Page 58 of Romeo vs Romeo

“I’m not picky,” I assured Mama Viv that Friday evening after hours spent with Layla Zahran and the detectives from the Public Corruption unit. There was a heavy focus on bribery, and we had poured over every line of conversation I’d heard and recorded in the meetings.

My father was released, I heard on Saturday, as he had never been arrested in the first place. However, the district attorneywas going to prioritize this case and likely make an example out of him and the public officials who had played a role in the scheme.

On Monday, Roman told me about Layla’s job offer, and he shyly admitted that he was considering it. He didn’t seem convinced that there hadn’t been some mistake in choosing him, so I tried to motivate him. He walked away reassured and, unrelated to the job offer, thoroughly satisfied.

On Tuesday, the first job offers came my way. A college colleague who ran a small hedge fund had seen me on TV and thought I would be a good fit. I disagreed politely and promised to think about it. Several hours later, Brightwave Solutions got in touch to praise my stand. Their pitch was much more focused on shared values, and I ended the conversation with something like hope. Their business was focused on eco-friendly, sustainable solutions in urban planning, and they were looking for new talent in key roles in strategic partnerships.

I might not sit on twelve million dollars following my twenty-fifth birthday, but I could join something I believed in. The conversation reminded me of an evening I had once spent with Roman, which had culminated in a near panic attack when Roman told me about the fears that motivated him. Even as I promised to consider the offer, I agreed to a meeting on Thursday, and I knew what my answer would be.

Roman and I celebrated the events as they unfolded, nearly struggling to keep track of all the excitement. We also had private milestones worth celebrating, which meant infinitely more to me. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, Tristan stayed at Cedric’s place, Lane went to visit his family, Madison was gone for undisclosed reasons, and Oakley realized what the plan was, so he made arrangements to stay at a friend’s place. That was the first night I spent with Roman without the excruciating pressure of having to return home. The entire night was puremagic. Roman had gotten us a nice bottle of wine and handed me a remote controller without revealing its purpose. Well, I found out in the next heartbeat when I pressed the button and made Roman squirm and wiggle and nearly hyperventilate. In a cracked voice, he said, “Maybe lower the setting before you mess with it.”

We forgot all about the wine after that.

Roman was more than willing to let me dial up the vibrating pulses, the control of which he had placed solely into my hands. Watching the pleasure and fear rippled across his sexy face made me love him harder and more fiercely with every excruciating second.

We took pleasure in each other’s bodies freely and without shame. And when we were exhausted, we slept soundly together in the small bed that ended up being just enough for the two of us. There was something symbolic about this, and I wondered if the same would apply to all the areas of our lives.

Our first cute fight was about who would do the dishes. “No, I’ll do them.” Our first real fight was over Roman’s insistence that he needed to be on the frontline of an anti-fracking protest that followed an earlier one from which he returned with a bloody nose and a split lip. The latter fight brought our frustrations to a crescendo, making me understand so fully and completely that I could not survive something bad happening to Roman. The old adage about makeup sex was proved correct that night, and I loved him even more the following day. The protest was peaceful, and I was there with Roman to make sure he wouldn’t get in trouble.

The day my first paycheck from Brightwave Solutions dripped into my regular checking account, the kind that all my new friends had, with no fancy additions or complicated moneymaking schemes, we celebrated in the backyard of Neon Nights next to the gas heaters that sent the chill away from thetables. The season was almost ending, and the garden would soon sleep, but we spent one more night enjoying the fresh air, the canopy of colorful lights, and the distant glimmering stars above us. And when Roman’s first paycheck from his grown-up job at Layla’s organization arrived, he treated us to a picnic in Central Park and a bottle of really good wine. It was the last truly sunny day of the year, impossibly warm and vibrant, lighting the orange and brown leaves that still clung to the branches on fire, the sunshine kissing our cheeks as we said goodbye to nice days like this.

