Why Romeo Hates Juliet (8 page)

Suddenly, Romeo seemed to come out of his trance. “You don’t understand - the drugs aren’t mine. I’ve never even smoked a joint in my life,” he pleaded to the officers.

“Oh come on, who’s going to believe that,” Juliet mumbled, half to herself but Romeo heard her. He whipped his head around to glare at her fiercely and suddenly, the need in him for revenge was overwhelming. This was all her fault, the big witch. The cops would never have come here if she hadn’t called them, and they would never have entered his house if she hadn’t barged in first and followed her in. And if they hadn’t come into his house, they would never have found the drugs. Well, if he was going down, so would she!

As the officers started to lead the handcuffed Romeo to the front door, he shouted out, “Wait, what about her?” He inclined his head towards Juliet. “She was here earlier and assaulted me. She pushed me into the TV and gave me this black eye.” The officers’ gaze traveled from Romeo to the smashed TV screen before landing on Juliet, who was standing there with a sudden look of panic and fear stamped across her face.

“Ma’am, did you push him into the TV and hit him in the eye?”

Feeling as if her breath had been cut off, Juliet stared blankly at the officers who were both waiting for her answer and then her frightened eyes swung to Romeo’s face. He was wearing a big smirk, enjoying her predicament.

She shook her head ‘no’ and her next words choked out of her tight throat. “He’s lying. It’s not true. I - I shoved him yes, but he tripped and fell into the screen - and - and the eye, it was an accident, I swear. I was opening a bottle and my elbow hit him - I didn’t do it on purpose, honest.” But they were all looking at her as if she was a cooked goose about to be devoured at a Thanksgiving table. Juliet felt heat rise up into her face and she turned to Romeo. “Tell them what really happened. Tell - tell them it was an accident,” she pleaded.

Romeo threw her a withering glare. If he was going to jail, so was Miss High and Mighty! “She pushed me and then hit me officers, what can I say?” He lied so effortlessly. After all, he was an actor and lying was what he did for a living.

“Do you want to press charges against her?” the shorter officer asked. They all turned to stare at Juliet and the moment was suspended in time.

Juliet’s breath was stuck in her throat again and she couldn’t move, not even to blink her eyes as fear knotted deep inside her. Oh God, how had this whole mess turned around and involved her?

She watched Romeo smile wickedly as he pronounced, “Yes, I do.” Juliet’s mouth dropped open in shock and she gasped.

The shorter of the two officers reached for his own handcuffs and approached her, “Miss Soma, you’re under arrest for assault,” he said before grabbing her arms, spinning her around and cuffing her wrists behind her back.

The sound of steel clicking into place imbedded itself into Juliet’s brain. “What? No! Wait! He’s lying! It was just an accident! He’s lying!” she shouted.

The officer wasn’t paying attention and started leading her out the door. The taller officer followed with a cuffed Romeo.

“Wait, wait!” she shouted. “This can’t be happening to me!”

As Juliet was dragged to the police car, Sara came suddenly running out of their house next door. “Juliet, what’s going on?” she screamed, shocked at seeing her sister handcuffed and being led by a cop.

“They’re arresting me for assault,” Juliet freaked out. “Call Faith and Brad at the store. See if they can get me a lawyer. Please Sara, hurry.”

“Oh my God,” Sara yelled, before running back home to do what her sister had asked.

The officer put his hand on Juliet’s head before pushing her into the back seat of their cruiser. The other officer did the same thing to an equally upset Romeo who let out a low moan as his back pain flared up again as he slid into the car seat next to her.

~ ~ ~

With her wrists straining against the handcuffs behind her back, Juliet sat in the back of the police car stunned. Her stomach was clenched tight with fear, her pulse was erratic, sweat had already broken out on her forehead and the only thought that had frozen itself in her brain was that she wasn’t going to get to have mint tea with Sara tonight because she was on her way to JAIL!

