When In Rome...Find Yourself: A Sweet New Adult Romance

by Lena Mae Hill

  CHAPTER twelve

  That evening, Rory stood in the doorway of her closet and agonized over what to wear. Maggie had just called inviting her to join the group for a tour of Rome with Kristina’s new guy, a real Roman. This was her second chance, and she wasn’t going to blow it again, like she had that first day. This might be her last shot at having friends here.

  After Ned’s comment about her outfit that morning, she didn’t want to look too stuffy and predictable. But she really hadn’t brought anything fancy, and besides, if they were walking around, she couldn’t wear heels even if she had them. Which she didn’t. At last she settled on a pair of navy shorts, a navy and white striped shirt with lace trim, an anchor necklace, and flat white sandals. It was an outfit her mother had chosen for the Cape the summer before, but she thought it might be more stylish than a thrift store outfit Patty had convinced her to buy. At least it was new.

  When it came to making decisions about her clothes, she could spend days standing in front of her closet and still come up without a single good outfit. She had no idea what looked good together, or even what looked right, and in every scenario, she imagined people laughing at her.

  Does she really think that matches?

  Oh my God, she is so tacky.

  Is that girl, you know, mentally challenged?

  Did her mom pick that out for her?

  But even worse was the thought that she’d wear something just right, the exact same thing everyone else was wearing, and they’d all pity her, like they had when she’d worn the right clothes in high school. Oh, look how hard she’s trying. Poor girl. All the clothes in the world can’t fix that much ugly.

  It was better to shop at the thrift store with Patty, to look like she didn’t care what she wore, pretend it didn’t matter. She could throw on any old ugly thing and act like she hadn’t wasted a second’s thought on what anyone else would think. That way, at least they wouldn’t know how much she wanted to be like them.

  At the door to the house, she stood second guessing herself. What if Kristina made fun of her for matching too much? Her mother always chose stuff that looked cute on Quinn, not Rory. Everything looked cute on Quinn, though. On Rory, it looked as if she were playing dress-up in a five-year-old’s outfit that came on one hanger, a three-piece set that was made to go together.

  As she was standing there, the front door opened in front of her face. Ned stood there, looking surprised. Rory took a step back, her face hot.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Hey,” Ned said.

  They stood there without speaking for an excruciating five seconds. “Are you just getting home?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I lost track of time.”

  “You’ve been at the studio this whole time?”

  “Yeah.” He looked her up and down. “Going out?”

  “Oh,” she said, crossing and uncrossing her arms. “I guess, yeah.”

  “Cool,” he said. “With your class or your friends?”

  “Um…friends? I guess. If they’re my friends.”

  “Sounds good,” he said, stepping aside and opening the door wide for her to leave the house. “I could use a break. Where we going?” Instead of going inside, he walked with her down the short walkway, returning Tom’s hiss instead of shying away from the nasty cat. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to include himself in her plans, or if her friends would be mad that she’d invited someone else. But they seemed to like Ned as much as they liked her. It wasn’t like she was one of them. They probably wouldn’t even notice if she didn’t show up.

  “I’m not sure,” she said, turning towards the tram stop. “They just told me where to meet.”

  They took the tram to the station nearest Kristina and Maggie’s, and from there, they all rode together into the city. Rory started to sweat as they passed one stop and then another. What if she got separated from the group, and couldn’t find her way back? What if someone stole her camera? It was worth a lot of money. But then, she hadn’t been good enough to get a crappy unpaid internship at an e-zine she’d never even heard of. Even the best camera in the world couldn’t make her shots good enough for that random e-zine, so what did it matter if someone stole it? She didn’t deserve it anyway.

  She raised her hand to her mouth and started to chew at a hangnail.

  “Dude, you’re going to make yourself bleed again,” Ned said, his warm hand closing around her wrist. Her gaze flew to his. She hadn’t noticed him watching her. How long had he been looking? His blue eyes were fixed on hers, and he was so close, sitting right beside her. Had the seats always been this small, so they had to sit this close, with their shoulders pressed together? Ned pulled her wrist down, lowering her hand from her mouth. His eyelashes were so long.

