Roman Holiday: The Adventure Continues (26 page)

“What is it?”

“Carrot colada. Half carrot juice, half coconut juice.”

He took an experimental sip. “It’s good.”

“Only the best for my baby.”

She meant it, but she tried to sound jokey. She was afraid he would laugh—and not in the good way—if he found out she’d called in a favor to make this picnic happen. At four-thirty a.m., Ashley had roused her friend Muna, who owned the amazing vegan-grocery-store-slash-diner on Big Pine Key, to unlock the place so Ashley could raid the refrigerator case.

She’d been so preoccupied with making arrangements for their food that she’d gotten everything else wrong. They had to sit on the space blanket from Roman’s car because she’d neglected to bring a picnic cloth. The sundress she’d dug out of her bag was too skimpy for such a breezy, cool morning.

But damn it, she was trying.

It was dizzying to be sitting here with him. More dizzying than his arrival, more drugging than his kisses. Not altogether pleasant. She wanted everything to be perfect, and instead she had to keep swatting away the anxiety that was swooping around inside her rib cage like a collection of beady-eyed bats.

We can’t do this
, the anxiety-bats said.

Yes, you can
, she told them.

This will never work
.

You don’t know that. Try
.

Trying is not our forte
.

I don’t care. Try anyway
.

Always, before, when she started to feel this mixed up, she would bail. She’d never held a job for longer than a season or stayed in a relationship more than a few months. Ashley didn’t fix things. She didn’t bear with them or figure them out. She walked away.

The only relationships she’d managed to sustain were those with her grandmother and the denizens of Sunnyvale.

The only place she’d never walked away from was this one.

Now Sunnyvale was gone, and Ashley was determined to be with Roman. She wanted to see him and smell him and touch him, sleep in his arms, ride in his car, know what he was doing every day, how he felt, what he thought.

More than she’d ever wanted anything, she wanted that.

She wanted it enough to learn to live with the lid on the well open, even if it meant that her less desirable feelings could escape at any moment to swat at her head with their leathery wings, pricking her confidence with their sharp little claws.

Roman tipped his juice cup against hers. “Cheers. I like that dress.”

“Thanks.” His slow and appreciative ogling brought blood to the surface of her skin.

“I’m looking forward to seeing it soaking wet.”

“It’s not going to rain.”

“Ash.”

A gust of wind blew her hair into her face. She pushed it out of her eyes with a frown. The sky was the color of galvanized pipe. “I forgot to check the forecast.”

One strap of her dress fell off her shoulder as she leaned forward to place red-cabbage coleslaw on the far side of the space blanket. She sat up to find Roman watching her.

He eased the strap back into place, fingers lingering, and she wanted to throw herself at him. Pull him down on top of all the food. She was already wet between her legs from their kisses. The dress was loose enough to flip out of the way, her panties a scrap he could shove aside. One deep, slow glide, and he’d be seated to the base.

It would be so easy if this were only about sex.

“You’re going to have to eat at least one of everything,” she said primly. “Starting with these peanut tofu noodle roll things.”

“I’ve never had tofu.”

“So try it.” She managed to sound perky. He plucked a roll out of the box. After he ate it, he sucked peanut sauce off his thumb. Ashley couldn’t look away.

“What?” he asked.

“You just licked food off your finger.”

“I’m hungry.”

“You cleaned food from your skin with your own spitty mouth appendage.”

“My tongue is an appendage?”

“You never would have done that before.”

“I never would have eaten a peanut tofu noodle thing, either.”

“I can’t believe how much I’ve corrupted you.”

Roman smiled. “Give me another one.”

When she took it from the container, the sectioned spelt wrap started to unravel in her fingers. A slippery noodle escaped to slap against her wrist. “Come here!”

He leaned in, and she shoved the overlarge bite into his open mouth before it fell apart completely. He chewed with bulging cheeks, jaw working, pleasure in his eyes.

“Napkin?” he asked afterward, glancing around.

“I forgot them.”

