Roman

"Roman Giovanni Tyrell, is that you?" a familiar female voice called out. Low and soothing with the tremor of age, it was like the wrap of a blanket on a cold night.

"Hey, Nonna," I called back as I opened the back door of her low brick two-bedroom cottage out in the eastern suburbs of Verona. Nonna had lived here for as long as I could remember and my best friend, Mercutio, had practically grown up here.

I was older than Merc, just. By only six months. He always seemed to act the older brother to me. He and I had often been mistaken for brothers; we had the same thick dark hair and olive skin. That's where the similarities ended. Merc was almost as tall as me, over six feet, but his frame was lean muscles like a basketball player where I had grown thick like a rugby player. Despite my somewhat crazy lifestyle in Europe, I'd found a constant in boxing and lifting weights.

Nonna Sheree was Mercutio's grandmother, a pint-sized woman with a soft smile and fierce temper when we boys had disobeyed her, stealing bites of cherry pie while it was cooling on the window sill or using up too much water spraying each other (and the house through open windows) with water from the hose in the sticky depths of summer.

She appeared at the kitchen entrance, wiping her hands on a dish towel tucked into her apron. She'd aged in the last eight years, her hair almost completely white, wrinkles softening her paper skin. But her eyes, a dark earthy color, just like Mercutio's, were alive and sparkling with youth. "You boys never use the front door. You know it's a bigger doorway."

"The front door is for guests," called Merc from behind me. "We're family."

I eased my head and shoulders through the low doorway. I was still dressed in the suit I had worn to the funeral sans jacket and tie. My top two buttons were open. "This isn't a doorway," I muttered. "It's a cat flap."

Nonna made a tsking noise and shook her head, a soft smile on her wizened face. "I swear, one of these days you're going to get stuck in the frame."

I stepped right into her kitchen, a warm glow coming from the oven, the smell of roasting chicken and garlic already permeating the rooms of the house. "Damn that smells good." I leaned down and gave her a hug, my arms wrapping all the way around her tiny frame. "You've shrunk, Nonna," I teased gently.

"It's you that has gotten taller and wider," she said with a soft swat to my arm with her dishcloth. "Holy Mother of Mary, look at you."

"Yeah," added Merc. "Now he's an even bigger pain in the ass."

"Language, Mercutio," said Nonna.

"Sorry."

Nonna gave me another proud look-over. "You were a boy when you left. You've grown into such a handsome man now." She reached up and pinched both my cheeks.

"Nonna," I complained, feeling my cheeks flush. Only she could get away with pinching me like I was still eight.

She patted my cheek. "It's good to see you again." My frosty heart felt like it warmed for the first time in eight years. She turned back to the oven. "Dinner's almost ready, so go on into the dining room and sit down. Mercutio, can you help bring this roast out?"

"On it," he said, slipping his hands into a pair of pastel floral mitts.

Within minutes we were sitting around Nonna's round wooden table. I groaned with pleasure as the taste of rosemary roasted chicken and garlic potatoes exploded in my mouth. "I haven't eaten this good…" I mused between mouthfuls of food, "since I left, Nonna."

"I don't believe that for a second, Roman," said Nonna, but her smile said she was pleased. "Europe has great food. Tell us all about it."

I shrugged. "Europe was…" as far away from Verona as I could get. "Good."

Merc snorted. "Yeah, I heard it was good."

I shot him a shut the fuck up look. "How have you been, Nonna?" I asked, quickly changing the subject from me.

I ate and listened as she talked about the studies that Mercutio had completed, pride in her voice. Then about her garden, the new varieties of tomatoes and herbs she was growing. All the while my mind kept going back to the woman from the graveyard.

Julianna Capulet. The most stunning creature I'd ever seen.

Perhaps if I had just seen her, if I'd not spoken to her, I might have had enough grace to leave her alone. The second we'd touched, it sealed her fate. Electricity had lashed up my arm. I didn't want her to let go. Ever. I had grabbed her hand with my other, trapping her tiny soft fingers between my palms, my hands doing to hers what I wanted to do to her body. To cover her completely. To own her, possess her. Dominate her.

