Why Romeo Hates Juliet (25 page)

Yawning and wrapped in a cozy bathrobe, Sara trudged into the kitchen to find Juliet standing at the stove cooking bacon in one pan and eggs in another. The coffee had already been brewed.

“Why are you up at this hour cooking breakfast?” she yawned again, as she went to the sink for a glass of water.

“Mr. Movie Star wants to be fed and fed now,” her big sister cracked, as she overturned the bacon slices once again.

“You’re babying him way too much, sis. Let him do some things on his own.”

“He may get hurt again if he starts pushing himself too soon. I don’t want that to happen, not under my watch anyway.”

“He’s a lot stronger than he looks. It only takes one good hand and arm to crack an egg into a pan and turn over some bacon strips, you know.” Suddenly, they heard ‘Mr. Movie Star’ bell owing from upstairs. “Juliet! I need you.” Juliet sighed and wiped her hands on a dishcloth. “I’d better go see what he wants. Sara, can you keep an eye on the food?” Sara moved to the stove and picked up the spatula. “Stop playing Florence Nightingale. He’s a big boy. He’ll be fine,” she yelled at her sister’s retreating back.

Sara just didn’t understand, Juliet thought, as she climbed the stairs to the second floor. Romeo could have been killed and she needed to do this not only for him, but for herself too. She needed to help right this grievous wrong she’d done to him and she wouldn’t rest until he was all better.

“Juliet! Where are you?” Romeo bell owed again.

“I’m coming,” she yelled back. Funny, she thought that sounded like it was coming from the main second floor bathroom. As she approached the closed door, she knocked and shouted through the wood. “Romeo, are you in there?”

“Yeah. It’s open,” he answered back.

Turning the knob, Juliet opened the door to find a naked Romeo Boyd sitting in a water-filled bathtub. He smiled widely at her. “I’m ready for my sponge bath,” he stated, as his eyes twinkled with amusement.

Juliet was stunned as she stood in the open doorway, speechless. All she could think to stupidly say was, “But your eggs are ready.”

“They can wait. I need to wash up first and the doctor told me I can’t get my wound wet, so I’m going to need help from my wife. You’re going to help me, right?”

“I - I guess,” Juliet flustered, as she stood rooted to the spot at the open doorway.

He smiled and held up a large loofah sponge that had been floating in the tub. “Well don’t just stand there, water’s getting cold,” he devilishly smirked.

Juliet looked down at the elastic band still wrapped around her wrist and thanked the good sense she’d had to leave it there from yesterday when her sister had given it to her. Okay, that was some form of protection, she thought and it had already proven its worth. And the rest? Well, she’d just focus on her nursing duties and try to be clinical about the whole thing.

Tepidly, she closed the door and came forward, taking the sponge from his hands. She noticed that he was wearing the biggest grin she’d ever seen on him.

“Make sure you wash every nook and cranny,” he teased.

Juliet gave him a dirty look as she bent down beside the tub and dipped the sponge in the water. Soaping it up, she gently began to wipe down his good shoulder and right arm down to his fingers. His gaze never left her face and she could feel her cheeks turning pink under his intense scrutiny.

She then let the loofah travel down his chest and watched as the sudsy water trickled down the contours of his chiseled abs, eventually falling back into the bathtub. Her eyes darted downwards following the rivulets as they disappeared towards his private parts, which were clearly visible in the water.

Suddenly, her thoughts raced ahead. How would it feel to join her body to his, she wondered - to feel him driving into her over and over again? It had almost happened back at the hospital and she could so easily allow it to happen again. She sensed that all it would take would be a look from her, giving him the green light and he’d be on her like glue - or should she say - on her like ‘superglue’?

All of a sudden, with her eyes still riveted on his penis, she began to remember their superglue incident before his amnesia had happened and how silly that had all been. She really had ‘stuck’ it to him then, hadn’t she? And he’d been lucky she hadn’t been able to follow through with her original plan which was to glue his hand to his movie star package. Now that would have made a great picture for Gossip World Magazine. It really had all been pretty funny - and stupid, of course.

A short laugh escaped her lips and she brought her free hand up to her mouth to stifle it. But another laugh escaped out of her and then another, and then she was giggling up a storm, unable to stop. Her eyes shot up to his face to find him scowling at her.

“Find something funny down there?” His eyebrows knitted together as he frowned dangerously at her.

