15. “Mad blood stirring”

15

"Mad blood stirring"

Now

"So, how are things in good ole Alabaster?" I'm in the guest room at Romeo's with the door closed, and I have Lexi on the phone.

"Not too bad. You know how it goes, some things change, some things don't."

"I get it," Lexi says quietly. She really does. Other than therapists and the odd, heavily tattooed, sympathetic-looking bartender, my sister is the only person who knows what happened between Romeo and me. "Heard there's a new coffee shop though, so some things change."

"Yeah, I ordered a triple shot of shaken espresso with oat milk and a pump of salted caramel syrup yesterday, and I got it . Couldn't believe it. Didn't even have to repeat my order."

"Unbelievable. Never thought I'd see the day. People must have been up in arms about Mo's closing."

"Yeah, I've heard it wasn't pretty. "

"Have you seen any of the usual crowd yet?" By usual crowd, she means Romeo.

I side-step the question. "Nah, Dan's been away and Ollie's on a deadline this week. He's having a barbeque at his place on Saturday. He's invited everyone who still lives here, so it should be a good night."

"That'll be nice. It'll be good for you to have a chance to catch up with the old crowd." I nod wordlessly. I'm very much on the fence about whether I think anything about my being in Alabaster is a good thing or not. A big part of me thinks the best thing that could happen would be to go back in time and refuse to come back here at all. I should have flown to Florida and insisted I be the one to take care of my gran. It's not like I'm really doing much at the house anyway. All I've done so far is get in the way and sneeze my ass off. "Where did you end up staying? Mom said there was no way you could stay in the house with the mess and all that."

I breathe out carefully, psyching myself up the way I always have to when I say his name. "I'm at Romeo's."

Lexi lets out a long, low whistle. She left her job and moved to New York to take care of me after Romeo married Selby. She's the only person who saw what it did to me. The only one who knows what happened and knows and loves Romeo too. The only one who understands who and what he is to me. She picked up the pieces after he broke me, and ever since then, she's done everything in her power to keep me together.

"Jesus, Jude. How's that going?"

"Oh, you know. Paddling down an alligator-infested river would be more fun. Being trapped in a pit filled with vipers and black widow spiders would be a hell of a lot nicer. Being buried alive with ‘Baby Shark' playing on repeat would be a comparative luxury weekend retreat."

"That bad, huh?" She chuckles.

"No, you're not paying attention, Lex. It's worse. Way worse."

"So nothing's changed then?" Scant hope fades and is replaced with concern.

"Well, every surface in the house has been painted white, Mike's in Fairview with Mary, and Romeo is a stranger to me." That's factually true. Except for the times his eyes have blazed and he's looked through me, and I haven't been able to tell if I'm here now or then, but I don't think Lexi will sleep well if she knows all that. "And Selby is always around."

"Oof. How's she?"

"Not too bad, I guess." I mean, not too bad if you take away the fact I hate her more than I've ever hated anyone or anything .

"Huh." There's a pause, a little lull that suggests Lexi is thinking about whether or not to say more.

I know her too well to let her get away with that. "What?"

There's a silent hesitation, then, "Mom doesn't like her."

Now that's news to me. My mom has always been the type to like everyone. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, she calls it.

"No? Why not?" I'm not sure why, but something flighty, something fickle, something that feels an awful lot like wildly misplaced hope trots and turns into a canter in my chest.

"Ugh, I shouldn't have said anything. Sorry. I've been trying not to. I know how hard you've tried to move on."

"Why doesn't Mom like her, Lex?"

"I dunno. She told me she was kind of an asshole. She said it after Romeo and her took their road trip to Pensacola Beach a few months ago. They stopped in and spent a few nights with Mom and Dad. I'm not sure if she told you about it or not."

I know about the trip. My mom slipped up and mentioned she was getting the spare room ready and making a chicken pot pie for dinner because it's Romeo's favorite. I lay awake for two nights in a row, fantasizing about flying down to Florida and forcibly throwing him out of my house. I lay awake for weeks afterward, fantasizing about flying down and doing something entirely different to him. "There's no way Mom said asshole."

"She did. Her exact words were, ‘That Selby's one hell of an asshole.'" I laugh out loud in shock and jubilation as my heart swells. I've always loved my mom. She's one of my favorite people. We've always had a good relationship, but I can categorically say I have never loved her more than I do right now.

"She said she didn't like the way she treated Romeo. Something about talking over him or for him, I can't remember which. She said she's one of those women that high school mean girls turn into." Lexi, on the other hand, is one of those people who's all kinds of cagey, but once she starts talking, has the tendency to word vomit. There's another slight pause. A tentativeness that makes her speak softer. "She said Romeo seems unhappy."

I head to the kitchen after I finish the call with Lexi, brain buzzing so loudly it feels set to explode. It's Friday. I've been at Casa de Blanc for four days and nights. Between the three of us, we seem to have achieved something resembling balance. Selby leaves for work early and usually gets home late. She's a lawyer and thus very busy and, by her own assertion, important, and not one to miss the opportunity to remind everyone of that. School's out, so Romeo is home every day. He gardens fervently, taking breaks only to eat and throw himself into the pool when the heat gets unbearable. I beat a path from his house to my house so I can be "on-site," which, according to Selby, is a matter of life and death and absolutely critical to the project's success. Once there, I take a few photographs and send them to our family WhatsApp group chat, ask stupid questions, get underfoot, start coughing and spluttering from the dust, and then head back to Romeo's house, a little more defeated each day.

