Page 5 of Forbidden Romeo

“I…” Shit. No, there wasn’t.

More voices murmured from down the hall. Not just Duncan’s.

She wishes we hadn’t given up so quickly? Did she even remember the last week we were together? It was horrible. Up until this week, it had been the worst of my life.

“Holden.” Meg said again. Pinpricks flooded my vision. Squeezing my hand, she tugged me closer. “You’re really pale.”

She pressed her cool palm to my cheek, leaning closer. So close. I could smell the peppermint of her gum.

“I’m fine.” I tried to step back, but my head was spinning and I felt dizzy.

“You don’t look fine.”

Through my haze, I registered her concerned look. Then, Duncan appeared behind her. I took a beat as the person standing next to Duncan also came into view.

Katherine.

Katherine was here?

Of course she was. Katherine would always be here.

No matter how much I pushed her away, my Juliet wouldn’t break.

And for the first time in a week, I didn’t feel so broken, either.

CHAPTER 3

I’ve always liked church music.

Hated church. But I loved the music.

Dad and I have—had—that in common. He only went weekly to appease my mom. It was rare when Dad and I would align on anything, but church seemed like the one place where he and I were truly a team. He would roll his eyes at me if the priest said something in his sermon we thought was dumb. He would surreptitiously hand me candy in the middle of service, giving me a little wink as we each tried to silently unwrap it and pop it in our mouths without Mom seeing.

One day after mass, he and I were at the pub prepping for the lunch crowd when he slid me a look from where he scrubbed the grills. “Hearing you sing in mass is the only part of Sunday mornings I enjoy. You know that, Sprout?”

Eyes wide, I stared up at him in awe from where I filled ketchup bottles, standing on the dirty step stool at the counter beside him. “Really?”

“Oh yeah. What’s that Eagles Wing one? That’s my favorite. You sound a thousand times better than ol’ Mrs. Middling.”

I giggled while playing with my loose front tooth. “I could sing it now while we clean!” I offered him.

“I think I’d like that,” he said with a single stoic nod.

From then on, I would belt out every song during the ninety minute mass, making sure my dad could hear me over the sea of tone deaf parishioners.

Even now as an adult, singing in church feels like coming home.

It’s like a cruel joke that I now have to stand here in front of a hundred people—family and friends—and sing his favorite song while he lays in a shiny cherry wood casket beside me.

And now, the expectations are higher. Higher even than most auditions I’ve had. Every person sitting here in church knows I left home to go be a star. They know I moved to New York. Some of them even know I’d landed my first ever Broadway show.

I didn’t realize it was in my father’s funeral plans that he had asked On Eagle’s Wings as part of his service until I arrived. Not only the song itself. But he’d specifically requested it be sung by me.

How the fuck am I expected to get through this? The intro has only just started and I already can barely see the words on my sheet music through the sheen of moisture filling in my eyes.

The intro music pauses as it comes to my entrance and I open my mouth to sing…

Only I’m met with silence.

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