Romeo had never been more insulted in his life! He’d been watching her as she’d taken a good look at his dick in the water and he’d expected her to say something complimentary or something sexy or something hot. He’d never expected to hear uncontrollable laughter!

As she continued to laugh hysterically, Juliet let the sponge slip out of her hands into the water and she plopped her bum down beside the tub.

For some strange reason, she just couldn’t stop giggling and she bent over, holding onto her stomach as the chuckles continued to snort out of her.

Whether it was the stress of his shooting or the stress of her failed writing project or the stress of possibly having to declare bankruptcy within a month’s time, she didn’t know. She wasn’t even laughing about the superglue incident anymore either. She was just laughing for the sake of laughing - a release of everything that had happened - and instead of tears, it was coming out as a major case of the giggles.

Shocked to his very A-list, action-hero, celebrity core that someone would find anything on his perfect, movie star body hilarious, let alone his well-endowed and much sought-after penis, Romeo fiercely stood up in the water and glared at Juliet’s laughing form still writhing on the bathroom floor. How goddamn dare she!

“What the hell is so funny?” he roared down at her.

She glanced up at him then and saw him standing up in the tub, proudly naked and throwing her the angriest glower she’d ever seen on a man.

“It’s - it’s not you - it’s… me,” she chortled out, before bursting into another round of laughter. She was snickering so hard that tears began to stream down her cheeks and she wiped them away with her hand.

“It’s not you, it’s me? What kind of bullshit line is that?” he yelled.

“It’s - not a line; it’s just that - I remembered a private joke,” Juliet stammered, as she tried to reign in her laughs.

“So my dick’s a joke to you, is that what you’re saying?”

Juliet shook her head no from side to side, as her giggles began to subside. “No - it’s just something I remembered, that’s all.” A snort escaped her lips as she stood up.

still thoroughly insulted and livid at her behavior, and not believing her pathetic explanation for laughing at him, Romeo bent down and scooped the sponge out of the water. “Maybe I’ll finish my own bath, thank you very much. Why don’t you go get me some clean clothes in my room instead,” he fumed at her.

With her giggles finally subsiding, Juliet nodded and headed for the door. As Romeo watched her leave he thought to himself that it would probably take the big bitch three seconds to reach his bedroom and then…

He counted out loud, “One, two, three…”

Suddenly, he heard a furious Juliet screaming out from his room, “Romeo Boyd! What the fuck!!” Satisfied, he smiled to himself knowing that he’d just gotten back at her in some small way for laughing at his manhood.

~ ~ ~

The bedroom looked like a Category 5 super hurricane had hit it. Sheets were off the bed and on the floor; drawers were left open with underwear, socks, t-shirts and towels all strewn everywhere; and the closet was gaping open with not even one piece of clothing still hanging in it.

Pants, shorts and shirts had all been thrown everywhere. The room was a total and complete disaster zone.

With her mouth hanging open, Juliet stared blankly at the mess. She glanced up and saw a pair of men’s underwear hanging from the ceiling light. What the hell had he done and who was going to clean this up? She slowly turned around to find Romeo standing in the open doorway wearing a white towel around his hips, snickering at her.

“What happened here?” she screamed at him.

He shrugged his one good shoulder. “I couldn’t find any clean underwear,” he responded, as his eyes twinkled impishly.

Furious, Juliet picked up a sheet off the floor and held it up in the air. “And you thought you’d find a pair underneath your bed linens?”

“They’re dirty and need washing. And then I started rifling through the closet for a clean t-shirt and I realized that everything was dirty. Do you think you could do some laundry today?”

still in shock, Juliet’s eyes wandered around the trashed room again. “
Some
laundry? This is going to take me all day.”

“Well, you’d better get started then,” he cracked innocently, before turning on his heel and walking out.

When he reached the safety of the second floor bathroom again, he shut the door and burst out laughing. The stunned look on her face as she took in the mess had been priceless. Her jaw had literally hung open in shock. What a hoot! Did she really think this was going to be easy, to make amends for shooting him by doing a little bit of babysitting? No, that wasn’t going to be enough and his plans for her were just beginning.

~ ~ ~

“My eggs are cold.”

Juliet heard the statement just as she was walking into the kitchen, carrying a batch of clean dishtowels she’d found in the laundry room. She had just spent the past half hour separating all of his clothes and bed linens into their proper piles for laundering, and the first load of his dirty underwear had begun washing in the machine.

