Roman Holiday

chapter Sixteen

"What I didn't tell you yesterday," Roman says, spinning around on his toes to face me as we walk to his Mentos green car. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the parking lot. No wonder the paparazzi can follow him wherever he goes. "Is that this car? Her name's Sweat Pea, and she is a very fickle beast. Like most women are."

"I should take offense to that," I reply dryly.

He walks backwards on his toes, which is odd but cute, like a kid.

"I didn't name her." He shrugs and unlocks the car. "So, it's 5:49," he adds as he glances down at his Rolex, probably the most expensive thing I've seen him wear. "Grub or go straight to the bar?"

"Where're we going?"

"Where it all started," is his cryptic reply.

The car cranks with a cough and with a burp of black smoke it rumbles out of the lot. He turns off Ocean Boulevard, down a side road.

My cell phone begins to vibrate. I swear, if it's Mom wanting to know where I'm going...

The ID blinks an unsaved number, but I've memorized his number by now. I go to silence it when Roman snatches it out of my hand and answers it.

“Hello, you've reached the Pizza Palace, where I can be your personal pan pizza for the low price of—”

Mortified, I snatch my cell phone back and punch END. “Are you crazy?”

“What?” He laughs. “They’ll call back if it’s important.”

I purse my lips into a thin line and stuff my phone back into my purse. I guess he’s right. Not that Caspian will call back. Am I even in his phone, or am I an unknown number like he is in mine? What sort of lovers—friends, even—are not listed in each other's cell phones?

The leather squeaks a little against my shorts. Roman let me take a shower and change before we left the condo—thank God, because despite loving the smell of adventure on my clothes, salt water and grass doth not perfume make.

I reach for the radio, but he slaps my hand away. “Ow! Jeez, I just wanted to turn it on.”

“Driver picks the tunes, shotgun forfeits the right to complain.”

“Those are stupid rules."

With a quick flick of his fingers, he turns the radio to one of the presets. It instantly goes to a talk show. I sigh. Well, at least it’s about music.

“Better?” he asks, knowing full well that no, it isn’t.

"Sure, I just love boring middle-aged men talking about crescendos and treble clefts. Almost better than a station dedicated to Roman Holiday."

"Good, then you'll love this one."

He drives in silence, listening to the NPR show about classic music. And not of the rock and roll variety. Does he actually understand this blather about andantes and sharps and dolces? I barely know what a crescendo is.

He turns into a gas station and taps the broken fuel gauge. It's been stuck on empty for three miles now. “Never too careful,” he says as an excuse, and gets out, grabbing a clip fold of cash from the middle compartment.

"Do you just have money hidden everywhere?" I joke, pretending to look in the back seat. I look under a McDonald's bag. "Nope, not there."

He chuckles. "I’ll leave it running while I go in. It's hot as balls outside."

"You're so kind." I drop the bag back and wipe my fingers on his shirtsleeve. He has on his own band shirt today. It's white and purple with the silhouettes of him and Holly in the logo. Narcissistic much? "Where did you find this shirt? Goodwill?"

"You're hilarious. Want a Coke or something?”

“Water."

“Sure thing. Candy, gum?”

“I’m good.”

“You sure? They might have the little sucky sour straw things…”

"Well..." I debate. "Only if they have the green ones, and if so I'd like a diet soda, if not then nothing at all."

Confusion crosses his chocolate eyebrows. "Not even water?"

"No, water but no sucky straws or soda."

"Ah..." Shaking his head, he briskly makes his way over to the building. I think I saw a smile, too.

The skin on my legs makes a horrible sticky noise as I slide down in the seat. Maybe I can text Caspian and tell him what that was all about...

But why should I?

No, must resist the urge. I try to sit back up in the seat, but the skin on my leg sticks. I hate pleather seats. My sweat somehow solidifies my legs to the pleather. Painfully, I pry one leg up and my knee hits the dashboard. The compartment pops open with a snap and a CD case slides out and hits the floorboards with a sharp clatter.

I pick up the case and pop it open. The burned CD inside is labeled in sloppy chicken-scratch handwriting, Untitled EP. He still burns CDs? That's sort of adorable. I haven't burned a CD since the iPod was invented. Curiously, I pop it into the antique CD player. I don’t know if the player even works anymore, but here’s to hoping.

Anything has to be better than NPR.

I chance a look up. The bright glow of Roman's hair is unmistakable through the automatic doors. He's two people away from the register, talking with the guy in front of him.

The CD player makes a whining noise, clicks, and the radio goes silent. Static fills the cab. I wait impatiently for any signs of life. Then, apprehensively, Roman’s voice drifts across the speakers, “Hi, it's Roman...and this is, um, everything I couldn't say.”

I suck in a breath.

The sweet, soft sound of an acoustic guitar fills the small car like a sunrise. When he begins to sing, the song...it sounds like an orchestra of heartstrings painting the most beautiful love story ever told. It's a dizzying sort of song that gets you lost in your own head, it takes you back to someplace more beautiful. It takes me back to the bar, to spinning around on the barstool after Caspian first kissed me, to dancing in my room to 'Bed of Roses' when I first heard it on the radio. This is what happy sounds like—uncontrollable, glorious bliss.