Roman chased his noodle thing with carrot colada, reached for her wrist, and licked the sauce off her skin. “There,” he said. “Now I’ve licked
you
with my spitty mouth appendage.”

“I happen to like your spitty mouth appendage. You’re the one who cares about things like tidy fingers and clean suits and bacteria.”

“Hon, everybody cares about bacteria.”

“Not me! I think we need more bacteria in our lives. I bet you wipe off the doorknobs and clean the countertops with those Clorox-wipe things.”

“I have a cleaning service.”

“Do they bleach every single surface?”

“I have no idea.”

“How can you not know?”

“I want the place clean. I don’t care how they get it that way.”

“But most cleaning products are toxic. And the so-called natural stuff is just as bad. You should have them cleaning with vinegar and soap, baking soda, lemon juice—”

“Hey.”

That was all he said—just
hey
. But Roman’s
hey
was enough to bring her to a halt.

“What’s bugging you?” he asked.

We’re too much in love with you
, the bats shrieked.
We’re in over our heads!

“I don’t know what’s next,” she admitted.

“After breakfast?”

“Yeah, and … you know. Us. This place. All of it.”

He eased back, his expression shifting from playful to cautious—but not, she noted with relief, to the blank mask he’d once worn habitually. “You’re ready to talk about that now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

Roman cleared his throat. He looked away from her, and then after a moment, he looked back. His eyes were earnest when he said, “I want you to come home with me.”

“For today?” she croaked. “Or …?”

“For as long as you want.”

“You’re asking me to stay with you?”

“Yes.”

Up swooped the bats. “I’ll drive you crazy. I’m not very neat. I hate to clean. I’m kind of random, and I leave cereal bowls on top of the dresser and eat cookies in bed, plus—”

He laid his hand on her arm. “Wait. You’ll stay?”

“Sure, but—”

He smiled his big everything smile, with the mystery dimple and the crinkly eyes and the blinding flash of teeth. The bats settled. “Good. Carry on.”

“I was about to.”

“I know, but now you have permission.”

“I’m worried about your apartment.”

“It’s actually a condo.”

“Oh, God,” she said.

“What’s wrong with condos?”

“Fees. Snobs. Just the word, actually. The word
condo
gives me hives.”

“You can think of it as an apartment if that helps.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Maybe you should see it before you hate it.”

“I should, but I have to tell you, this thing I’m worrying about? It feels like a bigger thing than just your condo. It feels like—like the difference between you and me. In building form.”

“I thought we were doing a pretty good job bridging our differences.”

“The licking?”

“If you want to take the crudest possible example, sure. Or the tofu eating, or the kissing, or the fact that you told me you loved me when I was kissing you.”

“I wasn’t sure you heard that.”

“I’ve been playing it back on a mental loop.”

“That’s … You have? Really?”

He nodded. Then, without warning, he moved in, pivoted on his hip, and laid his head in her lap. Ashley gazed down into his eyes, swamped with tenderness.

“I’m starting to think I might be a romantic,” he said. “Carmen called me a pussy because I’m so crazy about you.” Reaching up, he captured a hank of her hair and wound it around his fingers so he could pull her down to meet his rising mouth.

When their lips touched, all the bats flew away.

Ashley kissed him back, gentle and sweet. She lived in the kiss. It was a beautiful place to live. She would happily move into Roman’s mouth forever.

“Talk to me.” He unwound his grip and traced the rim of her ear with a fingertip. “What’s this about?”

“We’ve been on a road trip. We’ve been
camping
.”

“So?”

“Road trips are—they’re outside of real life, right? They’re play. But now playtime’s over. What if we go back to your apartment and you realize,
Oh, actually, there isn’t anything about everyday Ashley that I like
.”

“Not going to happen.”

“You can’t be sure.”

“What if you think the same thing about me?”

She wouldn’t.

But what if she did?

His mouth hardened into a determined line. “It’s not because I live in a condo. What is it? My money? My job? My values?”

“
Our
values, maybe.”

“What’s wrong with our values?”

“We don’t have any in common.”

He sat up abruptly. “That’s not true.”

“I hope it’s not, but I’m worried it is.”