Oh my God! How could this be happening to her? She, who had never even had a speeding ticket in her life, was now being arrested for assault. Assault! That was a serious charge, wasn’t it? People went to jail for that. They got locked away for who knows how many years, made to wear orange jumpsuits, had to eat bologna sandwiches for dinner and forced to have prison girlfriends named Butch. Oh no, that couldn’t happen to her, could it?

But it was happening. She was going to jail! And when she finally got there, she’d be booked, fingerprinted and strip-searched. Strip-searched? Yeah - they’d make her get naked and inspect every cavity on her body. Oh my God, oh my God, OH MY GOD!!

She turned to the big moron sitting beside her and her eyes narrowed. With hands also cuffed behind his back and his head resting on the back seat, and with his good eye closed and his injured eye swol en shut, he was blowing out quick, short breaths like a pregnant woman about to deliver her baby. It was clear that he was in pain and was trying to ease some of the throbbing with his breathing.

Juliet seethed with mounting rage. This was all his fault, the big baboon. She hadn’t assaulted him and he knew it. Everything that had happened earlier had been an accident, an unfortunate happenstance with no malicious intent whatsoever on her part.

Boiling over with fury, she suddenly found her voice. “You big liar,” she yelled at him and then proceeded to shove at him with her upper body weight.

Romeo let out a quick, forceful breath as he felt the push and opened his eyes to glare at her. “How does it feel, Juliet? Where’s your superior smirk now, huh?” He hissed at her quietly so that the two officers in the front seat couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“Tell them the truth, you monstrous faker,” she hissed back. “You know damn well what happened this afternoon. I never hurt you on purpose.”

“Really? Then how come I’ve got the injuries to prove otherwise? The cops certainly believed me, so I’ve probably got a good case. You’re going down - neighbor.”

“Listen buster, you’re making a false charge and that’s against the law. Do you want to add that to your arrest sheet, along with the drug bust?” At the mention of the drug bust, Romeo let out a forceful whoosh of air and let his head roll back on the seat’s neck rest. “Goddamn it,” he suddenly shouted and then started shaking his head ‘no’. “This can’t be happening to me! Not for that! Not for that!” In frustration, he kicked the side of the car seat with his knee. “Damn it,” he yelled again.

The shorter of the two officers who was in the passenger seat, turned his head back and sternly warned, “Settle down back there unless you want more charges laid.”

Romeo quickly shut up and turned his anger inward, causing his face to turn red. He kept thinking back to his deadbeat drug addict father and the hell he’d put the whole family through all those years ago. He remembered the nights he’d had to clean up his father’s vomit and the rent money that disappeared into the old man’s veins and the grocery money that never was and the screaming fights he’d had with Romeo’s mom over his using. Man, he’d lost count of the times he’d had to watch his mom cry over that asshole, and she’d cried for him until the day she’d died. To this day, he still couldn’t stand to see a woman cry. His insides melted at the sight. His old man had done that to him. He had been a complete and total bastard to all of them, and Romeo had vowed to never become like him. Never!

But look at him now. Here he was, in the back of a cop car, on his way to the police station to get booked for drugs - for drugs, damn it! And in 48 hours, the entire world would know that Romeo Boyd, A-list, Holl ywood action star had been busted for drugs because it would certainly leak out; and then the paparazzi would descend on the Island in a flash, like flies on shit - and he’d forever be stained with a drug bust attached to his name.

Sure, most people probably thought he was a druggie anyway with his constant partying and bad-boy image and that was okay with him, but it was one thing for people to suspect, and quite another for them to know for sure because of an actual arrest.

“Fuck!” Romeo hissed under his breath as he turned back to Juliet. He noticed then that she’d been closely studying him this entire time. What was she thinking, he wondered? Probably that he was a druggie, wasted loser who was now getting what he deserved.

Staring into her big, beautiful brown eyes - they suddenly reminded him of the eyes he’d seen once on a Madonna in a painting at the Louvre in France. Not that he was an egghead art buff or anything, but he’d been in Paris at the time filming a movie and having a free afternoon, he’d decided he wanted to see DaVinci’s Mona Lisa hanging at the famous museum. Wandering through the various rooms, he’d come to a painting of a Madonna-type figure sitting by a river in some sort of pastoral landscape, and her eyes had captivated him, trapping him in their hypnotic spell.

