17. “Fortunes fool”

17

"Fortunes fool"

Now

Selby gets home to find Romeo has not used the wicker baskets she instructed him to. Instead, the pages he's working on remain strewn all over his desk. To make matters worse, the fruits of today's efforts have been added to yesterday's pages. Not only are they not stacked next to the baskets. They're not stacked at all.

She's not happy about it. She pinches her mouth into a tight line, sets her bag down on the kitchen counter, and marches over with purpose. Despite telling myself in no uncertain terms to stay out of it, I pull myself up from where I've been lying on the sofa and peek over the back to see what's happening.

She's giving him hell. Quiet, hissing hell. He's letting it bounce off him, but as it goes on, I notice his shoulders drooping. The rage it incites in me is the same as it was then. The same as it was when teachers yelled his name or people upset him. It's instant. A hot rip that's so intense I have a physical reaction to it. My face changes. The beast is awakened. Romeo recognizes it as soon he sees it.

He looks at me and gives me an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

It's not worth it, the air around him whispers.

It is fucking worth it, so I get up and stalk over to where they are and turn to Selby.

"I think Romeo's still working on that," I say with a bright smile I learned from her.

She rolls her eyes angrily before remembering she's a wonderful hostess and I'm a beloved guest in their home. She quickly corrects. "Oh, you," she says, whacking my arm just a little harder than a playful whack calls for. "You've always been like this, haven't you? Thick as thieves, you two. But fine, have it your way. He can keep it out, but you better make sure you're the one to help him tidy it up because I'm not available to do it."

She heads upstairs to change out of her work clothes, leaving a strange mood in her wake. Her absence feels big in the room. Big, but welcome. I feel distinctly told off. I really do. I've been scolded. Corrected. Put in my place by someone who believes they're the boss of me. I feel exactly how I used to when Romeo and I were kids and we'd get in trouble at school. The same thing happens now as happened then .

A small, rough snort leaves me and Romeo's shoulders shake. He surreptitiously clamps a hand to his mouth and his eyes bulge slightly.

We look at each other and time doesn't matter. We laugh the way we laughed then. Loud, unhinged cackles spray out of us, interspersed by wheezes and gasps and weird, pained howls.

"Shh," hisses Romeo, panicking like he always did when this happened.

I don't stop laughing. He doesn't either. We laugh and laugh until we're so weak we have to lean against each other for balance. His shoulder touches my shoulder, digging into me, reminding me of everything.

Reminding me that Romeo is everything.

I slide my hand up his back and hook my arm casually around his neck. It's an old, instinctive move. Something that's happened so many times it's written into my bones. I freeze the second it's done. I'm a fool. One who is suddenly, painfully, brutally aware that this is now, not then. I wait in red-hot discomfort for him to snarl and push me away.

He doesn't.

He turns toward me the slightest amount. The tiniest bit. Just a degree or so, but holy fuck, I feel it. His body, his presence, near mine. In my orbit. My atmosphere. In the air I breathe. He tilts his head, and for one, maybe two seconds, he rests it lightly against mine. My knees almost give way with relief.

For the first time in years, I'm home.

Romeo is grilling burgers. Selby's bounced back, smile firmly back in place, and is on the patio supervising him as she sips a glass of Sauvignon Blanc. I'm sitting next to her, watching Romeo. Tiger sits at his heel, looking up at him as if he hung the moon.

I know the feeling.

Now and again, Romeo leans down and says, "How many times do we have to go through this, boy? You know I can't pet you now. I'm cooking."

Tiger doesn't care. He doesn't give a quarter of a shit. The smell of grilled meat isn't the main event for him, it's simply nice to have. He's happy because he's with Romeo.

"Should I put him inside?" Selby asks for the second time. Romeo waves her off again, and she says, "Ugh," under her breath.

She chatters away, filling the silence with tidbits about the week she just had at work, and I manage to string together a few semi-intelligent-sounding sentences about what I do for a living. I'm finding it hard to concentrate. Romeo is wearing an apron and humming to himself now. The apron is beige with splashes of dirty pink and sage green. It's covered in faded florals, and fuck me dead, he wears it well. Every now and then, he gives a couple of the burgers a little bop with his tongs in time to the song playing in his head.

I sincerely don't want to find him adorable. Believe me, I don't. It's the last thing on Earth I need. And I sure as hell don't want to be looking at him like this while I'm sitting next to his wife. Any asshole could tell you that's a terrible idea.

