Page 7 of Made For Romeo

“Why are you so chipper this morning?” Kristina asks, and I can hear her moving around on her side of the phone.

“It’s a nice sunny day and I don’t have to work,” I joke with her as I look out the window. The last six months have been the most painstaking I’ve ever been through. Shooting seven days a week, sometimes up to sixteen or seventeen hours a day, wore me down. To be honest, when I heard they were making this movie, I had to beg to be included. No one really wanted to take me on since I was in a less critical role, one everyone assumed I got because I was my father’s son. What they didn’t know, or didn’t even care to report, was I had to work twice as hard to prove that I was the right person for the role. It’s one thing to play a frat boy turned lawyer, it’s another thing to play a Navy SEAL who fights for their country and then dies at the hands of his best friend. The script was amazing, and the location shooting was some of the best I’ve seen. I spent so much time with the director and the producer that now I knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to just act in a movie, I wanted to create it. I wanted to bring my visions to life. It came to me in the middle of the night while we were on location, and everything sort of clicked into place. Well, almost everything. “What can I do for you?”

“I was wondering when you were coming home?” she asks and I let out a deep sigh.

“Not sure yet,” I tell her.

“What are you doing there anyway?” She asks a question that I’m not going to answer. No one but my father knows why I’m here, and that is how I’m keeping it.

“I definitely have to go shopping for clothes,” I answer her, changing the subject.

“Oh,” she says, “that’s another reason I’m calling. You should be getting some clothes in the next hour. I called in a favor.”

“Perfect,” I reply, right as the knock on the door comes. “There is my food. Also, why don’t you take a couple of weeks off? I’ll text you if anything comes up.” I get up, walking over to the door and opening it.

“I’ll wait for your call,” she says. “Stay out of trouble.”

I hang up on her, not saying another word. “Where would you like to eat?”

“Oh, I’ll just take the tray.” I put my hands on the cart that it’s on. “I’ll call when I’m done.”

The man has no idea what to tell me, he looks at me shocked when I take the cart from him and wheel it into my suite. “We’re all good,” I tell him, closing the door.

I roll it over to the living room and sit down, pulling the domes off the food. Something inside me needs to talk to her. So I pick up my phone and pull down her number, thinking there is no way she is going to answer me. I did switch numbers a couple of months ago, so this might be my in. The phone rings once and I pick up a piece of toast, expecting the voice mail to come on, but it doesn’t; instead I hear her voice. “Hello.”

FIVE

GABRIELLA

I see the three-two-three area code come up and I don’t know why, but I kind of know it’s him. But then I tell myself I’m exaggerating, but then I also tell myself I’m done running. “Hello,” I answer on the second ring.

“Gabriella.” He says my name and my heart skips a beat, but my head yells that he’s a traitor.

I literally groan so he knows I don’t want to talk to him. “What do you want, Romeo?” I ask instead of just hanging up the phone on him. The best thing to do would be to ignore him, he’ll go away faster. I also want to kick myself for not even thinking that he could have gotten another number.

“How are you doing this fine morning?” I can visualize him asking me this. I can actually picture the number of times he asked me this when we were together. He would always have his hip leaning against the counter while he asked me.

“I was doing great until I answered the phone.” I hope he can hear the annoyance in my voice. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“I want to take you out to dinner.” His voice is soft and smooth, and I close my eyes to remind myself that he isn’t who he says he is.

“No,” I immediately say and throw the covers off me.

“I’m not taking no for an answer,” he replies, and I stop mid-step and laugh out loud.

“Well, you have no choice.” I continue laughing at the audacity he has. “Goodbye,” I say, pressing the button and tossing my phone onto my bed. “The balls on that man,” I huff as I walk into the bathroom and start the shower. “What in the world is he thinking?” I ask myself as I angrily take off my tank top. “Oh, yeah, sure, Romeo, why don’t I let you take me out to dinner.” I toss the top into the dirty laundry basket. “So we can reminisce about how you fucked me over.” I toss my panties next before I step into the shower. “What the hell is he doing here anyway?” I ask the universe, but of course no one answers me back. I think the universe laughs out loud. Snickers at me.

Ever since I came home yesterday, I’ve been racking my brain over and over again, thinking about what he is doing here. Like why, after all this time, is he showing up here demanding to talk to me? We said all we had to say in that last phone call after he ruined everything.

I step out of the shower, grabbing the white plush towel and shaking my head. “Did he expect me to act like nothing happened?” I mumble to myself as I stroll over to my walk-in closet heading straight for the drawers that hold my panties, putting a pair on, followed by my bra. “Oh, yeah, sure, let’s go to dinner and reminisce about the old days.” I shake my head, grabbing a T-shirt dress and putting it over my head.

I hang up my wet towel before walking down the stairs, trying like hell not to think about Romeo but failing miserably. It took me months not to think about what he was doing. It took me months to get over what he did to me. I mean, not get over it, but forget about it, or at least not think about it every hour of the day. “Damn you, Romeo!” I shout to the empty kitchen as I walk over and grab the coffee pod before putting it in the machine. I open the cabinet right on top of the machine to pick my coffee cup of the day. I’m obsessed with mugs and everyone knows it, so I’ve gotten two cupboards full of them. Today’s mug says, “She is beauty, she is grace, she can stab you in the face,” with a unicorn in the middle of it. “Fitting,” I say, putting the mug down and pressing the button, waiting for the coffee to come out. I watch the coffee pour out while my mind wanders back.

I walked up the steps to my apartment, seeing a brown square box right in front of the door. I bent down to check if it was for me since I hadn’t ordered anything in the last couple of days. My name was in the middle of the box, and when I checked to see who it came from, not even the name sparked a memory. But I was intrigued with it since it had the fragile sticker on the top and the sides. I stuck my key into the door and unlocked it and stepped in, stopping after I took two steps. I looked around my one-bedroom apartment and saw there were fairy lights hung up all around the room. It gave off a romantic touch. The dining room table that faced me was covered in jars of water and floating candles. There was a rose-petal path that led to the living room, with silver lanterns to help light up the way. And there in the middle of the living room, dressed in basketball shorts and a white T-shirt, was Romeo. He stood on what could only be described as a cloud of white pillows. A checkered tablecloth was beside him with a picnic basket placed on top of it. There were bowls and plates, with a silver bucket with two bottles of wine in it.

“Welcome home,” he greeted, his arms were stretched to his sides. He stood in the middle of my living room in front of the couch. Right next to what looked like a mountain of pillows. I shook my head in disbelief that he was still here. Seven days ago, we met at a party followed by a heavy make-out session on the beach. Which then was followed by him getting up and bringing me back home. The ride was different this time; instead of holding his jacket, I held his cock in my hand the whole time. Needless to say, when he parked, and I invited him up, we ended up with my back pressed against the front door.

“What is this?” I was in shock, to say the very least. Every single day I got home from school and thought for sure he would be gone, but nope, he was still here. Not that I really minded. The sex was out of this world, but I knew once he got bored, he would move on. It was just a matter of when that would happen.

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