Roman Holiday: The Complete Adventure (2-Book Bundle: The Adventure Begins and The Adventure Continues) (44 page)

They’d come with drums and water, hacky sacks and wooden stakes and flat white pieces of poster board. Supplies for the occupation. Sign-making materials.

They’d come to stay, and it was all because of the man in the bathroom. The weird man with the truck full of junk who’d broken into the office and hidden in the shower, waiting for the right moment to make his stand.

Gus.

He’d been sitting on the toilet yesterday when she talked to Roman. Afterward, when she ate that Caramello bar. He must have been listening when Noah fed her M&M’s out of the palm of his hand, when Noah spread her legs wide, kissed her deep, made her moan.

Gus had been in there
the whole time
.

It made Carmen edgy to think about it. It made her neck hot and her temples pound, but none of that was anything compared to how discomposed she felt when she looked at the spot where her clipboard was supposed to be and saw the rock there instead.

A fucking rock. What was she supposed to do with a rock?

When the world got unruly, she needed her clipboard’s hard edge biting into her arm, resting on her stomach and providing her with a clear set of action items in dark ink, a
plan
.

Without one, she wanted to flee, but she couldn’t. She had to stay, because she wasn’t someone who quit. Carmen brought the world under control. She fixed it beneath her thumb and held it there where she could see it and know it.

She didn’t like it when the world got away from her. It made her feel unsafe.

Deal with it
.

That’s what her father had said. Yesterday morning, Heberto had gone into the bathroom to take a piss and come out dragging a stranger.

He’d coaxed Gus’s name and story out of him, and then her father had turned to her and said,
I have to get to my meeting. You deal with it
.

She’d thought she could. She’d thought everything would be fine. Carmen had left Gus in the office with Noah and started doing a sweep of the property, phone pressed to her ear as she searched for a company that would take over the demolition, because Noah—obstinate, loyal Noah—refused to handle it.

That was what she’d been doing when she’d discovered Gus’s co-conspirator, Mitzi.

The older woman had been hiding in one of the rental units, primed to pop out and dramatically throw her body in front of the wrecking equipment when the time came.

Or something. Carmen hadn’t quite followed the plan, but she’d caught the whiff of prima donna clear enough.

Both of these people were friends of Ashley’s, of course. Ashley of the palm tree, Gus the bathroom eavesdropper, Mitzi the bulldozer sacrifice—they were crazy, all of them, and they had other, crazier friends who were already on their way down from a swamp commune in Georgia so they could hang out protesting and being crazy together.

This was the plan Gus and Mitzi had hatched in secret: a last-ditch attempt to save Sunnyvale by occupying it before the construction crews could take it down.
SAVE THE KEY
DEER! their poster-board signs proclaimed, as though there truly were Key deer here to be saved.

Last night, the commune people had erected tents on the beach, lit a bonfire, and had a party, drumming and dancing and singing while Carmen sat on the porch and wondered how on earth everything had gotten away from her.

Roman wouldn’t return her calls, and she couldn’t find anyone—not a demo company, not a handyman, not
anyone
—willing to come demolish the property for her on short notice.

It was a nightmare.

But this was a new day. She’d set her clipboard on the railing and spent ten minutes in the office bathroom freshening up. She’d come out of the office thinking she could give herself a clean slate. Tear yesterday’s pages off and rewrite her lists from scratch. Find a new approach to this mess.

But this … Her clipboard, gone. Replaced with a rock, as though rocks and clipboards were equivalent.

She wouldn’t stand for this.

Carmen descended the porch steps and sailed past the parking lot, where the commune people gathered behind a giant Econoline van and slurped curry-smelling something out of reusable plastic bowls.

She ignored them. Beside the pool, she passed Mitzi playing tag with a group of grubby children. She made a sharp left turn onto the path to the beach, taking the pavers in the longest strides her skirt would allow.

Her arms swung loose at her sides, and she hated that.

She kept going until she spotted Noah standing on the dock with Gus. He smiled when he saw her coming.

“Hey!” He waved.

Carmen’s fists clenched. Her thighs clenched. Her heart clenched.