Yet here we are.

I shift in my seat and adjust myself when Selby gets up to let Romeo know she thinks the burgers are done. Romeo leaves them on for another couple of minutes, and for some childish reason, that amuses me greatly. When all parties are happy with the state of burger readiness, he brings them to the table, takes off his apron, folds it, and hangs it over the back of his chair before sitting opposite me.

"Looks great," I say.

Selby and I assemble our burgers quickly and tuck in. Romeo takes his time. He sandwiches his burger between two slices of cheese and two slices of tomatoes and then painstakingly arranges his pickles so that every bite he takes will have some pickle.

I forgot he did that.

He always did it. Sal used to build burgers like that. She taught him how. She used to shake her head at the haphazard way I made them and say, "No offense, buddy, but his is the only way to make a good burger."

Then she'd take my plate from me and make one of her good burgers for me. I loved it.

And I forgot about it. A blend of nostalgia and sadness hits me. If this was then and not now, I'd talk about Sal. I'd say, "Remember when she did this," or "Remember when she said that," and we'd laugh and maybe even cry, but at least we'd remember. At least it would feel like she happened and was real.

Selby and I have eaten at least half of our burgers by the time Romeo is satisfied with the assembly of his. He lifts it in both hands, long, graceful fingers caging it firmly as he brings it to his mouth. He pauses and smiles at it. Then he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and bites into it. I see a glimpse of teeth and tongue. A flash of white and a hint of pink wetness. He bites hard and decisively, canines and incisors ripping through bread and meat. There's something so carnal about it that I drop my head and look away quickly.

Fuck.

I'm floundering. I'm being fucking stupid. I'm openly lusting after a married man as his wife sits at the table right next to me. Surely to God, not even my dumbest self can think this is acceptable.

I'm about to launch into giving myself a very serious and clearly much-needed lecture when I feel a sharp kick on the shin. Romeo is still chewing and eyeing his burger as if he wants to make out with it, but he glances up and gives me a look that quickly alerts me to the fact that Selby is talking to me. I manage to rejoin the conversation just in time to piece together that she's asking about Sam.

"…think he'll come out here while you're here? Three weeks is a long time to be apart when a relationship is still new, and we'd love to meet…"

"Uh, yeah, no. No, he won't be coming out. We're actually, well, we broke up."

"Oh noooo!" she wails. "That's awful. I'm so sorry to hear that. You poor thing. Romeo said he was very good-looking."

"I didn't say he was very good-looking," says Romeo.

"Well, you said he was good-looking, and that's kind of the same thing coming from you. "

Romeo's face flicks through emotions so fast I have a hard time deciphering them. I wasn't looking at him when I said Sam and I broke up. I was looking at Selby. By the time I did look at Romeo, all I caught was the tail end of something unreadable. His features were lax and he seemed to be exhaling a breath he'd been holding for a long time. They changed radically a split second later when Selby spoke, hardening and tightening so much he looked like he did when I first got to Alabaster.

The conversation is stilted, but fortunately, Selby's here, and she's banging on about fish in the sea and cutting people loose if they aren't a good fit. At one point, I'm pretty sure she says something about how lucky I am that men are much easier to get than women, though don't quote me on that.

I hate everything about this entire conversation so much it's making me itchy.

I slap at my ankles and start to scratch.

"Let's go inside," says Romeo. "Jude's being eaten."

I offer to do the dishes, and Selby decides to head upstairs to take a bath.

"Need help?" asks Romeo.

"Nah, you cooked. I'm good to clean."

He sits on the sofa, kicking his feet up on an ottoman and changing channels until he finds something to watch. I take my time in the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and wiping every surface that can tolerate wiping, grateful to have something useful to do. When I can't think of another thing to clean, I sit on the sofa with Romeo. It's huge. White, obviously, and sitting on it is exactly like what I imagine throwing yourself into a cloud would be like. It's so comfortable that before long, I find myself sliding down and curling on my side with a couple of plush throw cushions propped under my head.

Romeo is sitting near my feet and watching an anime demon slayer-type show with tiny English subtitles. I have no idea what's going on and find it a little hard to follow. I also have no idea why I'm sitting here at all. It's late enough that I could easily plead exhaustion and go to bed.

Well. That's not true, is it?

I know exactly why I'm here. Romeo's watching TV, and as always, I'm watching Romeo.