  She could almost see his eyes focusing like a camera on her face, moving from her eyes to her hair, to her cheeks, her nose, and finally, zooming in on her lips.

  “How can you be an artist if you can’t see color?” she whispered.

  His eyes snapped back to hers. “What?”

  “You’re a colorblind artist,” she said. “How can you paint if you can’t see color?”

  “I can see color,” he said, his hand retreating from where it had been holding hers. He turned to face forwards, into the tram. Maggie and Kristina sat across from them, Kristina’s legs crossed and her tiny lime green skirt riding up her tan, bony legs. She threw her head back and laughed just then, her eyes shut and her mouth open wide, the kind of laugh that only girls like her could manage—girls who actually didn’t care what anyone thought about them, who didn’t have to fake even that.

  Rory had obviously offended Ned, so instead of apologizing, she pretended it had never happened, because that was always the better solution. At the next stop, Kristina and Maggie got up to exit, and Maggie motioned for Rory and Ned to come, too. Cynthia and Nick had also come, and as the whole group left the tram, Rory let herself feel like she was part of them for a second. But those moments never lasted long, just as they never had with Patty. Even now, after three years of hanging out with Patty at school and sometimes on weekends, she never felt like she really belonged in that scene.

  Not that Patty or any of her friends were particularly cool. She’d thought so when she met Jack that night at George’s Majestic Lounge, where his band was playing. Instead of waiting for a good crowd to build, Patty had wanted to get there early. So early, in fact, that the band wasn’t even setting up yet.

  She’d led Rory straight to the bar, where a guy stood leaning with his elbow braced on the edge of the bar, a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon cradled loosely in his palm. His eyes were dark and slightly sunken in his pale skin, his black hair slicked back to accentuate his wicked widow’s peak. Without moving a muscle, his eyes traveled over them both, and then he smiled with one side of his mouth only, and said, “Hey, Fatty.”

  Rory had been shocked. But although Patty was a big girl, she didn’t seem to find it offensive. She gave a snort-laugh and said, “Hi, Jack-hole.”

  Jack’s eyes moved lazily over Rory again.

  “This is Rory,” Patty said. “Now get me a beer.”

  Jack raised one finger from his can of beer, and the bartender delivered another. “Thanks, tool,” Patty said. “Play my song.” Then she led Rory away, to stand in the middle of the dance floor, because that was pretty much all that the room contained besides a bar and a short set of stairs that led up to a raised area with four or five tables where people could sit.

  “That’s my ex,” Patty said. “He’s kind of a douche. But a good guy, if you’re into that type. Want a beer?”

  “I’m okay.”

  They watched the band set up and do sound check. Patty wanted to help and hang around the band. She was “casually stalking” the guitarist, Josh, she told Rory. He didn’t seem to mind. The whole night was overwhelming and unreal for Rory. When she’d replayed it later, she realized she hadn’t said a single word all night. Patty had intro
duced her to a dozen people or more, hugging dozens more with abandon as they entered the bar and danced to the music.

  The band wasn’t anything special, just a classic rock cover band, but watching them perform and knowing that she’d met all of them made Rory almost dizzy with the sense of separation from reality. She was not the kind of girl who knew guys in bands. But here she was, hanging out and dancing with Patty and her friends. Here she was, helping the band put their instruments in the backs of pickup trucks and the trunks of cars. Here she was, nodding mutely when Jack called her Rosie, and accepting a can of lukewarm beer from the case in the back seat of Josh’s car.

  They weren’t frat-guy cool, but they had their own world, and certain circles in Fayetteville knew them pretty well. Not her—she was just a clinger. But they knew the band. A lot of people knew Patty, too—she was hard to miss. So Rory floated along in her shadow, content to moon over Jack with a little cluster of local girls who fell under his spell or just liked to hook up with band guys. But she never felt like one of them, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she changed on the outside or tried to assimilate.