I wanted her.

I wanted her with a force that surprised me. That was almost painful.

I would have her.

She had been shocked by it too, her beautiful eyes widening and her breath hitching. Her nipples hardened through her dress. Good to see she was as affected by me as I was by her. I had to use all my willpower not to bend over and take those tiny buds into my mouth through the material. Or rip that damn dress off right there. Instead, I was a gentleman. No use scaring her off on our first meeting. I brushed my lips on her knuckles in a kiss, letting myself taste her skin, sweet as honey. She had let out a soft moan. That one little noise had me so hard that it hurt. I vowed then and there, I'd coax more of those noises from her before this day was over.

"Roman?"

I snapped out of my head, shifting in my seat to adjust my semi-erection under the table. Had someone asked me something? I hadn't heard a single word in… I glanced between Merc and Nonna. "Yeah?"

Nonna lifted a bowl. "More potatoes?"

Twenty minutes later, Nonna and Mercutio had put aside their plates while I was helping myself to a third serving.

Nonna watched me with an affectionate smile on her face as I tore into a chicken leg with my teeth. "I forgot how much food you can put away."

"That's because he's a growing boy." Merc punched my arm. "Still."

I swatted back at him, which instigated a mini punching war, like when we were kids. Except now our punches hurt a damn sight more. And threatened to knock over the table.

"Boys," said Nonna with a warning tone.

"He started it," Merc and I both said together, fingers pointed at the other.

Nonna rolled her eyes but there was a smile on her face. "It's like you never left," she said quietly, her eyes brimming with tears.

Guilt flooded my belly. I stared down at my plate, picking at the remains of the chicken leg I had only half-devoured. Suddenly I wasn't hungry anymore.

I had been eighteen when I left Verona. It felt like a lifetime ago. And yet, it felt like yesterday. On the plane from Verona to London I'd shed hidden tears into my airline-provided blanket for Nonna and Merc. I'd missed them immediately, feeling like two pieces of me had been torn from my soul. They had been the last tears I'd shed.

After the plates were cleared away, Nonna brought out hot drinks and ginger snap cookies.

"I have gifts for you," I announced.

"Gifts?" Nonna asked.

"From Europe." I riffled through my brown aged-leather duffel sitting on the empty chair beside me, the only luggage I had brought with me. I found Merc's present, gift-wrapped by the store in matte gold paper and a matching bow, and threw it at him. He caught it and stared at the square box. "If this is an engagement ring, I will hit you."

I rolled my eyes. "Just open it, fool."

I found Nonna's present, a larger box, also gift-wrapped to perfection in silver paper with a black ribbon. I walked around the table to hand it to her, placing it in her hands with a sheepish grin.

"Roman, what have you done?" she said, surprise in her tone.

"Open it."

There was a moment where the only sound was the tearing of paper. My stomach flipped as I waited for their reactions.

Nonna set the black suede box on the table beside her cup of tea before opening it. "Good lord." She sank back into her chair with her hand over her heart. "Roman, it's beautiful!" She stared at the necklace inside, a circle of metal links meant to be worn around the base of the neck. She brushed the stones set into the metal with a shaking finger. "Look at it sparkling. Roman, don't tell me it's real."

Merc hid a snort with a cough.

I hid a smile. "I won't, then."

It was real. Pavé diamonds set in pink gold. But it wasn't about the damn diamonds. I knew it would go with her favorite earrings, a pair she'd owned forever that Pablo, her deceased husband, gave her for their first wedding anniversary.

"Let me help you put it on."

She held aside her white hair, soft like baby-fluff and cut short into a classic bob, as I secured the necklace around her neck.

"Oh," she stammered. "It will go perfectly with those earrings from Pablo."

I grinned. "What a great idea, Nonna."

"Let me go look at them in my bedroom mirror properly." She hurried out of the room.

Merc pulled his gold Rolex out of his demolition site of cardboard and paper. He raised an eyebrow at me, considerably less impressed than Nonna. "What the fuck am I going to do with a fancy gold watch?"

