Roman Holiday

chapter Seventeen

From the looks of it, the Isla Lona is the redheaded stepchild of the Strand. You've heard rumors about all the trouble it causes—the fights, drunk-in-publics, the exclusively hot and exceedingly off-limits bartenders—but Myrtle Beach keeps it tucked away in a safe, abandoned corner so it stays just that—a rumor. That's exactly where we find the Isla Lona, in a dimly lit side street with boarded-up windows, graffiti, and old posters lining the walls to the door. The place looks abandoned, except for the line of hipsters and rockoholics wrapped from the door down the street, some stinking of marijuana, others stinking of sunscreen.

"What a...lovely establishment," I compliment as we pass a poster that says, 'NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO F*ckIN' WAY YOU'RE GETTIN' IN.'

"Yep. Welcome to the Isla Lona."

"We're never getting in with that line."

"Just follow my lead." Roman bypasses the line in quick strides. "Luis!" He calls to the doorman, giving him a high-five.

The people in line grumble and shift in discontent. I try not to make eye contact, because I'm sure they could kill me with one look, and I don't blame them. I hate line-cutters, too.

“¡Que pasa, amigo!” the doorman greets in a thick Spanish accent. “Boaz's in the green room if you're looking for him.”

"Nah, he's probably playing his Gameboy. Don't want to mess up his gym matches." He motions me to step up beside him, and I do. "She's with me."

"Legal?"

"Funny," I deadpan.

“Ah no! Did not mean like that." Luis the Doorman chuckles. "It is a pleasure, señorita. How did you get mixed up with this pendejo?”

Roman's eyes widen. "Did you just call me a—?"

“He bought me condoms,” I interrupt, and lean in to whisper, "if ya know what I mean."

"J-Just to ask her for ice cream!" Roman flubs, a redness blossoming on his cheeks. "I wasn't—we weren't—um..."

The bouncer howls a belly-rippling laugh, and slams his hand on Roman's back heartily. It knocks the breath out of him. "It's okay, pendejo, I understand. She's fierce."

"Oh, don't I know it," Roman replies and outstretches his arm. His blush is sort of fading, but it might just be because he shifted into the shadows of the wall. "Mademoiselle, shall we leave him to his doorman duties?"

"We shall, good sir." I pull my arm into his. Even if he is in love with another girl, we can be friends, right? We can definitely be friends.

The venue is a sea of dark moving shapes. The lights are low, neon lights beneath the beers and liquors behind the bar casting shadows on everything inside. Blacklights color Bon Jovi's illustrated head on my t-shirt and my Converse shoestrings neon purple. Roman's orange hair looks radioactive. When I walk, something crunches underfoot. It feels like peanuts, but I can't quite be sure. If it's not peanuts, I'm glad the lighting's so poor. The stage takes up half the building, cascading down into an open cement floor. The rafters are rusted; the roof—or what I can see of it—is tin. At one point, the Lona might've been a small warehouse. It definitely still smells like one.

The crowd is a bunch of hipsters with cornrows and black-framed glasses, baggy sweaters, and tight jeans, beside rock gurus and locals come to hear Boaz—or to quote the marquee outside, 'THE BOAZINATOR.' What a ham. The crowd reminds me of the Lining a little, how little clusters of people hang around tables and shoot the shit at the bar. My heart gives a shudder. I'm out on the town with a rock star and my dad's bar is sinking into foreclosure.

What's wrong with me?

A few uncertain music-goers glance Roman's way, conflicted, but no one says a word. Probably because it's too strange to comprehend. A rock star here in Myrtle Beach. I'm sure plenty of celebs come to Myrtle, but they probably don't come to places where they can catch herpes from the toilet seat covers. The fact that Roman is here in this darkly lit claustrophobic corner of the world is what makes him alluring and mysterious. He turns heads as he tries to move through the crowd, curious glances that turn into double-takes.

It also doesn't help that he can't move through a crowd worth shit. When we make an inch of leeway, he backs up to get out of someone else's way. With my arm slipped into his, I can feel him beginning to tense and twitch with nervousness. He migrates around people like they're land mines ready to explode. At this rate, we'll never get a good spot.

"C'mon, slow poke." I take the lead, hip-checking a hipster.

Roman follows behind me like a dead weight. You'd think he could navigate crowds more easily since he's been making them for the past five years.

Finally, I break out of the throng of people to freedom and sit down in one of the stainless steel stools at the bar. I pat the seat beside me. "Unlike you," I tell him as he sits down, "I've actually spent my life in the crowd. Ever heard of the hip-check? The elbow-rub?"

"I've heard of elbow love," he replies, ordering a drink.

"'Time Warp'?"

"It's just a jump to the left—hey look! There's the Boazinator." He nods his head toward the stages.

A blue mohawk bobs over the top of the crowd, carrying a keyboard. He situates it in the center of the stage, huge-ass stereos behind him. One of them, in a really ridiculous Terminator-esque script reads, 'THE BOAZINATOR.' "Is that seriously his solo handle?"

"Hey, don't judge the Boazinator."

"No judgments here. Why aren't you playing with him?"

He shrugs noncommittally. "Didn't feel like it," he says, but there's something unspoken in those words. Does he think that he can't anymore? Or could it be he's just afraid? The bartender slides him a beer, and he thanks him, taking a sip. It smells like apple cider. "And if I did, the press would be here in droves. Boaz can accomplish low-key. I can't."

"Even under another name?" I ask.

"And what other name would I choose?"

Shrugging, I scoot away from the couple on the other side of me who look like they might just suffocate in each other's mouths. "Something exotic. Erico Martinez."

"Do I look like an Erico Martinez?" He motions towards his white-tan skin. I never noticed before, but there is a scattering of freckles on his arms.

"You definitively don't look like" —I pause before I mouth— "Roman Montgomery." To emphasize, I give a pointed look at the tiger and phoenix tattoo.

He rubs it with a shrug. "Because I got a sleeve?"

"And dyed your hair. And abandoned your badass leather."

"You thought the leather was badass?" He nods appraisingly, thinking. "You know, I can bring that back..."

I shake my head. "Don't." And then, quieter, I add, "I like you now."

"As the ex-rock star of the defunct rock band you hated—"

"As you."

For a long moment, he doesn't say a word. Doesn't he believe me? It doesn't take money or millions of adoring fans to impress me, and shouldn't it say something that I disliked his band before I knew who he even was?

I want to tell him that, okay, maybe his hair is too orange and sometimes he has a wishy-washy temperament, but it's nothing I can't handle. I'm not like the fans who turned on him, or the ones who fawn over his every sigh.

He's perfect just as he is.

But I don't say anything, because how could I live up to the girl in his song?

Onstage, Mohawk rushes offstage and the lights flicker to tell the crowd t-minus five minutes until the show. The bar is so crowded now they've pushed us together. Our elbows graze each other when we move and send electric shivers up my skin.

He rubs the condensation off the beer glass with his thumb. "I'm not the same guy I was a year ago, Junebug."

I think about myself, and the cut on my hand, and wonder how anyone could be the same after all is said and done.

"I know."