It's sad. Pitiful, really, that after all this time, I'd still do almost anything to be near him.

It's just that when we're like this, quiet, with the lights low and the sound of the TV gently jarring my conscious thoughts, it's easy to let my mind drift to a place long ago, where nothing bad had happened and our biggest problem was what to put on a sandwich. A time when being close to Romeo was the most comfortable I could be, the happiest, most content it was possible for me to feel.

I let my eyes drift shut and lengthen my breathing, letting myself slip into the vortex between then and now, and though I know damn well it's delusional, fuck me, it feels good. Every bone in my body feels different. Like the steel pins holding me together have been warmed and started to melt. I don't move and I don't think. I just breathe.

In

Out

In

Out

Romeo's voice finds me through a thick fog. It's soft like always, husky too, floating through space to find me. I know this voice. He's not speaking quietly because he's shy or unsure. He's speaking quietly because he doesn't want anyone else to hear what he has to say.

"So, what happened with Sam?"

"Um…" I'm not really sure what to say. I came back here after five years away, took one look at your face, and couldn't bear to be with him again? No. Can't go with that. "It just didn't work out."

He mulls it over and then shifts minutely, letting the leg closest to me fall open slightly. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I breathe.

He turns his face back to the TV and my proximity to him makes me itchy again. At first, it's enough for me to take turns rubbing one foot over the other to sate it, but soon, the contact makes the itch worse. Before long, I'm forced to reach down and rake my nails over my ankles.

One scratch turns into two. Two quickly turn into three.

"Stop scratching." There's an old smile in his words.

I stop, bringing my hand up and tucking it under my arm.

I hold out for as long as possible, but now that I've started, I can't stop. My skin is crawling.

Fucking mosquitoes! Little shits won't be happy until they've drained me bone dry. Until all that's left of me is a corpse. Not even a beautiful corpse. A red, blotchy, shriveled-up prune of a corpse.

I reach down again, moving my hand slowly and carefully so Romeo won't see. He does. He pounces, quick as a cat, batting my hand away and grabbing my foot by the ankle. It's a rough action that startles me. He pulls my foot onto his lap and holds it tightly. Possessively. As if it's his. His fingers wrap almost all the way around it. A cuff. An anchor. Lines smudge and begin to vibrate where he touches me. My skin burns, but I don't move .

"When did you break up?" he asks after so long I can't quite remember what we were talking about.

"Uh…" Fuck. What do I do? The truth or a lie? Quickly! The truth or a lie? "The day after I got here."

He's quiet again, but not for nearly as long. "The day after we saw each other?"

"Yes." I fully expected myself to deny it or at least sound deathly embarrassed about it. I don't. I sound strangely sure of myself. Resigned and a little disheartened, but certain.

In the low, flickering light, I'm only just able to make out the tiniest quirk of a lip. A little side movement. Up and to the right. He pushes the hem of my jeans up just enough that my ankle bone is exposed. Electricity sparks and crackles, and I become extremely aware that I might not have full command of my legs right now. The pad of a thumb traces lines over and around my ankle. It finds the worst bite, the one driving me insane, and crosses it lightly.

Selby's voice finds us in the dark, nasal and no-nonsense. "Romeo! Are you coming to bed?"

I tense at the sound. Romeo doesn't. Instead, he worries my bad bite again, lightly and then hard, crossing it by digging his nail into my flesh this time. Marking it with an X.

Yearning, desire, and stinging heat slice into me .

"You still have sweet blood…" he whispers, and I lie on my side, one with the sofa, paralyzed, praying to a God I no longer believe in— Please, please, please, dear Lord, please let him say it. Please let him say it. Please let him remember. Please —"…Sweet Potato."

With that, he's gone, a whisp of night spiriting across the room, and I'm left reeling right where I am. Lame. Lava. Bones liquid, melted together by an idiotic mix of relief and something way, way more stupid.

He remembers.

It's so fucking silly, but it matters to me. And he remembers.

As soon as I'm able to scrape myself off the sofa, I hot-foot it to my room and call Lexi. I give her a feverish play-by-play of the evening, going into excessive detail, even for me.

"So wait, his eyes went funny before or after you said you and Sam had broken up?"