He's in love.

Roman exits the store.

I slam my finger on the radio button, and NPR fills the car again. My heart thrums in my throat as I wipe the tears out of my eyes. What's wrong with me? This is Roman Montgomery, not Paul McCartney or Elton John or Willie Nelson.

But that song...

Suddenly, NPR kicks out, and his CD spins to life again. A guitar strum, a word, and the song catapults me into almost-hysterics.

"Stop it!" I hiss, jamming my finger on the eject button. The CD pops out, but before I can grab it, the stupid thing goes back in. What the f*ck is this thing—possessed?!

The stereo crackles. "Hi, it's Roman—"

"Stop! Please!" I beg, repeatedly jamming my finger on the eject button. What if he finds out I snooped? What'll he do? He's almost to the car when the radio gives up the CD again, and I rip it out desperately. He's at the nose of the car. I slam it into the case and shove it into the dashboard as he pops his head in through the open driver's side window.

His lips are set into a thin line. Oh God, he knows I snooped. "Thought you could be sneaky, huh," he says disappointedly.

Heat prickles onto my cheeks. "I-I'm so sorry, I didn't think you—"

His seriousness cracks into a cheshire grin. "All right, I'll stop torturing you. Change it to whatever you want. Just not Top 40s. Got it? Or that Roman Holiday station. One more 'Crush On You' and I'll seriously crush myself against a moving bus."

Confusion crosses my face. "Oh...you mean...the radio."

"Yeah, the radio." He laughs in that silly you sort of way. "What did you think I meant?" He unscrews the cap of my water for me. "No sucky straws, sadly."

Relief floods through me like liquid coolant as I take the bottled water. "Oh no, the end of the world is nigh."

"Nigh is right. Boaz is playing tonight. Boaz. Women will be offering up their first born children by the time his set's over." He hops halfway in through the window to put his soda in the cup holder in the middle.

I swerve the radio dial to Bobby Beach. "That good, huh?"

"You don't think girls dig him because of his killer mohawk, do you?" He gives me a meaningful look as he slides back out of the window. "Killer Queen" begins pulsing from the speakers.

"Speak for yourself, his mohawk makes me hot," I reply in mock-indignation.

Chuckling, he turns off the car and begins to pump gas, bobbing his head to the music coming from the gas station speakers. Roman in love? If that isn't the juiciest bit of news I've heard since Holly's death, I don't know what is. Neither Roman nor Holly ever admitted to being in a relationship with each other, but everyone suspected. Who could be better than Holly? She was pretty much perfect, according to every Holidayer on the internet.

Besides, how could Roman settle for just one girl? World-renown womanizer, playboy, what-have-you...in love?

I don't care, I keep telling myself, because I have Caspian, and Caspian and I are good. We're good. I don't care.

The car door opens and he slides inside. "Okay, now that Sweet Pea is appeased..." He gives me a once-over, pulling at his red suspenders. Does he even wash them? And who the hell wears stupid red suspenders anyway? I don't care. "You look tense."

"Huh? Yeah, I'm great. Just sort of tired from last night..." I show him my Band-Aid as an excuse.

He grabs my hurt hand and inspects it, his eyebrows furrowing. "You got hurt."

"It's just a scratch. The night auditor patched me up last night."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Of course." I roll my eyes and try to pull my hand away, but he holds firm. His calloused fingertips are warm against my freezing fingers.

"And you're freezing."

"My hands are always cold." I wish he'd just let go of my hand.

A cheshire grin curves across his lips. "Cold hands, warm heart?"

I scoff, finally yanking my hand away from his. I try to rub the warm fingerprints away. "Cold hands, no heart."

"Nah, just gotta tune it. Like a radio." He reaches toward me, but I knock his hand away.

"If you dare try to tune me, mister, you're dead," I warn, trying to keep a straight face, but his smile is infectious, and I can't help myself. He tries again. "I mean it! I'll tickle you!"

The threat seems to work. He settles back into his seat, putting his hands up in defeat. "Oh no, I don't do tickle fights." But he doesn't mean tickle fights—that I can tell by the sneaky sort of eyebrow-wiggle.

I stick out my tongue and push my hands between my legs to warm them up. "Oh whatever. Playboy."

"Not anymore."

"As of today, or this minute?" Why am I being so mean?

He looks like he wants to ask the same thing as he pulls out of the gas station. "I...haven't been with a girl since Holly died."

But what about that song? I want to ask, but I purse my lips together. I don't want him to know I snooped. And why do I care? We've only spent a few days together. It's not like we're together.

"Almost a year to the date," he adds. There's something more in his voice that he doesn't say, and I don't pursue it.

"What a surprise," I say, staring out the window. "I had sex the first time on Saturday."

"So you are with someone?"

I shrug, but finally, when Roman turns the radio back on, I say so softly I don't think he hears, "No."