Roman Holiday: The Complete Adventure (2-Book Bundle: The Adventure Begins and The Adventure Continues) (17 page)

And yet the words kept crawling up her throat from some place she couldn’t even name. She kept them contained behind her tongue, but they rioted around back there, clamoring to get out.

We don’t live together
.

He rarely even sleeps over
.

Sometimes a week goes by—two weeks—without my seeing him, and I’m not bothered
.

Sometimes when we have sex, I’m bored. I think he might be bored, too
.

I like your belt. I like your eyes. I like your mouth
.

Noah smiled again, sort of sheepish. As though he were the one who’d just unleashed a flood of embarrassing nonsense. “Yeah. That’s what I meant.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She clicked her nails against the clipboard, impatient. She had no idea for what.

Noah looked past her, out the door, and cleared his throat. “So I’ve about looked everything over already. All the damage is superficial—it’s mostly just a god-awful mess. If you want, we can do a quick sweep, then I’ll lock up and we can maybe grab some lunch after.”

Carmen didn’t react. She kept her face completely serene. She had no idea why Noah responded by lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Just lunch,” he said, with a self-effacing sort of chuckle that had no guile in it, no calculation whatsoever. “Totally platonic. I wouldn’t be dumb enough to hit on Roman’s girl.”

She searched all her mental store cupboards for cool, but cool was out of stock. This strange man and his big hands and his beard and that belt buckle and everything
underneath
the belt buckle had done something to her, had stolen her cool, so she did the only thing she could possibly do.

She fled.

The Escalade waited in Mitzi’s gravel driveway, sporting a deep new dent in the bumper courtesy of Jerry’s being both reckless and insane, as well as a long scratch along the side courtesy of he had no idea who.

Roman waited on Mitzi’s porch.

His keys were in his pocket, his bag packed and sitting by his right hip. Ashley had turned out to be correct about the trailer hitch—it was just the pressure of its being jackknifed that had made it impossible to remove—and he’d towed the Airstream into Mitzi’s driveway and then set it loose.

All of it a performance, of course. Ashley had him by the balls, and both of them knew it.

So he waited.

She came out of the house and sat down beside him. Through the open screen door, he heard Mitzi and Kirk talking, alto and baritone. He could hear a dog barking, and he could see past his truck over the lawn to the swamp, but he couldn’t see the shape of what was supposed to happen next.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“What do you want from me?”

There was a long silence. He wondered if she was hesitating because she thought he might snap. He might have told her not to worry about it. All the snap had gone out of him. How many days had he been with her—three? And she’d already beaten him.

Jerry had been the last straw. Jerry and the fucking dent in Roman’s fucking Cadillac, and then Carmen telling him he couldn’t leave. That he had to find a way to control Ashley. By Monday.

As if there were such a thing as a way to control Ashley.

“I want you to change your mind,” she said.

“That’s not possible.”

She tucked her feet closer and wrapped her arms around her knees, converting herself into a small, neat package perched at the edge of the step. “I think it is,” she said. “And even if
it’s not, I have to try.”

“Haven’t you already tried? I got the speech at the palm tree, the speech at the diner.” He lifted his hand, gestured at the view. “I got one all-expenses-paid night in this lovely swamp, which I assume is supposed to be a taste of the good life, courtesy of Ashley Bowman.”

“That’s not fair. I didn’t get you stuck here.”

“You didn’t help get me unstuck, either.”

After a moment, she said, “Fine. I’ll take half the responsibility if you take the other half.”

Roman could accept that. He was at least fifty percent responsible for getting himself into this mess. He hadn’t listened when his instincts told him to be wary of the deal he’d made with Susan. He’d underestimated Ashley from the beginning, and then he’d let her get to him, and then he’d underestimated her
again
and she’d blindsided him with this Key deer bullshit.

He just hadn’t expected her to lie to him. Hadn’t expected her to use this particular brand of sneaky, underhanded manipulation.

“What will it take to make you drop the deer thing?”

“Your cooperation.”

“With …?”

