.
"What d'you mean an audience?" I asked.
Roman looked as if he wanted to set himself on fire at this point. "What I mean is, it'd be nice for a friend of his to come and support him. He doesn't tell a lot of people about the whole boxing thing."
"You really don't have to do that, Sienna –"
"I'd love to." I cut Roman off, smiling back at his dad before turning back to him. He must have been surprised at my answer as his eyebrows raised. "What?" I shrugged. "It'd give you more time to tutor me." I didn't let my eyes leave his to let him notice a further intention in my voice. I could see the locker room extravaganza replaying behind his eyes and my smile turned into a subtle smirk.
After dinner, I offered to help his mom with the washing up. She refused me at first but I insisted.
"Thank you for the meal, Mrs Lawrence." I said as I dried up a plate.
"It's okay and, please, call me Samantha." She chuckled. "Mrs Lawrence is what they call my mother-in-law."
I laughed and placed the plate in the cupboard. "How long have you had the jewellery shop?" I then asked.
"Around ten years now." Wow, that was a pretty long time. "It started off as a dream, but Mark convinced me to do it. I used to work in accounting and hated it but always loved designing on the side. So, for my birthday one year, Mark surprised me by coming home and bought me the shop."
"Woah, that's..."
"Slightly insane?"
"I was going to say 'romantic'."
Samantha handed me another wet plate and continued. "I told him he was insane when he first did it but he believed in me. Even when he wasn't home, he'd constantly sent me letters to motivate me to. I wouldn't be where I am today without him." She looked over her shoulder to Mark and Roman talking on the couch, a casual father-and-son moment as they laughed and poked fun at one another.
I could see the love shining in Samantha's eyes as she looked at her husband. He caught her eyes and grinned, and I observed the loving look fluttering like hundreds of butterflies and rose petals dancing in the wind. It was so sweet it almost made me melt. Roman looked my way and smiled, I smiled back before realising his parents were watching us and quickly turned my head away, heat rising to my cheeks.
"Can I give you some advice, Sienna?" Samantha then said. I turned to look at her soft smile and nodded.
"Sure."
She handed me another wet plate to dry. "You're a very pretty girl so I can imagine all the boys chasing after you." I chuckled, my cheeks deeply blushing. "But be with the person who will always believe in you." She carried on and my chuckle died down. "You see, before I met Mark, I was with another guy and... he was wonderful, but he was my first love and – not to say first loves don't work out – but, in this situation we had been together since we were young and we had changed. We weren't the same kids anymore and I knew that I hadn't really found myself."
"So what happened?" I asked.
"Well, I decided to take the jump. I wanted to do so many things but he wanted me to stay. He wanted to settle down and have a family as soon as possible and I realised that I had been stuck in the same town for too long. I needed to explore. I was heartbroken, obviously, but I packed up my things and moved. That was where I met Mark."
"And you guys fell in love?"
Samantha chuckled. "Oh no – well, he fell in love, but he knew that I had a lot more of a journey to go before I could find myself and even attempt to feel the same way. So, d'you know what he said to me?" I shook my head and watched the love grow in her sparkling eyes, "He told me to go and, when I was happy with myself, he told me that if that girl wanted to come back and give him a chance, he'd happily take her on the best date of her life."
We both laughed and she nudged my shoulder.
"I take it you came back?"
"Yep." She grinned. "And he took me out to dinner on the beach. It was kind of perfect I might add."
I laughed again and she turned to face me, her expression much softer. "What I'm trying to say is, he believed in me. He believed in me even if I changed and didn't want to come back to him. He took that risk. He believed I was so much more than what I was giving. And, that belief, it shows more love than you can ever imagine."
Her words sunk into my chest. Believed. I wondered that, out of all the boys who wanted to be with me, how many actually believed I was so much more than a popular girl with bedroom skills and a pair of nice tits and ass. I wondered how many believed I could go far.
"Thank you." I delicately smile with a grateful nod.
"No, thank you." She whispered.
"For what?"
"For believing my son was a lot more than some weird smartass."
We both laughed once more at her comment, but her words hit me like a tonne of bricks.
After the washing up, Roman walked me to the door to say goodbye.
"You really didn't have to do that tonight." He said.
"I wanted to." I argued. "Your parents. They're really wonderful people." He rolled his eyes at me and I playfully slapped his shoulder. "What?! They are!"
"Thanks." He looked down and gentled his tone. "So, we're friends now?" he leaned back on the doorframe and crossed his arms.
I shrugged, "I guess."
A smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "I'll see you around, Sienna."
I bit my lip to contain my own. "I'll see you around, nerd-boy."
It was only when I walked out of the driveway that I realised.
I was Roman's first real friend.
❦❤︎❦
"You had dinner with his parents?!" Rya gasped as we walked the halls to her locker.
"Would you calm down?!" I snapped. She only gave me wide eyes and a gaping mouth.
"Jesus, Sienna. That's like a next level move!"
"They offered! How do you expect me to turn that down?!" it was Friday and I caught Rya up on everything that went down last night at dinner with the Lawrences. Well, not exactly everything but most things.
"I don't know!" she raised her hands in defence. "What are they like?" I had told her I had briefly met Mark and Samantha before, but last night I really got to know them, especially Samantha, and all I could see were wonderfully loving parents.
"Really nice." I replied. "They seemed surprised but... happy about Roman and I."
"You mean the fact that you jerk off their son –"
I slapped my hand over her mouth. "Not that part." I hissed. I removed my hand and watched her shrug.
"Just asking." She hummed.
Banners were hung all over the halls with posters plastered in almost every locker. The Spring Fling was coming up and tickets were to go on sale in several days' time. I wondered if I even wanted to go this year, Adam was most likely going to ask Leah and it would be the first dance I go to without him.
What an idiot I would look as my ex ditches me to dance with some basic, vanilla stick. It was one thing for people to gossip about it, but for everyone to see it in place sight. That was just public humiliation.
"D'you think it's a bad thing? That I had dinner with his parents?" I asked to take my mind of the embarrassing thought.
"I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe they were just being nice?" she reasoned as we approached her locker. Maybe.
Rya opened her locker to only let a pink slip of card fall out.
"What's that?" I asked as she bent to pick it up.
"I don't know." She slowly replied as we examined it. It had her name written on in cursive writing, underlined with a little heart. Strange. I curiously waited as she unfolded it.
"He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking." She read aloud. "Sincerely, question mark?" she looked back at me with puzzlement written all over her face. "D'you know this?" she passed it over to me. I read it again.
"Tolstoy." I muttered. "I think it's from Anna Karenina."
"Tolstoy?" Rya repeated. "Look at how they've spelt 'sincerly'! There's an extra 'e' after the 'r'. Who the hell quotes a famous writer and spells 'sincerely' wrong?" she shoved the note back into her locker and huffed.
I snatched it out and waved it in front of her face. "Someone who obviously likes you! This is a note from a secret admirer, Rya." I stated the obvious.
"Pssht, please! Someone's just trying to annoy me."
"Dude, it literally has your name written in fancy writing with a heart on the front! And take a proper look at the quote: 'he stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking', sounds pretty romantic to me."
Rya glanced over my shoulder and nervously bit her lip. "You think?"
"Girl, I know." The Spring Fling was coming up soon, so this must've been a way to get on Rya's good side. This girl had a secret admirer whether she liked it or not.