They were innocent and yet strong, all at the same time. What secrets and thoughts and emotions lay behind them, he’d wondered? Those same big, brown, bottomless eyes were staring at him now, but these were in the face of a real, live woman.

Suddenly, Romeo had an overpowering urge to want her to believe him - that those drugs were not his and he wasn’t a pot smoker or drug taker or anything else. He desperately needed someone - her - in this very instant in time, to believe in his innocence.

“That wasn’t my stash,” he told her.

“Oh, you mean yours is somewhere else in the house?” she cracked back.

“I don’t do drugs,” Romeo lashed out, then watched as she frowned at him, obviously not believing him. Her disbelief spurred him on. “Okay, so maybe I drink too much and party too hard, but I have my limits. I don’t do pot or anything else, you have to believe me.” Juliet did not believe him. “So you’re saying what? That you’re a drug dealer instead? Or did the drug fairy bring in that bag of marijuana for you?”

At the mention of Romeo possibly being a drug dealer, the officer in the passenger seat cocked his head to the side to hear their conversation better. Romeo saw the movement and clenched his teeth in sudden anger. Drug possession of marijuana was one thing, but drug dealing was a whole different ball game. He didn’t want the police to get anymore ideas about him and add new charges.

“Shut your mouth, please Juliet?”

“Don’t tell me to shut up, you big phony! I’m the innocent party here,” she seethed.

Juliet had had enough of him to last a lifetime. Sitting here beside him in this cramped backseat had exhausted all of her patience. The heat that she could feel emanating from his body was beginning to overpower her and she was having trouble breathing. What was wrong with her? She needed to focus all of her attention on getting out of this jam and not on him. Sure, she’d been curious about him when he’d been silent a little while ago, but now when the enormity of her own predicament hit her full force in her gut, combined with his magnetic aura somehow pulling her to him, she began to really panic and it made her even madder at him than she already was - which, of course, made her next words more vitriolic than they might have been otherwise.

“Look at you. You’re an immature, frat boy still stuck in high school mode. When are you going to get it through that thick, caveman cranium of yours that the party’s over? It’s time to grow up, Romeo, and act like a man instead of some pubescent, spoiled brat.”

“Well, Dr Freud, is that your professional opinion or are you just talking out of your ass.”

“Drop the charges against me, you low-life scum and do the right thing for once in your wasted, pathetic life.”

“Not a chance, sweetheart.” Romeo smiled the smile of a shark just before he opens his mouth to tear your arm off. He’d been a fool to compare this big bitch sitting beside him to that beautiful Madonna he’d appreciated in Paris. What had he been thinking?

“And one more thing,” Juliet continued her rant, “please keep your legs together because your cheap bathrobe keeps parting and I’m not interested in seeing your junk hanging out anymore tonight, thank you.” It had been obvious to Juliet, from the minute they’d been shoved into the police car together, that he had nothing on underneath that terry robe.

Romeo shook his head at her audacity. “I wonder, what’s bigger than a big bitch? Because whatever it is, lady, you’re it.” Then giving her a huge, self-satisfied smile, he intentionally parted his legs even wider making sure his ‘junk’ was in full view for her. Disgusted, Juliet snorted and turned her head to stare out the window instead.

And that’s how they spent the rest of their car ride to jail.

~ ~ ~

The Cavendish police station was situated in a small building on the main thoroughfare of town. Inside was a main counter, various desks for the officers to write up their reports and two small jail cells in the back of the room facing each other on opposite walls. The cells were considered to be more of a drunk tank type of holding cell where alleged detainees could be placed while their paperwork was being processed.

It was past midnight and one cell held Romeo and the opposite one held Juliet. They had each been placed there the minute they’d arrived at the station and before any information had been asked of them. The two officers who’d arrested them were now sitting at their own computers getting ready to fill out the paperwork.