He turned slightly to study her compact form, her inward-focused expression. She wore shorts and a T-shirt with black flip-flops. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, her nose freckled, her lips shiny with glossy stuff that smelled like watermelon.

She looked exactly as she had when he met her. Nothing special.

Yet he had to do whatever she asked.

“With a trip,” she said. “We’re going to take a trip.”

“Where?”

“That’s for me to know and you to discover.”

He felt so tired, so heavy, he couldn’t even care. Gravity pulled on every part of him, and he wanted to lie down and let it have him.

Just give up.

Just quit.

He might have. Except if he didn’t have Sunnyvale—if he didn’t have a way to prove his worth to Heberto, to Carmen—then what did he have?

Nothing.

At eighteen, he’d been emancipated from the foster care system and kicked out of the house he’d grown up in by a man who no longer wanted to be his father.

Something wrong with you
.

Never want to see you again
.

He’d moved to Princeton, New Jersey, to begin an education paid for by another man. A stranger who despised his values but admired his energy. Heberto Zumbado had read Roman’s entry in an essay contest, and he’d taken Roman on as a project.

Never mind that Roman’s essay had been, essentially, a middle finger brandished at Zumbado’s anti-Castro, pro-capitalist ethos. Roman was deep in his Cuban revolutionary phase at the time, and he’d written a screed about Che Guevara and the New Man that must have made Heberto’s blood pressure spike. Still, Heberto had seen Roman’s potential, and he’d shaken his hand and voted for it in the way that counted most: with his own money.

He’d paid every cent of Roman’s tuition and board, and when he found out Roman had no home to visit, he flew him to Miami for Thanksgiving and Christmas from then on.

Heberto gave him summer jobs. Heberto molded him into the man he’d become.

Heberto had voted for Roman’s Coral Cay development with his own money, and Roman would come through. He had to. He owed it to Heberto—this offering, this
proof
that he’d been a worthwhile investment.

More than that, he owed it to himself, because once he had the first phase of Coral Cay done, Heberto would buy out Ojito Enterprises and make Roman a partner. Then he’d be set for life. Wealthy enough to buy a house in Coral Gables and a ring he wouldn’t be ashamed to give to Carmen.

They didn’t let people like Ashley Bowman past the gates in Coral Gables. Money would make him impermeable.

Safe.

“How long does this trip last?” he asked.

“As long as it takes.”

“No.”

Ashley leaned forward and rubbed her thumb over the chipped blue polish on her big toe. “You’re not in a position to say no.”

“Give me an upper limit.”

“Two weeks.”

Two weeks, when Carmen had said Monday.

He already knew whose timeline was going to win. Carmen had faith in him, but she hadn’t met Ashley. She didn’t know.

If Ashley wanted two weeks, she was going to get them.

“You should just drag me out into the swamp and feed me to the gators.”

“I’m going to drag you all over the country instead. And introduce you to my friends.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

Ashley tilted her head and smiled at her toe. She looked sad, and he thought it might be for him, which just made him feel heavier.

“Because I love them.” She looked at him. “These people are my family, Roman. Sunnyvale is my home. I guess I’m hoping, if you meet them, you’ll get it. And you’ll care.”

He almost told her then. That he didn’t like her. That she was frivolous and inconsequential.

He almost told her that love never got anybody anywhere, and it was a weakness he couldn’t afford.

But instead, he said, “Fine.”

She’d left him no other choice. He’d have to reshuffle the entire construction schedule. Make a dozen phone calls. He’d have to invent some bullshit to tell Heberto and some other bullshit to tell Carmen.

He’d try for Monday—try his hardest, give it his best. But he couldn’t find any hope for himself. Hadn’t been able to for three days.

“But at the end of two weeks,” he said, “no matter what, you forget about the deer, and you step aside.”

“Unless you change your mind.” Ashley stood.

“I won’t.”

“Then I guess that’s the chance I’m taking.”

“Fine.”

She walked away. With her hand on the screen door, she paused. “It might be fun.”

“It won’t be fun.”

She shrugged and opened the door. “At the very least, it’ll be good for you to take a vacation. You could use some relaxing. You’re so uptight.”

“I’m disciplined.”