  And now, as she followed the little group out onto the street from the tram, as Kristina ran to throw herself at her sexy, suave Italian boyfriend, Rory was once again the tag-along. Kristina didn’t bother to introduce her, so she fell into step behind the rest of them, as if she just happened to be walking along the same street, going in the same direction. It was just like home, where she kept hoping if she hung around on the fringes for long enough, people would think she was part of the group, and eventually, the group would think so, too.

  “Where we going?” Ned asked. “I’m starving.”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, sure he would see that she wasn’t one of them, that she didn’t belong there. And then he’d see her undesirability, which, so far, he seemed not to have noticed.

  “Always an adventure with you,” he said, his arm settling around her waist. He pulled her tight to him for a second and then released his grip.

  She laughed weakly, not sure what to say to that. He obviously had her all wrong, but if she told him that, he’d be disappointed. From the way he said those things, he obviously thought that was a good thing. And the weight of his arm around her rendered her speechless, anyway. All she wanted to do was close her eyes and swoon into him. If she said the wrong thing again, he’d pull away, like he had on the tram. So she didn’t say anything. Not a word, all the way to their first stop, a gelato stand on the side of the street.

  “Oh, good,” Ned said, perking up. “Food.”

  “Are you stoned?” she whispered.

  Ned grinned. “Yeah, of course. Want a hit?”

  “Not now,” she whispered, checking to make sure no one else was paying attention. “People will see.”

  “They don’t care,” he said. “No one here cares. But I can wait. Maybe later?”

  “Okay,” she said, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to go down that road again. Nothing bad had ever happened when she smoked with Patty and Jack and their friends. None of them had ever gotten busted, and she’d kind of liked it. It definitely helped with the anxiety…sometimes a little too much. If she’d never gotten high, she probably never would have had the nerve to hit on Jack.

  “But first, gelato,” Ned said with a grin. “What do you want?”

  “You don’t have to buy mine.”

  “I didn’t think so,” he said. “But I want to.”

  She was starting to sweat again. Was it a date if he paid? “Just…whatever,” she said. “I don’t care. But no strawberry. I’m allergic.”

  “What do you like? What’s your favorite kind?”

  “I don’t know, anything. You pick.”

  “Hmm,” he said, absently wrapping a dreadlock around his finger while he looked at the flavors. “Have you had gelato yet?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Maybe the stuff they have at home. But not here.”

  He shrugged and stepped up to the window and ordered, in Italian. The man handed over two cups, one chocolate and one vanilla.

  “Oh,” she said as he offered her the choice. “I don’t know. That’s not really what I was expecting.”

  “You told me to pick,” he said. “I figured for your first time, we’d start out with the basics. Next time, we’ll get a little kinky.” He grinned again as her face flamed hotter.

  “Thanks,” she said, accepting the vanilla.

  “We’ll share,” he said. “That way you can experience both.”

  They waited for the rest of the group to order. Rory took a bite. It was deliciously thick and creamy, like ice cream but better. She had to force herself not to close her eyes and sigh. And then she wondered how Ned would react if she did. But it would be artifice now that she was thinking about it.

  Ned scooped into her cup and took a bite. “Good, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said, taking a small bite of his when he offered the cup. At least he wasn’t trying to feed her. Jack had done that a few times, giving her bites of something he was eating, and it always made her feel painfully awkward. He always did it in front of other people, like he was shoving his burger down her throat out of annoyance that she was hovering nearby.

  “Now imagine if you were where I’m at,” Ned said, nudging her with his elbow as they walked away from the stand. “We’ll make sure you are next time.”