Juliet was standing up at the cell ’s edge with her hands grasping the bars tightly. Stunned beyond belief at the circumstances she’d landed in, her eyes frantically scanned the room taking in the uniformed police walking around, the phones ringing, the drunken person slouched against a wall, the steel bars on her cell and her still sore wrists from the handcuffs she’d been forced to wear on the ride over. This was too surreal. How the hell had she gotten here?

Another round of panic welled up inside of her. Where was Sara? Oh God, please let her have reached Faith and Brad, and let them all show up soon with a lawyer in tow to get her out of this mess.

She furtively scrutinized her surroundings one more time before allowing her eyes to land on Romeo who was locked in the cell opposite hers.

Sudden anger lit through her as she continued to study the creep. still wearing his cheap bathrobe and flip flop sandals, he was sitting on the cot with his back against the wall for support. He had both eyes closed - well, at least his good eye was closed; the other one was still swol en shut. If she’d known she was going to get into this much trouble for giving him that black eye, then maybe she should have given him a matching set. He certainly deserved it, the big liar. She hadn’t ‘assaulted’ him like he was claiming. It had all been an accident and he knew it!

Boy, would she love to haul back and slap that smug, arrogant, hairy, lying face of his and make him tell the truth. She was in here, locked in a jail cell, because of him. She hadn’t done anything wrong or ill egal, unlike him and his stupid drugs. She was totally innocent in all this and he had dragged her into his slimy, sordid world. Now she was facing charges, an arrest and maybe even a jail sentence for something she didn’t even do.

Not to mention the naked strip-search which was probably only moments away. Think, Juliet, think!! There had to be a way out of this, but how?

Her sharp eyes landed on Romeo again. He was the key, of course. That bum was the key that could turn the lock on her cell and set her free. If he refused to press charges against her, the police would have no case and they’d have to release her. But how could she get that rotten, lying worm to drop the charges? She certainly couldn’t change her tune and act nice towards him. He’d know she was playing him. So what could she do?

Tears! That was it! A lot of men couldn’t stand to see a woman cry and maybe Caveman Romeo was one of them. Okay, she knew that resorting to tears was sexist and cliché and maybe a little humiliating, but what the hell? What if it worked? Okay, she’d lose some of her dignity, but she just might get out of this disaster unscathed. But how - how was she going to make herself cry? She was still too mad right now to feel like bawling.

Juliet moved away from the bars and went to sit on the cot, positioning her back into a corner. Maybe she should bring her legs up on the bed and put her face in the crevice formed by her knees? Yes, that’s what a crying person would do - she’d scrunch herself into a tight ball, look helpless and sob uncontrollably with her head bent down inside her arms and legs. Bringing her legs up, Juliet wrapped her arms around them and put her head down. Now all she had to do was cry, but she needed actual tears to come out, otherwise he might not buy it. How could she make herself cry for real?

She gave herself a pinch on her arm and twisted the skin. Owwww, that hurt like a mother, but it didn’t bring any tears to her eyes. Boy, what she wouldn’t give for a raw, cut-up onion just about now. Wait… maybe she should just start to ‘pretend’ cry and the real tears might follow after that?

With her head still between her knees and her body curled into an even tighter ball on the cot, Juliet began to sniffle loudly as she squeezed her eyes shut. All of a sudden, snippets of scenes began to flash through her mind, scenes of her and Sara as kids when her parents had told them about the divorce, how their dad had moved away and abandoned them all for his new family, how she’d fall en into the lake and almost drowned, and how her mom had cried over everything. Real tears began to sprout out of her eyes and she choked back a sob lodged in her tight throat.

Damn it, where had that all come from?

* * *

Romeo’s eyes flew open at the sound of the soft crying and sniffling coming from the cell opposite his. Was she crying? Was the big bitch crying? But big bitches didn’t cry, did they?

He turned his head to look at her. She was on top of her cot, wrapped into a tight ball and her head was down, hidden in between her knees.