"You don't like it?"

"Sure, it's nice. But I won't get two steps out of this house without someone trying to mug me for it."

"Then pawn it, I don't give a shit."

He set the watch down and frowned. "You didn't have to buy us anything."

I felt pricks of anger across my skin. I fisted my arms over my chest. "I haven't seen you in eight fucking years and I wanted to give you something."

"You didn't have to spend my annual salary on it," Merc said quietly.

"I have money," I said gruffly as if it were a curse. It was a curse. A shackle. I'd been receiving a generous monthly allowance from the man who had fathered me since I was sixteen. I hated every penny although I spent it all. "You two are the only two people I care to spend it on, alright? So shut the fuck up and say ‘thanks', you ungrateful ass."

Merc snorted but his demeanour softened. He slipped his new watch on his wrist before giving me a lopsided grin. "Thanks, man."

I grunted back in reply. He knew it meant that I accepted his apology.

I sank back into my chair, wrapping my hands around my mug full of coffee, black like my heart. It was the same mug that Nonna always gave me when I came over. White enamel, large handle, chipped from use, always filled with hot drinks lovingly prepared for me over the years. Hot chocolate when I was a kid, coffee as I got older.

I looked around the cottage. The wallpaper of vintage white tea roses was even more faded than last time. It looked like a small roof leak had stained part of the ceiling. Some of the knobs on the cupboards had been replaced, making them all mismatched. The mantelpiece was filled with framed photos, some with me in them, and several bookshelves housed books with well-worn spines. The couch was covered with soft pastel throws to cover where they'd been worn thin, but they were comfortable and just large enough to hold the three of us. This place might not look like much, but it shone from my fond memories.

It was a stark contrast to my Tyrell family home, only a few blocks from here, a mansion of cold marble and white walls, stuffed with obnoxious, uncomfortable furniture. A home that I refused to visit. A home that I'd be happy never to step inside again.

I glanced over to Merc as he fiddled with his watch. I wondered if he ever knew that I had been insanely jealous of him growing up. This place was more of a home for me than mine was. These two right here were more family than I'd ever had after my mother died.

I glanced over to Nonna's bedroom where I could hear her calls of appreciation as she admired the necklace in the mirror. There was something I needed to ask Merc before she came back in the room.

I leaned over to him. "Have you heard from your dad?" I said in a low voice.

Merc's father, Tito "Goldfish" Brevio, had been an accountant who had worked part-time for my father. That's how Merc and I knew each other as kids. Over a decade ago Tito was forced to testify against my family. He famously changed his statement in court and screwed up the prosecutor's case against my father at the time. Then he disappeared, leaving Nonna to look after thirteen-year-old Merc at the time. Nonna had never forgiven Tito for abandoning Merc.

That's how he earned the nickname Goldfish, because of his eight-second memory stunt in court. Some even speculated that it had all been planned by my father. Double jeopardy and all. After the Goldfish case was thrown out, my father couldn't be tried for those crimes again. It was a nice big fuck you to the legal system which he'd evaded even to this day.

As far as Nonna was concerned, Tito was dead. His name was not to be uttered or spoken in this house. At least, not in front of her.

Merc glanced away. "You know I can't tell you that."

I stiffened. Merc used to tell me everything.

That was before you left him eight years ago.

"Come on, man," I said softly, nudging his elbow. "It's me."

Merc let out a sigh and glanced at Nonna's bedroom door before leaning in. "He's around. Doing okay. Still underground."

"He hasn't surfaced yet? It's way past the statute of limitations for him. The feds can't charge him with anything now."

"Yeah, but…" Merc paused and a look of guilt crept into his eyes as he glanced at me, then looked away.

"What? Spit it out."

Merc shrugged. "I think…I think he's still scared of your father. What he might do if…"

I swallowed. My father was not a man to be crossed. "Do you think he'll ever come home, then?" It's what Mercutio had been dreaming of since he was thirteen, the only thing he ever asked for on every birthday and every Christmas.

"One day, he'll come home," Merc said quietly. "One day."