“You’re uptight. You need a holiday.” Then she laughed, abruptly, at nothing. “A Roman holiday. Cute.”

The screen door slammed shut behind her. A few seconds passed before she returned, flattening her nose against the screen. “Oh, and we leave in the morning, with the Airstream,” she said. “I’m going to be driving your Caddy at least half the time, so get used to the idea.”

Then she was gone.

Roman sat on the porch until the sun set. His phone buzzed and chirped and rang in his pocket—the press of business relentless as ever—but he didn’t shift to answer it.

What would be the point? He’d accepted defeat. He’d agreed to his sentence.

Two weeks in purgatory. Two weeks with Ashley.

Two weeks of motherfucking holiday.

“Take the next exit,” Ashley said, gesturing toward the green interstate sign as they passed it by.

MIDWAY. EXIT 2 MILES.

“What for?” Roman asked.

“We need to go to Hinesville.”

“The sign doesn’t say Hinesville.”

“Take it anyway.”

He sounded suspicious, which was an improvement. At least he was speaking to her again.

The not-speaking-to-her phase, which had lasted for a few hours, had been a matter of irreconcilable differences. Of course Roman turned out to be the kind of person who liked to get started on his road trips bright and early. He’d had his Escalade packed and the Airstream hooked up by six a.m., but Ashley had seen no point in rushing through breakfast. With Grandma gone, she didn’t know when she’d make it to visit her friends at the Georgia commune again. She wanted to dawdle a little.

As if sensing this desire, the commune residents had made the most of the morning meal, lingering over their mimosas and breakfast casserole. Drink in hand, Kirk had climbed up on the porch railing and shared a rambling series of loosely connected thoughts about journeys and leave-taking, which naturally led others to make their own pronouncements—all while Roman sat inside his Cadillac and idled his way through a profligate amount of fuel.

He was on his cell phone the whole time, talking or tapping at the screen. Telling his people that he was going to be away for a while, she imagined.

When she clambered into the Cadillac around eight feeling cheerful and chatty, buzzed from a few too many mimosas, Roman had nothing to say but “Which way?”

And then, several miles later, “Which way?” again.

He’d sounded like one of those recorded assistance menus you got when you called for customer service. But Roman’s automated-menu voice was better than what she got after they hit the interstate, which was mile after mile of silence.

An uncomfortably expansive amount of silence. The mimosa high quickly wore off, and then there was only I-95—a broad, flat swath of pavement cut through a carpet of dark green trees. The sky a hazy blue. The soothing sound of tires on blacktop, and her restless spirit, unsoothed.

She wondered if he knew that the worst thing he could do to her was leave her alone with her thoughts.

“What’s in Hinesville?” he asked.

“Supplies.”

“We have everything we need.”

“Are you kidding? Not even close.” How many years had it been since she and Grandma took a trip in the Airstream? She would have been, what, seventeen that last summer? She had seven years’ worth of spring cleaning to do. “We have to get the trailer outfitted, which means cleaning supplies, pots and pans, bedrolls, food, toilet paper, a sun shelter, one of those red-and-white checked tablecloths for the picnic table, dish soap, clothesline and clothespins, maybe a bear box, matches—”

“A bear box?”

“If we camp in the Smokies. I mean, we can probably keep all the food and the toothpaste and whatnot in the trailer at night, but I figure if we want to go backpacking for a day or two, we might—”

“We’re not going
backpacking
, Ashley. I don’t go
backpacking
. You said we were taking a trip. Driving. In the Cadillac. You said nothing about
backpacking
.”

He pronounced the word a little differently each time, as though he couldn’t quite figure out how to make it sit in his mouth properly. For those few sentences, his voice perfectly matched his appearance—cultured and beautiful in his now-slightly-rumpled gray suit and the white dress shirt with a thick-and-thin red stripe he wore underneath.

“A little backpacking won’t hurt you. Neither will some camping.”

“I don’t camp,” he said flatly.

“You do now. What did you think, we were going to stay at hotels? That defeats the whole point of having the trailer.”

“I thought the point of the trailer was to be a boil on my ass.”