Page 22 of Romeo vs Romeo

“What can I do?” Roman asked.

I shrugged. “You’re the guy who fights the Wall Street gamblers, right? You must know people.”

“A band of rebels,” Roman said dismissively. He planted his elbows on his knees and leaned in, matching my pose, his headinches away from mine. “We could blow the thing up, and Mama Viv would lose everything anyway.”

Chills ran down my spine.

Roman shook his head. “A joke. We don’t blow things up.”

“But…” I hesitated, my brain too slow to catch up with some fleeting idea that had crossed my mind. Sighing, I tried again. “You’re shocked, Rome. I get it. You’re defeated before you can start fighting, but you have to pull yourself out of it. Tomorrow, after you’ve gotten a good night’s sleep, you’ll think of something.”

“Like what?” Roman asked bitterly. “I’m not the one who comes up with these things. I’m not smart like that, alright? I just show up, and others make decisions.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know what you can do, but feeling like shit isn’t helping, either. Maybe she can move the bar to another place when they pay her out.”

Roman lifted his head angrily. “You don’t get it. This place is the heart of our neighborhood. It’s been that way for forty years. And it’s been a place where closeted guys got together and accepted themselves and came out when others wanted them to remain in their four walls.”

My throat tightened. He was angry. I understood that. He wasn’t arguing with me. “Forty years,” I murmured. “That’s a long time for a bar to exist.”

“So what? Time to end it?” Roman bit with more venom than I liked.

I shook my head. “No, you’re not listening. Forty years is a very long time. And if what you’re saying is true, then there are thousands of people who would gladly help to protect Neon Nights.”

“Like what? Lie down before a bulldozer?” His defeatism was getting on my nerves, but I allowed it. He was devastated and drunk and couldn’t see it clearly.

“Rome, don’t you get it? If Neon Nights really was a place where so many people found a second home, there’s an army available to push back. And to do it loudly. I mean, I don’t know the odds, but it’s worth a shot. If enough people can prove that this place—and I mean that literally, that bar, those walls, that stage—changed their lives, I’m sure that would translate into some kind of legal protection. Maybe not something as sturdy as a landmark status, which takes ages to obtain, but…something,” I finished lamely.

Roman’s ears perked. “Hold on,” he said, his voice letting a touch of his natural fire enter it. “Landmarks can’t be demolished. Stonewall Inn’s protected.”

“I think so,” I said. I’d had only a passing familiarity with Law in college. “But I think it would take too long.”

“Not if we have enough community action,” Roman said, more fiery again. “To simply fight with no goal in mind is to lose, but if we got together with a goal, a clear goal to declare this place a Hudson Burrow landmark, we’d have a fighting chance.”

“Okay,” I said. “Maybe.”

“Maybe is good enough,” Roman said, optimism dawning so clearly and dangerously on his face. Hope was such a fickle thing. In one moment, it made you show your throat, and in the next, it slashed you with a blade. “Maybe is enough to get some people involved. Some people who know what they’re doing. I could get Martha to call up some contacts and see what the chances are. We could protest. We could raise hell and buy some time. We could…oh, I don’t know. My brain isn’t working. Fuck.”

“You need to sleep,” I urged him.

Roman steadied his gaze on my face. He looked into my eyes, only inches of empty space between us. “Would you fight?”

My ears rang with his words. Would I? Would I risk being seen at a rally to protect a gay bar in a run-down neighborhood like Hudson Burrow? I licked my lips. “By your side?” I foughthard not to tremble, but the fear was fighting back. I nodded jerkily. “Yes. I would.”

Roman lifted a corner of his lips with a sober swagger, still gazing into my eyes, and I knew before there was anything to know. I knew what was coming next. Some small part of me tensed my muscles. I almost pulled back before the disaster struck. But it was tiny, this voice of doom and dread.

I stayed where I was for a heartbeat longer, just long enough to tell him,yes, I’m here, and I’m ready.

Roman’s half-grin pulled me in, and his eyes alerted me when his gaze dropped to my lips. He leaned in a fraction of an inch, testing me, and I held fast. I didn’t pull away even a little.

I thought I saw him nod. It was so tiny and brief that I might have imagined it. Whatever was there to be seen disappeared in the next moment. Roman moved in, closing that tiny gap between us, and planted his lips warmly and deeply against mine. He pressed them harder, hot air leaving his nostrils.

Like a shattering earthquake that only belonged to me, something incredible, all-powerful, took place inside of me. Something like a sheer force of nature slammed into me when Roman put his hand gently on the back of my head.

Every yearning that was denied to me, every restrained desire, and every dream half dreamed bloomed in me like the first snowdrops and saffron in a sunny patch of grass, bringing the hope of an ending of a terrible winter.

Desire that welled in me was so much more than simply a sexual attraction to him. It was the desire to be like him, accepted by others and myself. It was the desire to share a connection that went deeper than any other ever could. And it was sexual without an exception. It turned me on. It made my heart glow like hot goals under a smith’s bellows.

I want you, I thought, grappling with the reality that it was a male body that I desired. These were a man’s lips I kissed. Thiswas a man’s arm I held. This was a man’s voice that let out a gentle moan, which traveled from his mouth into mine.

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