He could see her shoulders rising and falling in a jerky motion, matching the rhythm of her soft sobs. Great, the woman was crying - crying, for God’s sake. Now he had to deal with that on top of everything else, too?

He sighed to himself. He’d just spent the last twenty minutes sitting quietly on his cot trying to get a handle on all of the anger he was feeling towards the woman and his current, unfair situation, and now he had to listen to her tears too. So what if she was crying? It was her fault anyway.

She’d called the cops, brought them into his home, called him names and busted his balls all night long.

And what about his own injuries? His back was still killing him and he hadn’t been able to open his eye since sundown. Yeah sure, maybe it was true that she’d accidentally hit him and maybe he was doing wrong by accusing her falsely, but there was just something about her that just brought out the beast in him. She seemed to push all of his proverbial buttons and he didn’t know where to find the off switch.

But, he had to admit to himself that she was a pretty damn hot little number. She had long legs that reached to the sky, an amazing body, firm, round and real breasts - he could still remember how they’d felt sandwiched against his chest when they’d fall en on the couch together; oh yeah, those puppies were reall- and she also had the sweetest, most innocent face he’d ever seen on a woman, especially with those Madonna brown eyes of hers. Too bad she had the tongue of a viper to spoil everything!

Romeo heard her hiccup in between sobs and his hard heart melted. Slowly and gingerly, he rose up off the cot and shuffled to the bars to get a better look at her. She looked so small and vulnerable all curled up in a ball like that, and suddenly a primal instinct to protect her rushed through his system. He felt like a wolf wanting to defend its mate - as if it was stamped into his DNA - and he knew he must do whatever he had to do to help her.

“Stop crying, okay?” he softly intoned.

With her head hidden in between her knees, Juliet’s next words were muffled. “You’re - you’re being so m-m-mean to me. I didn’t - do anything to you - on - on purpose.” Romeo remained silent.

Okay, Juliet thought to herself, the beast had risen and was now interested in the morsel of food she was trying to coax him with. Now if she could only get him to come closer and take the ‘poisoned’ morsel from her hand, she’d be free. She started to sniffle more.

“Don’t cry - please,” Romeo whispered again.

Inwardly, Juliet was elated. The beast was coming closer and about to take her bait. Soon she’d be out of this jam and back home, having that mint tea with Sara.

“You’re - you’re being a-a monster to me, so I can cr - cry if I want to,” she sobbed back, as she finally lifted her head from her knees and stared up at him. She saw that he was staring back at her, standing at the bars of his cell and grasping them for support, probably to help him with his sore back.

Romeo’s knees had practically buckled at the sight of her sweet, sad face when she’d lifted up her tear-filled eyes to him and he’d decided in that second, that he was going to do or say whatever he had to in order to save her. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him to do just that.

“Don’t cry. I’ll tell them the truth, I swear, I’ll tell them the truth,” he pleaded.

Juliet sniffled some more and then proceeded to wipe the real tears off of her cheeks with the back of her hand. God, where had they come from, really? This was all supposed to be pretend. She looked back at Romeo and saw that he was practically trying to come through those bars to get at her. Was he truly feeling sorry for her or was he pretending too? Maybe, at the last minute, he’d announce that he’d changed his mind about telling the police the truth and throw it all back in her face?

“But, you said - you said I hit you for real,” she gulped.

“Never mind what I said. What’s important is what I’m going to say now.” Romeo turned to the tall officer who had arrested him and was now sitting at a desk ten feet away. “Officer, Officer!” he called out. “I need to see you.” The officer stood up and came over. Romeo continued, “I’m dropping all charges against her.”

The officer took in the situation and saw the woman’s tears. He surmised that she had probably gotten to Romeo with a crying jag and the perp was now changing his tune because of it.

“You said she assaulted you. You’re saying now that you lied to us?” He wasn’t going to let him off that easily. After all, lying to the police was a serious offense, not to mention a waste of their time.