She glanced over to see Romeo sitting at the kitchen table with the plate of bacon and eggs in front of him.

“What?” she exclaimed in frustration.

“I can’t eat this. The eggs are cold and the bacon is too crisp. I don’t like it like that,” he pouted.

“Well, maybe if you’d told me you wanted to take a bath before having breakfast, I wouldn’t have made it first.” Romeo looked up at her with pleading eyes. “Could you make me some more please?” Juliet frowned. “Fine,” she muttered through clenched teeth. Coming forward, she angrily picked up the plate in front of him and marched to the garbage can, unceremoniously flinging the contents into the bin. Slamming the plate on the counter, she then went to the refrigerator to get more eggs and bacon before approaching the stove. As she violently cracked the eggs into the pan, she couldn’t help thinking to herself that she wished that the shell she was breaking was really Romeo’s head!

Romeo watched her banging the pans on the stove in frustration and he smiled to himself. It was obvious he was getting under her skin and he loved it. Payback was a bitch, wasn’t it Juliet?

Ten minutes later, Juliet placed a new plate of hot, perfectly cooked bacon and two eggs sunny side up in front of him. It looked and smelled amazing and he really was hungry, but he wasn’t quite finished with her yet.

“The eggs are sunny side up,” he commented.

“Yeah, so?”

“I want them over easy.”

“You never said over easy.”

“You never asked.”

A scowl crossed Juliet’s features. “How about over easy over your head?” she threatened.

Romeo looked back down at the plate in front of him and hid a smile. Yes, she was definitely on her last nerve, he thought. “I think I’ll try them sunny side up today,” he decreed.

“Good idea,” she spouted dangerously. She turned and began to walk out the door to go check on the laundry when he suddenly called her back.

“Juliet?”

“What?”

“Can I have some juice too?” Giving him an evil look, Juliet walked to the refrigerator and opened it. But just as she reached for the carton of juice on the top shelf, he interrupted her again. “Freshly squeezed, please,” he demanded. She faced him and glowered, but he innocently smiled back at her. “Fresh food is so much more healthy for a recuperating body, don’t you think?” he asked, with a wide-eyed look.

She let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Fine. Freshly squeezed it is,” she retorted.

“Thank you.”

A surly Juliet grabbed several oranges from the fruit bin and took them to the kitchen counter where she began her new task. And all the while, Romeo was secretly laughing behind her back, enjoying himself immensely at her expense.

* * *

By the end of the afternoon, Juliet was utterly frazzled and exhausted. Between doing the household chores and catering to Romeo’s never-ending demands, she had had it.

Doing the laundry had taken all day because as she and her sister had started going through the entire house, they’d soon realized that a lot of things needed to be cleaned and washed. Obviously, the houseguests had been more interested in partying than throwing a couple of loads into the washing machine. Sara had been a tremendous help by volunteering to do the dusting and vacuuming and by helping Juliet make up all of the beds with the freshly laundered linens. Juliet had then cleaned up the breakfast dishes in the kitchen before starting to make lunch.

In between all of this housework, Romeo had constantly bothered her to do one thing or another for him. He was like a big baby who needed around-the-clock attention. He’d asked her to massage his good shoulder for him; and then he had asked if she could comb his wild hair for him; and then he had asked her to put suntan lotion all over his back because he’d decided that he wanted to get some sun outside.

When he finally went out to the backyard, Juliet had breathed a sigh of blessed relief hoping that she could finally take a break and sit down for a bit. But just as she was about to relax on the couch, she’d heard him calling out her name again. When she went to see what he wanted, he asked her for some ice water “with a straw, please”. When she brought him the water, he then said he wanted some snacks to “keep his strength up” while he waited for his lunch. And then when lunch came, he had to be fed because his injured shoulder was sore and he didn’t want to take a chance that he’d hurt himself again. And then later on, he’d told her that he had a crazy itch on his back that needed scratching and could she scratch it for him… and on and on it went, all day long.

Sara had admonished Juliet to stop pandering to Romeo’s every whim, but she just couldn’t help it. The guilt over what she’d done was still eating her up and even though she had scowled at him a few times over some of his annoying demands, she had still done everything he’d asked of her. It was the least she could do for him, really.

~ ~ ~