"Jesus, Lex, get it together. We were at the table. He was across from me. He was looking right at me and his eyes went all watery and calm when I said it, and then…"

"And then a split second later, they turned to thunder." She sounds mildly bored, and I can't say I blame her. "Yeah, yeah, I got that part. "

I've been through all this three times already and have yet to adequately find a way to convey the minutiae of Romeo's facial expressions and how they changed when Selby said Sam was good-looking. For some reason, it's absolutely essential to me that Lexi understands this, so I'm about to start from the top and have another go when it dawns on me just how unhinged I sound. And I haven't even gotten to the sofa, the bites, my renewed faith in the Lord, or the Sweet Potato business yet.

"Oh God. You think I've gone crazy, don't you?"

She's quiet for a second, and I can almost hear her nodding down the line. "I think your grip on reality is a little shaky, yes."

I give that the chuckle it deserves and then sigh as she offers to come and save me from myself. "Do you want me to come out? You know I only have two days of leave left, but I'd still be happy to come." She went on a trip to Brazil in the spring and used most of her leave then. That's why I'm here and not her. "I could fly out tomorrow and spend Monday and Tuesday with you. I'll call Mom and Dad, let them know that one of them has to come up and take over from you. It's a fucking emergency. You can't be in Alabaster by yourself. And you can't be under his roof. It's too much. "

I sigh heavily. The thought of my sister swooping in and handling this whole Romeo nightmare for me does have enormous appeal, but I shake my head and say, "No, I'm fine. I mean, I will be fine. In a few years, I'll be fine. It's called closure, Lex, or something like that."

"Okay," she says, "if you're sure." Then, she starts telling me how she's been. There's a new guy, Todd, in her team at work, and so far, we've been on the fence about him. "I'm telling you, Jude, he came into his own on Friday." She pauses, and a muffled sound lets me know she's settling in, tucking her feet under herself to get comfortable. Tea is about to be spilled. "So, we were in the boardroom and Leslie was running the meeting, and you know what she's like." We're not on the fence about Leslie. She's toxic and we hate everything about her. "And you know that thing where you point to your own mouth to show someone they have something on theirs?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Todd did that to Leslie, and she brushed it off and ignored him. So he did it again, more insistently. She ignored him again. Finally, he says, ‘You have some ketchup on your top lip there, Leslie.' And she's like, ‘No, I don't, Todd. It's a cold sore.'"

I hoot and writhe on my bed in secondhand embarrassment. "Noooo! Oh God. Did he resign on the spot? "

"He looked like he was giving it some serious thought, but no. He's still gainfully employed, but he's no longer as chipper as he was when he started, and that's a huge improvement. I think I probably definitely like him now. He's all right, old Todd. He has the potential to be interesting, you know."

"Well, that's good news, I suppose. Not for Todd, but for you."

"It is." We cackle a bit at what assholes we are and start making moves to wind the conversation up. Before we hang up, Lexi's tone changes, and she says, "Jude. You know men don't leave their wives for their…holy shit, what's the male equivalent of the word mistress? No! Do not tell me there's no word for that!" I can tell she's milliseconds from launching herself headlong into an epic feminist rant, and as much as I consider myself a die-hard feminist, it's getting late, I'm tired, and the patriarchy will still be full of shit tomorrow.

"There isn't. But point taken, say no more."

I definitely don't need to hear more. I'm ashamed she feels the need even to say this much. Of course she's right. Romeo is married. He's been married for five years, and he and Selby are considering having kids. They are very, very married. Those are the facts .

How he looked at me across a dinner table is neither here nor there. Of course it isn't. I appear to have taken a brief trip to the land of Delulu tonight, I admit it, but no more. Lexi's right. Men don't leave their wives for their mistresses, and in this case, the man in question didn't want me when he had me, so why, in God's name, I'm letting myself get caught up in the tiniest, most grasping-at-straws details of a completely inane interaction, I can't possibly imagine. Even my most delusional self can't concoct a half-decent explanation.

"'Kay, night."

"Night." My finger hovers over the End button, but just before I hit it, I say, "Hey, Lex, can I let you know if I change my mind? You know, about you flying out here?"

"Of course you can, Brother. Anytime. Just shout, and I'll be on my way."

Lexi rarely calls me Brother. I think she saves it up for special occasions so it packs a punch when she does say it. It levels me and reminds me of the unshakable bond we have. A bond forged in a childhood littered with fights to near-death about things that don't matter and never did. A bond that comes from living under the same roof with the same embarrassing parents and knowing the best and worst about each other. But mostly, reminds me that our bond is forged in blood.

I respond the same way I always do when she says it.

"I love you, Sister."