“You need me for something?” he asked.

There were a million somethings she needed him for. The problem was that none of them had anything to do with the lost clipboard or the illegal encampment of commune people.

Carmen needed Noah to teach her how to be a woman who could go out on a boat and drink a beer while the sun set.

It sounded like a thing anyone could do, but she never had, and she didn’t know if she
could.

Just sit there. And sip. And watch.

“Yes.” The word came out the way she said everything—clipped and cold, impatient.

Noah slapped Gus on the shoulder and said, “Give us ten minutes, huh? I’ll come find you and we can talk about this some more.”

“No problem, man.” Gus winked at Carmen as he walked past.

I am not that woman
, she wanted to tell Gus. But she didn’t.

When she and Noah were alone, he moved closer and cupped the back of her neck. “How are you holding up?”

Not well. She needed something to grip.

“I still don’t understand why you’re indulging this,” she said.

“Baby, we talked about it last night.”

“I know, but …”

But when breaking-and-entering junk dealers named Gus were discovered in the bathroom, you didn’t
befriend
them. You didn’t ask them thoughtful questions, scratch your beard, cross your arms, lean in with warm understanding as you listened to their life story.

You got rid of them. Called the police. Kicked their asses.

Unless you were Noah. Then you did all the wrong things.

Noah was not on her side. He was on Roman’s side, which meant he was on Ashley’s side, which meant that Noah had welcomed the protesters as though they were visiting dignitaries.

Carmen was the only one who saw them for what they were. Interlopers. Thieves.

“They took my clipboard,” she said.

“Who did?”

“I don’t know! I came out of the office and it was gone.”

Noah put his arm around her, pulling her against the brick wall of his chest. Her nose knocked against his collarbone. She turned her head, surreptitiously inhaling his smell.

“With all your plans and stuff?” he asked.

“No, they left those. They just took the clipboard.”

“So you need something to write on. Maybe we can find you a book.”

“I can’t use a book. I need the clipboard.”

Stop it
, she told yourself.
You sound like an infant
.

His hand soothed up and down her back. “I’ll help you look. I’m sure somebody just borrowed it for a minute. These folks down from Georgia—Mitzi was telling me they’re big on communal property.”

“It’s mine.”

“I know. C’mon.” He steered her around and guided her down the dock. “We’ll see if we can find it.”

They walked along the pavers together, their steps disjointed because they weren’t the same height and the stepping-stones hadn’t been designed for two people side by side.

Noah didn’t take his arm away.

She didn’t want him to.

A little boy zipped past them, chasing another kid down the steps into the empty swimming pool.

“Out of there, champ,” Noah said. “That’s not for playing in.”

“It’s fun! Just for a little while, okay?”

“Nope. It’s not safe. Out you come.”

The kids trudged up the steps, annoyed but obedient.

“You guys seen Carmen’s clipboard?” Noah asked.

They shook their heads.

She and Noah were nearly to the office when an older man waved from the parking lot. “Noah! You got a minute?”

“In a sec,” Noah called back. “You seen Carmen’s clipboard?”

“What color?”

Noah looked at her. “It’s brown, right?”

“Yes.”

“Brown!”

The man ducked his head behind the van, apparently consulting a few others. “Nope!” he replied. “We’ll keep an eye out.”

“Thanks!”

“Noah,” Carmen said. Because this was ridiculous. She shouldn’t be tucked under his arm. She shouldn’t have run to him, because they weren’t on the same side of this mess.

“Thanks, but I can get by without it.”

“You sure?” He stopped walking.

“I’m sure.”

“All right. But if I see it, I’ll grab it back for you.” He steered her around to his front, pulling her tight against him. “So, really, how are you doing? You okay? You get any sleep with that racket on the beach?”

“I’m fine.”

“You look tired.”

I am tired. I’m so tired, and I can’t figure a way out of this impossible situation
.

It’s everywhere. It’s all over me. I want a hug
.

“I’m fine.”

He frowned. “I wanted to do something for you last night. Take you to a hotel, maybe. Give you a back rub. I feel weird about us being, you know, out of sorts.”