  They came around a corner and there was the Trevi Fountain, all lit up with the building behind it, the statues trickling with water, and millions of pennies and other coins at the bottom. “Oh, wow,” Rory breathed. She stopped to look for a minute while the others ran down to look closer. She handed her cup to Ned before joining them with the camera. She worked her way around, taking pictures for a while. Finally, she made her way back to Ned, who was staring at the fountain with a pensive expression and absently licking the ice cream from his spoon.

  Without thinking, she lifted her camera and snapped a few pictures of him, then of Maggie and the guy she was hanging out with, Kristina and her guy, and Cynthia and Nick. She wasn’t thinking about being discreet, just taking photos when the opportunity arose. She liked capturing people in their essence, their moments of reality. Sometimes, she didn’t see their real expressions until later, when she looked over the photos, and she wasn’t so worried about what they might think of her.

  Her camera pulled her back to Ned, who had disposed of the gelato cup and was leaning on the railing with both hands, his face lit up by the reflections of light off the water. Without warning, he turned, caught her around the waist, and lifted her off her feet. A cry of surprise escaped before she covered it with laughter. Ned set her on the railing, took her camera from her hands, and gently lifted the strap from around her neck. “Your turn.”

  “Wait, no,” she said. “Let me adjust the settings.”

  “The settings are perfect,” he said, looking through the viewfinder to frame the shot. The shutter snapped and she stopped laughing. What did he see through that? Did he see her the way she saw other people through it, the real person? It was like stripping away the outward presentation, the way people projected themselves. She wasn’t sure she wanted him seeing her that way. Suddenly she felt painfully vulnerable, like she was caught in a dream without any clothes, and everyone was staring.

  He lowered the camera and looked at her over the top of it, standing there like he’d forgotten it in his hands, his eyes exploring her features like a blind man’s fingers memorizing the contours of a lover’s face. She could hardly breathe. Her skin prickled as goosebumps coursed up her arms. His gaze kept sweeping her face, her neck, her chest, drinking her in. She thought she might faint. Could everyone else see the way he was looking at her? She felt as exposed, as indecent, as if he’d been running his hands all over her.

  At last, he leaned in, and her eyelids swooned closed. She couldn’t help it.

  “I’m going to smoke you out so good,” he whispered against her neck
.

  Her eyes snapped open. Was that what he was thinking about? How could she have been so stupid? Of course he wasn’t looking at her the way she’d imagined. Her eyesight was so bad at night, she’d made up the whole thing, the whole moment.

  He replaced the camera strap, arranging it carefully over her neck and drawing her hair from under the strap before he let the weight of it settle back into place over her stomach. One hand caught hers, and the other found her hip, and he helped her down from the railing. They were so close his chest brushed hers when she took a breath. She thought she really might faint.

  But then Maggie asked her to take her picture, and Ned stepped back, and the spell was broken. Relieved, Rory scurried over to Maggie and focused all her energy on her, and then the others who wanted their pictures taken. Ned stood back while she worked, but she could feel him there, the pull of his presence. She refused to look at him, pretending she’d forgotten all about him even as her eyes tried again and again to move that way, as if he’d magnetized her.

  When they finally finished the pictures and headed back along the street, she made sure to stay at least a pace away from him so they wouldn’t touch. If he touched her again, she might not be able to stop herself, pot or no pot. He would know how she felt, would see it all over her face if he hadn’t already, just like Jack had. He would know she was his to do with as he pleased.

  She really, really needed to stop this. She needed to focus on her classes, and photography, and making sure she became part of this group, and reading The Da Vinci Code, and maybe learning a little Italian. The last thing she needed was a distraction, and guys were the biggest distraction of all. She needed to call Quinn, who would understand like no one else.

  After Jack, she’d thought she would never come out of her depression. As guilty as it made her feel, Quinn’s heartbreak had lessened hers. Misery did love company, it seemed. Quinn’s happened just months after her own, and Rory had pulled herself together to comfort her sister. They had commiserated, decided all guys were one-dimensional, self-absorbed jerks, and sworn themselves off love for a good long time.