His fingers found the hem of her dress and crumpled it in an unconscious fist. “You’re saying you’re afraid that we might love each other—which, you know, we might have taken a few minutes to enjoy that before launching into this conversation, but here we go—and even though we’re in love, we still have, what? Irreconcilable differences?”

The phrase caught her off guard.

Irreconcilable differences—that was what her parents had had. Endless bickering. Divorce. Irreconcilable differences meant there would never be enough common ground, and there was no room for compromise.

The words gave Ashley
all
the bat feelings.

“Yes,” she whispered.

Roman was silent.

When he spoke again, his voice had softened. “Then let’s figure out who we are, fundamentally, and we’ll know if our differences are so irreconcilable.”

“That won’t work. We can’t figure it out sitting on a blanket, eating cold spring rolls.”

“Why not?”

She didn’t have an answer to that question.

He brushed her hair away from her shoulder and let his hand rest in the space he’d cleared. “You know, I remember thinking when I first met you that we didn’t have any common ground. Here you were on the tree, and I didn’t know how to make you do what I wanted, because I had power over you but you didn’t care. I thought you were disorderly and frustrating and … kind of alarming, to be honest.”

“You said I sucked.”

“I know. And you told me I was soulless.”

“But I thought you were really hot, too.”

“Ash.” He dropped his hand onto her thigh.

Picking up his fingers, she studied the beds of his nails and the wrinkled terrain of his knuckles. “You were never soulless.”

“I did a good imitation.”

She nipped at the fleshy spot at the base of his thumb, then kissed it. “Not that good.”

“My point is, that’s not where we are anymore. I’m not going to try to make you do what I want or be who I want. I want to figure out what
you
want and help you do that, which means I have to care about your ideals, even when they’re not the same as mine. And maybe you’re curious about who I am when I’m at home in Miami. At least enough to want to sleep a few nights in my bed, or to come by and see my office. Talk to people who know me.”

“Of course I am.”

“So tell me your philosophy of life.”

A startling request. Ashley could feel the shock of it, her eyes widening, her heart rate speeding up. “I don’t think I have one.”

“Make something up. Spit out whatever comes to mind. I want to hear what you say.”

She breathed in. On the exhale, she said, “Love.”

“Explain.”

“I want everything I do to be about love. Not just with you, but with other people, and the rest of the world, the way I am in the world …” Roman’s hand was creeping up her leg. “This sounds dumb.”

Long fingers traced the outline of her panties. “It sounds like you.”

“Does it?”

“Absolutely.” He wrapped his hand around her hip and gripped her there, an anchor.

“What’s yours?” she asked.

“Belonging, maybe. I’ve always thought of myself as being on the outside. My dad, and everything with Patrick. But I think a lot of it was me. I made a choice to walk away from
Patrick and Samantha, and I haven’t belonged to anyone since. Even Heberto and Carmen—I picked them because of how they were. Carmen and I were perfect because we never asked each other for anything. Until you, I didn’t want to admit that I wanted more. That I
need
it.”

She moved closer, pressing her legs against his, pulling his head to hers and lifting her own so they could touch nose against nose, breathing with their mouths separated by inches, sharing the same air, the same space.

“I want to belong to you,” he said softly. “And I want you to belong to me.”

Her breaths came short, but his hand on her body steadied her, its pressure a promise that he would stay.

He would stay, and she wouldn’t walk away.

The wind raised goose bumps on her arms. Ashley exhaled her fear, one breath at a time.

Love and belonging weren’t incompatible. They were two sides of the same thing.

She turned to rest her cheek against Roman’s temple. He pulled her into his lap. His arms came around her.

“I want that, too,” she said.

They sat together in the rubble of the place she’d called home, and she found the bravery she’d drawn on when the hurricane was bearing down on both of them.

All they needed was this.

Love, and the desire to make something together. A home. A shelter.

She kissed his neck. Then she kissed his lips. He kissed her in return, fingers winding into her hair, tongue easing into her mouth, offering her everything. His hopeful heart. His need for her. Their future.