His other arm came around her, wrapping her tight. Carmen laid her head against his chest. “You could change sides,” she said.

He stroked her hair. “I can’t do that, baby. I have to do what I think is right, and that means looking out for Roman’s place.”

“Why do you care so much about Roman?”

“I’ve known him a while. He’s a good guy. He does good work.” He stroked his beard, considering. “We’re friends.”

“It’s like you’re talking about a completely different man from the one I know.”

Noah chuckled. “Yeah, I think there’s probably a lot of stuff we don’t see quite the same way. But I like that about you. How sharp you are. How cool you seem.” He lowered his mouth to her ear. “How what you really want is to melt all over me.”

“I don’t—”

“Want to talk about that. Yeah, I know. Tell me what you
do
want to talk about.”

How you make me melt. Why I like it. Who you think I am, and what you think we might become
.

But it wasn’t the time or the place, and she wasn’t the woman to take the risk.

“This,”
she said, looking toward the parking lot. “Why are you encouraging this?”

“I know it’s wild, but these folks want to help, and you have to admit it’s getting the job
done.”

“I don’t have to admit anything.”

“Aw, come on. Don’t be like that. If we hang in, it’ll get better, you’ll see. This whole thing—” He gestured toward the crowd by the van. “—it’s not going to last forever. That’s what I keep telling myself, it’s temporary. Roman will come back and fix everything, and in the meantime we just keep doing what we have to. You know, I was talking to my son last night—I have a son, Will, he’s four—and he said—”

“You have a son?”

“Yeah. He’s a good kid, you’ll like him. I was telling him about what was going on here, the funny parts, like you do, and he said, ‘It sounds like camping!’ He’s never been camping, but he likes to pretend he’s going camping. He runs around in his underwear and his backpack with this short length of rope tied around his waist—I swear, I don’t know what’s going on in his head half the time.”

Noah had begun kneading her shoulders. He was smiling, that same delighted smile he’d beamed from between her legs, and every word he spoke made her heavier.

Her feet were pools of lead.

“So Will tells me he wishes he was here, because this sounds like the best thing ever. I had to make him promise not to hassle his mom to bring him to Sunnyvale, ’cause he was
really
into it. And after that, I thought, you know, maybe he’s right. Maybe we just have to go with the flow. Try to have fun. It’s not like this kind of thing happens every day, right?”

“Right,” she said.

You have a son
, she thought.

“Here, look.” Noah pulled his phone from his back pocket and swiped his finger over the screen. “That’s him.”

It was. Noah with a little boy, both of them on boogie boards, wet in the surf.

Noah’s son had blue eyes and dark hair. He didn’t look like his father at all, except for the smile.

“I’ve only got him every other weekend,” Noah said. He tapped open an app and started scrolling through more pictures. “We take turns with Christmas and school holidays. Here’s this climbing wall thing he wanted to do at the mall. And that’s him with Mickey Mouse.”

Swimming pool. Go-karts. Chocolate all over his face.

“There’s the bed I got him for his birthday.” A red race car. “He loves cars.”

Noah checked her face and put the phone away. His smile was sheepish. “I overcompensate for not being much of a dad, I guess.”

“I’m sure you’re great.”

She was sure of nothing.

She wanted her clipboard.

She wanted something to feel familiar, certain,
fixed
.

And for Noah to stop looking at her like he could read her thoughts on her forehead.

Children were messy.
Life
was messy, and all Carmen had wanted for years was to keep from falling into a hole. To steer clear of further danger and heartbreak, avoid risk, skirt around pain, shut down terror. There was no place in her strategies for children.

“I surprised you,” he said.

“No, it’s—”

“I should have told you before. I was going to, but there just wasn’t a time that seemed good. We were—”

“Too busy fucking like bunnies.”

He didn’t like that. He reached for her.

Carmen took a step back.

Funny how, when she hurt him, his instinct was to gather her close.

Hers was to drive him away.

Her skittish gaze came to rest in the parking lot, where there was now a man with a video camera pointed at her.

“What the fuck?” she said.