A few days later, Cedric declared November 7 a holiday, and there was a mandatory poetry reading in Neon Nights to wish Apollo a farewell as he departed the world for a long vacation. His pagan tendencies would have scared the living crap out of me two months ago, but I discovered that listening to his foreign accent as he readImmortalityby Clare Harner was a more profound spiritual experience than any Monsignor O’Connor had ever offered.

“I am the thousand winds that blow; I am the diamond glints in snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain; I am the gentle, autumn rain.”

Apollo, according to Cedric, would return in March, bringing light back to the world.

But the only light my soul needed was that of Roman Cross.

On my twenty-fifth birthday, Roman surprised me with a red velvet cake and twenty-five candles. The party was hosted in Mama Viv’s sitting room, where new framed photos from the protests were added to her wall.

“It’s not twelve million bucks, but the cake still tastes like cake,” Roman quipped just before he scooped some cream cheese frosting off his plate and smeared it over my nose.

I didn’t care about my trust fund. On most days, at least. And when I was with him, no amount of money could have madethose moments any better. The best things in my life were free. The best things involved only Roman and me.

Life was good for almost all its parts.

Once, within the very first week after making our stand, I visited the building where my parents lived. Nobody answered, and my elevator code was incorrect.

Some pain remained, it was true. I had never wanted to hurt my parents. “But this sort of guilt rests solely on the premise that your sexuality is at fault,” Roman told me once. “And they’re the only ones to blame for that.”

He was right, of course. Had my family been able to love me unconditionally, things could have gone differently. I wasn’t sure whether that would have made my father any less guilty in the other areas of his life, but he would have been more of a father to me.

Even with the clearly halted communication, it hurt me to see the charges being brought against my father while knowing it was solely my actions that led him there. And once again, Roman’s words helped. “You weren’t the one bribing your way to wealth and power.”

Guilt was guilt. My father’s was the criminal sort, and mine was emotional.

My father was tried and found guilty of nearly all the counts brought against him. He was sentenced in late January, although he wasn’t imprisoned. With this being his first and only crime on the record, and with the nonviolent nature of his crimes, he was ordered to pay an eye-watering fine. He was barred from holding office in any publicly traded company for ten years, and his own board of directors turned against him. The value of the company plummeted over the following weeks. My father’s net worth dropped by ninety-four percent, which still made him ridiculously rich, and it reflected his real wealth that wasn’t tied to the volatile stock of Langley Corporation. Hedid lose the apartment looking over Central Park, and he lost his membership in the country’s most exclusive clubs, but they kept their upstate house, where the only happy memories of my childhood were.

By the time Cedric announced Apollo’s return on March 7, I had been named the director of strategic partnerships at Brightwave. I led a team of nine people in forming and improving our company’s connections with corporations, individuals, and organizations. My team and my colleagues were Neon Nights regulars.

A little after we celebrated Roman’s twenty-fifth birthday in late March, our six-month anniversary offered another cause to throw a party. And three days after that, Roman said he wished for us to move in together. It echoed my deepest desire, but finding an apartment in Hudson Burrow proved challenging, and leaving the neighborhood never crossed either of our minds. On the bright side, whenever I woke up in Mama Viv’s spare bedroom instead of waking up in Roman’s bed, his dining room window was my first sight, and as often as not, Roman would already be up, having coffee, waiting for me to pull the curtain aside and smile at him. Even so, we occasionally looked at apartment ads in the neighborhood, even if people only sold them.

It was in late April that Mama Viv showed up in my room with a serious expression on her face. “There’s someone who wants to see you, Everett.”

I had been expecting Roman to let me know he was ready for our Sunday out in the city, but Mama Viv’s tone told me this was not about Roman. So I walked after Mama Viv in bewilderment until we came down to the bar. Mama Viv gestured at the garden and folded her hands tightly like she was wrecked by anxiety.

The situation made my forehead crease with concern as I looked away from Mama Viv to the garden. It was early still, andthere were only a couple of occupied tables where young people had their breakfasts and soft drinks. No one seemed familiar. What was more, no one even noticed me.

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