13. “Fire and powder”

13

"Fire and powder"

Now

I feel worse than hell. I look it too. My reflection in the mirror assures me of that. My eyes are bloodshot. Dark-brown orbs with squiggly red blood vessels swimming around them and puffy bags underneath. My skin looks sallow rather than olive and my hair is all over the place, thick dark swoops that fall into my face. I hardly got any sleep last night. I tossed and turned and jerked off so much after the whole midnight milk thing that my dick feels vaguely assaulted this morning.

Selby has left for work by the time I venture out of my room. I peek my head out to make sure the coast is clear and scurry to the guest bathroom. The guest bathroom is the only room in the house that hasn't been done yet. Selby apologized to me at length when she showed me to my room last night. The fittings are dated and the walls are painted olive green. A primitive painting of a sacred heart hangs above the toilet. It's in a large, ornate frame that dwarfs the painting. I remember Romeo calling it his masterpiece as he carried it home after art one day. We must have been in the third or fourth grade at the time.

Sally was over the moon when he gave it to her. She didn't exclaim or give Romeo grand, over-the-top compliments like most parents did, but I could tell she loved it because she undid the necklace around her neck and held her palm out to Romeo. The gold chain pooled in her hand and the spinel in her pendant caught the light and reflected like stained glass in an old church. It was her most prized possession. A sacred heart.

"Have I ever told you the story of how you got your name, Romeo?"

Romeo's head tilted, and he flicked his eyes at the ceiling. It was clear he'd heard the story more than once, but I never had, so I moved closer. The pendant in Sally's hand was beautiful. The stone was rich and dark. Blood red and well cut. The flame, lance, and thorns were high-karat gold and had been intricately engraved.

"Daddy and I were in Verona in Italy. We'd been traveling together for weeks and had been friends for a very long time." As she spoke, images flitted around the kitchen. Cobbled streets, arched doorways. Stone buildings with a long, languid river meandering through them. Sandstone and ochre. Bottle-green windows with shutters that worked. A soft glow that radiated off the buildings. The world Sally wove wasn't as clear to me as the ones Romeo did, but I was still enchanted. "We'd already visited Rome and Venice, and even though I loved them, to me, Verona was magical. Daddy and I recited lines from Romeo and Juliet to each other the whole time, and somewhere between the Arena de Verona and the Piazza delle Erbe, something between Daddy and me changed."

"Oh, please don't make this a gross story," Romeo whispered under his breath.

Sal smiled. "I saw this necklace in an antique shop at the end of a quiet, narrow street. I loved it so much I asked to try it on even though I knew I couldn't afford it." She smiled again, and this time, she looked up at Mike, who was lying on the sofa in the living room with his feet up. "Five months later, Daddy gave me this necklace for my birthday. He'd bought it that day in Verona and carried it in his pocket every day since." Mike had turned down the TV and pushed himself up on one elbow. He was watching Sal with a lax, love-struck expression.

"The second I saw it, my heart almost stopped." Sal was looking back at Mike with exactly the same expression. "That was the moment I knew Daddy and I weren't just friends anymore."

"I loved you from the second I saw you," said Mike.

"You did not. "

"I did too. I was helpless from the first day, Sal. Helpless."

Sally giggled and continued, "Daddy put the necklace on for me. I held my hair up like this"—she gathered as much as she could of her hair in both hands to show us—"and he struggled with the clasp. It took him ages. I thought I would have to call a friend to help him. I don't think he'd had a lot to do with jewelry until then."

"It wasn't that. I knew how to fix a clasp, Sal. I felt like I was going to faint from being close to you. That was my problem," said Mike, strolling over to where we were.

Sally rolled her eyes, but they were as soft as I'd ever seen them.