It's not what I'd call poetic, but there's a certain rhythm to it all the same.

When I get back to Romeo's, we shuffle around and try not to say anything inflammatory to each other.

Romeo's thick, icy veneer seems to be wearing thin. He kept his distance on Wednesday after the strange " You still think that was your mistake" business the day before, but he forgot to brush his hair all day. Selby noticed the second she walked in the door and smiled as though she found it charming, but he disappeared soon after and came downstairs with his hair plastered down a little while later.

Yesterday, he changed the pace a little, spending most of the day indoors, sitting at the desk by the bay window overlooking the front garden. He had pages laid out all over the desk, all of them covered in his tiny, tightly curled scrawl. He started working before I left to inspect the progress at our house, and he was still busy by the time I got back. He'd drawn colorful squiggles all over several pages and long red lines with big arrows on some of the others.

Curiosity got the better of me.

"What are you writing?" I'd asked.

He'd seemed surprised to see me even though I'd called out to him when I arrived. "I'm not writing. I'm just…making notes."

I'd toyed with the idea of explaining to him that those two things were one and the same but thought better of it because of how he looked. And how he felt. And how it felt to be near him.

His eyes were big, glazed over in that dreamy blue way that used to tie me in knots. The way that still ties me in knots. The mood around him was calm. So peaceful it felt like we were in the eye of a storm. Like bad weather had been raging for years but had suddenly fallen still. It was so serene and tranquil that it almost made me believe the storm would peter out and the eyewall of the backside would evaporate and spare us.

He worked for hours, writing things down and then crossing them out. Moving pages around and then back again. I sat on the sofa and read. Or I pretended to read. What I really did was watch Romeo and wonder where he was, where his imagination had taken him, and what it was like there. I offered him tea once when, really, what I wanted to say was, " Take me with you. Wherever you go, Romeo, take me there too ."

When Selby came home, she took one look at Romeo and said, "Jesus."

She broke the word into two distinct syllables and said it on the back of a forced outward breath. Then she turned to me, fixed me with a brilliant smile, and asked how my day had been.

This morning, Romeo is back at the desk, and Selby is running late. She's in the kitchen in business attire, with a towel still wrapped around her head.

"Can I make you something to eat?" I offer.

Yeah, yeah. That's right. I hate her, but my mother, a saintly woman who refers to my mortal enemy as an asshole, raised me well. I have manners. I know how to be a good house guest.

"Oh my God," she says. "That would be amazing."

Fuck.

Now, I actually have to do it.

"How 'bout some eggs? How do you like them? "

"Poached, please." She pulls a cute little kissy face at me. One that I suspect has got her what she wants a lot in her life. I hardly have words to describe how immune I am.

I walk over to where Romeo sits and put my hand on the desk to gently bring him back to Earth. He blinks as if he wasn't expecting to see me, and his eyes soften in a way that makes Stupid Me think maybe he's happy to see me. Maybe he's missed me like I've missed him. Maybe his life doesn't make sense without me either.

It's a notion that's obviously more a symptom of my declining mental health than anything else.

"How 'bout you," I say. "How'd you want your eggs?"

Romeo's lips start parting to speak. "Oh, he'll have poached too," says Selby with a dismissive little wave. "I'm just going to run upstairs to do my hair, but the pans are in that drawer and…oh, you know what, just get Romeo to help you with anything else you need."

Romeo gets up and pads into the kitchen. We move around each other in a way that doesn't feel forced. I make the eggs, and he makes the coffee. I put the toast in the toaster, and he catches it when it pops and butters it while it's hot.

By the time Selby gets down, we're sitting at the kitchen counter and breakfast is ready .

When Selby has eaten and is ready to head to work, she raises her eyebrows high and says, "Now, Rome. Just a gentle reminder to use the wicker baskets I bought for you to store all that in." She points to the desk, grimacing slightly, then, to ensure there's no misunderstanding, she adds, "Not next to. In ."

She leans down and kisses him on the cheek. For the first time in a long time, I don't let myself look away when she does it. I watch as she leans down. I see her soft, pouty lips pucker. I see Romeo too. It's not that he flinches as such. He barely even moves. It's that there's something robotic about him. Something practiced. He receives the kiss. He doesn't brush it off or squirm out of it. But his eyes don't change at all when it happens. There's no warmth in them. No creases at the corners. Not even fine ones.

My heart starts to pound.

Holy shit.

What if my mom is right. What if Selby really is an asshole. What if it's a fact. What if the way I feel about her isn't just because she took the thing I love most from me. What if it's not just because she wore white and smiled beatifically as she did it, with no fucking clue she was killing me. I've hated her for so long and with such passion that, for years, I haven't been sure whether she really is terrible or I'm just a sad, jealous fuck who can't accept that I can't have what I want.

What if Selby really is awful?

As the day wears on, a new, terrible, wild, crazy feeling starts gnawing at me.

What if Romeo is unhappy with her?