“I’m saying that I was mistaken. It all happened so fast and I can’t really be sure of anything.” The officer frowned, obviously not believing him and Romeo continued, “Look, I’m not pressing charges and without that, you don’t have a case against her. I want her released.” The officer looked from one to the other. He took in Romeo’s desperate pleading and Juliet’s rapt attention at their conversation and sighed.

The perp was right. If he wasn’t going to press charges, they had nothing on the woman and it would be a waste of time to book her and arrest her officially. She’d have to be released.

Juliet watched the officer walk to the front desk, grab a key from a wall rack and come back towards her cell. She briefly shut her eyes in relief, thanking her lucky stars that her ordeal was finally over. She wasn’t going to be charged with assault and battery, she wasn’t going to be booked and fingerprinted, and she wasn’t going to be strip-searched - thank God! The black fear lifted from her shoulders.

She heard an odd shuffling sound coming from the cell opposite hers and her eyes flew open, focusing on Romeo. He was still standing at the steel bars, holding on for dear life and his one good eye was impaling her with its steady gaze. What was he thinking, she wondered?

Suddenly, a shot of sympathy stabbed at her heart. Her nightmare might have been over, but his was just beginning. And judging from the way he was grasping those bars, his back must still be killing him. The thought tore at her insides. But why was she feeling like this about him, of all people?

After the officer opened her cell door, she quickly stepped out and he motioned for her to follow him to the front of the station. As she passed Romeo, her eyes darted to his face. He was silently watching her, not moving a muscle.

She stopped on the spot and something within her impelled her to say something to him - anything. “Your back? Is it still sore?” she asked softly.

His lips curved into a sexy, lopsided smile. “I’ll live,” he mumbled.

“Juliet!” a female voice suddenly shouted.

She turned and saw Sara waving at her from the front entrance. “Sara!” she yelled back, before rushing through the long room and into her sister’s arms. “They’re releasing me. I can go home.”

Faith, her husband Brad and another man, who was probably the lawyer, were also just entering the building.

“Oh, thank God for that,” Sara cried, as she fiercely hugged her sister. “I was so worried.” She squeezed her even tighter.

Sara released Juliet, who promptly accepted a big hug from Faith. Brad and the other man stood off to the side.

“Thank you so much Faith for coming to help me. I’m sorry I had to get you out at this hour,” Juliet whispered to her new friend.

Faith hugged her tighter. “I was so scared for you when Sara called. I’m just glad we could help,” she replied before releasing her and pointing to the man that had arrived with them. “This is our lawyer and good friend, Tim Hobbs.” Juliet nodded a quick hello to him.

Sara reclaimed her attention. “What happened? Why did they arrest you?” She was still clearly upset about what had happened.

Juliet was so relieved that everything was finally over for her that her next words gushed out of her like a bad case of food poisoning. “He - he said that I assaulted him, but it wasn’t true. The police believed him, not me and he said he wanted to press charges, so they arrested me too. And then they were going to strip-search me and so I came up with the idea to use some fake tears on him because a lot of men can’t stand to see a woman cry and then he…”

“Juliet, stop,” Sara commanded sternly over her sister’s rambling tale, but Juliet was oblivious to the warning.

“And - and then he fell for the tears and he told me to stop crying and then he said he was going to drop the charges and he called the officer over. Thank God, I came up with that idea of the fake crying jag. If I hadn’t, I would still be back there and then…”

“Juliet!” Sara yelled. This time, Juliet stopped talking and stared blankly at her little sister who she suddenly noticed was making an odd face at her.

Realization hit Juliet like a speeding city bus. “He’s standing right behind me, isn’t he?” Sara nodded. Slowly, Juliet turned around and her eyes landed on a handcuffed Romeo who had been escorted out of his cell to one of the desks five feet away to be processed and formally charged. He was standing there with a murderous black rage splashed across his face, staring daggers at her out of his one good eye. Juliet gasped and her heart began hammering wildly in her chest. Oh no, how much of her tirade had he heard?