"Later that night, I was in my bathroom," she continued, "and I was admiring the way the pendant looked around my neck in the mirror, and for a second, I felt like I was back in Verona. Back on the cobbled streets, in the little antique shop surrounded by dust and treasures, with a young man in the back engraving rings and trophies. It was like I'd entered a portal." Romeo's eyes were wide and slightly glazed over. I realized Sal's stories had the same effect on him as his on me. "One second, I was in Verona, and the next, I was back in front of the mirror, staring straight at my future." Mike was standing behind her and had curled an arm around her waist. "I remember thinking to myself, if Mike and I have a son, I'll name him Romeo. Of course"—Sal turned around in Mike's arms and fixed him with a pretend annoyed look—"you still took almost three months to ask me out."

Mike laughed and kissed her lightly. "What can I tell you. I loved you so much I'd have been happy to be just friends for the rest of my life, as long as it meant I'd get to spend time with you."

"Come on, Jude," said Romeo, guiding me upstairs to his room. "We better go. You don't want to see this."

By the time I'm out of the shower and dressed, the smell of coffee wafts down the hall to greet me. The kitchen is deserted, but there's coffee in the pot and a box of cereal has been left out. Lucky Charms. I haven't eaten them in almost a decade, but they used to be my favorite before I started caring about things like sugar content and carbs. I feel a familiar tug of hope, that old maybe Romeo loves me back .

It's bullshit, obviously. And maybe a bit of limerence?

I like the word but can't remember exactly what it means, so I look it up on my phone. It's a state of acute intensity. An obsessive infatuation with another, often littered with enough intrusive thoughts to make it impossible to think about anything other than one's love interest. Hmm. That does sound like me. Ecstasy when feelings are returned— wouldn't know much about that —and a state of agony when they aren't. Yeah, I'm all over that bad boy.

I read a little more, and Jesus, I have this limerence thing down pat. Might have to give Moira a call later and find out if it's treatable.

God, imagine if it is.

Imagine if I could stop this.

Imagine if I could get over him.

I take my coffee and cereal out to the back porch with me. The swing creaks when I sit and sways gently under my weight. I shovel the congealed mush in my bowl into my mouth and masticate thoughtfully as I watch Romeo. He's wearing an old pair of shorts and work boots with loose laces. He's shirtless and his hair hasn't been brushed. His back is tanned, but a sliver of skin above his waistband is paler. A thin band that's only exposed because he's reaching up to prune the climbing rosebush that grows along the back fence. It's a sliver of skin I want to touch. Skin I want to kiss. Skin I want to lick. And bite.

He gardens for ages. Snipping this and snipping that. Tossing the dead wood onto the ground in a pile to his right and acting like he knows what he's doing. He moves around the garden as if unaware I'm watching him. Maybe he is. It's a good-sized garden, and I didn't call out when I got here .

The scent of a lilac bush mingles with the sickly-sweet taste of the Lucky Charms. It's almost too much. I should hate it, but it falls just short. Instead of hating it, I find myself feeling worryingly giddy. The smells, the sugar, the sight of Romeo and all his fucking golden skin are making me feel unhinged.

Romeo drops his secateurs onto the grass and saunters back to the house. The gold chain around his neck glints in the sun, and the pendant he's worn since the day after Sal's funeral sways slowly from side to side on his chest. I'm acutely aware that I need to stop looking at him. It's inappropriate and deeply embarrassing to be such a simp. It's pathetic. I know that.

I don't stop looking though. I can't. Instead, I roll my gaze over every inch of his exposed skin, and I don't stop until he's standing in front of me, a few feet away, leaning against the porch railing.

Our eyes meet, and it's fire and ice. Fuel and a flame.

"Jude." He says it as if it's a whole sentence. As if it's the start and the end. As if it's something that means something to him. His eyes are so sad when he says it that I find it hard to maintain eye contact. The sight of Romeo hurt or in pain has always been my kryptonite. My greatest weakness. My total downfall. "You really came back, huh?"

"Yeah, I, er, it was a mistake. I'm sorry. I shouldn't ha—"

A visor slams down. The soft, glimmering warmth turns icy. His jaw clenches. "You still think that was your mistake?"