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

by Lena Mae Hill

  “Shit,” Ned said. “Storm’s coming.”

  Thunder crashed overhead and Rory cowered. “Should we stop in a doorway?”

  “It’s your call.”

  “We’re already wet,” she said, glancing nervously at the sky. “I say we run for it.”

  So they did.

  She was glad she hadn’t worn heels, though Kristina had been scandalized that she hadn’t brought a single pair to Rome. Now, as her feet squelched and slid in her flat sandals, she could only imagine the nightmare of running in heels. She really would have made a fool of herself then.

  Half a block later, the rain came over the rooftops, pelting down hard enough for each drop to bounce up and splash on the street. It sheeted across the buildings and slammed into them. Rory ducked her shoulder against it, as if her already wet shirt would suddenly afford some measure of protection. She slipped on her sandal and turned her ankle, almost falling before snagging Ned’s hand, which was right there for her to grab. He didn’t let go, so she didn’t either, though she did wonder if he would think she’d slipped on purpose, or faked it, so he’d hold her hand.

  Even though the night had been warm, the rain was cold, and they were both soaked through by the time they reached Theresa’s house. Out of breath and laughing through her chattering teeth, Rory ran up the steps with Ned. They stood at the door looking at each other. Rain was dripping off his chin, his eyelashes, his hair. For a moment, she wondered what would have happened if they’d taken refuge in someone’s doorway. Would he have kissed her?

  Just then, Tom let out a fearsome howl, startling her and Ned out of their moment. Laughing nervously, Rory pulled off her glasses and reached for the edge of her shirt, meaning to dry them, but of course her shirt was drenched. Ned slipped the key into the lock and pushed the door open, then reached for her hand again. He pulled her inside, pushed the door closed with his foot, and pulled her up the stairs. Was she really doing this? Were they doing this? Or did she have it all wrong?

  It felt like that, the excitement and anticipation. She was so giddy she almost laughed out loud as she raced up the stairs behind him, for once not caring if the stairs squeaked or her footsteps thumped too loudly. They reached the top of the stairs without pause and rushed down the hall, almost running. Ned unlocked his bedroom door and pulled her inside, and that’s when she knew. Just like Jack, when he took her into his territory, let her sit on his bed, that would be it. He was making the call.

  When Ned flicked on the light, her eyes were assaulted by color. Through her rain splashed glasses, she could make out the mad explosion of color, like a kid had thrown a tantrum and hurled buckets of purple and blue paint everywhere, with a splash of red and yellow every now and then for good measure. Before she could take it all in or clean her glasses, Ned had pulled her down on the edge of the bed.

  She was ready. She thought she was ready, anyway. Ready for him to toss her on the bed, tell her he couldn’t wait another minute, push himself inside her before they even started kissing. Just because she hadn’t done it in two years didn’t mean she didn’t remember what it was like, the thrill of it, the relief and gratitude that she’d gotten one more chance, the satisfaction of winning. It happened like that, too fast to catch your breath.

  But Ned stopped. He sat there looking at her for a good three seconds. Then he reached for the top button on her shirt, the one just above her bra. She held her breath, waiting. Always waiting, like she had waited for Jack so many nights, wondering if this would be the night he’d grab her hand and pull her to his room again. Ned made her wait longer, and not as long. He had been going so fast, like guys went. That had been exciting, though not unexpected.

  The uneven pace threw her, though. He undid the button so, so slowly.

  When at last it gave way, he met her eyes and smiled. He looked as giddy as she felt. He undid the next two buttons faster and peeled her wet shirt away from her chest, pushing it halfway off her shoulders. Rory waited.

  More than anything, she wanted to take off her glasses and dry them so she could see everything that was happening. But then he reached up and pulled them off, and his room went even more blurry, so she felt like she was a tiny ant trapped inside a colorful flower—a wild, crinkled orchid or a rich, velvety iris. Ned leaned closer, so close his face came into focus. If only she could place a camera lens in her eye, capture this moment—his long, wet lashes, the texture in his blue eyes, the hint of a smile on his lips just before they met hers, and her eyes gave up and fell closed.

  His lips were cool like hers, wet from the rain, and then warmer, warmer, as they kissed. The smell of his wet skin was driving her crazy. A crack of thunder vibrated through the house, and Ned pulled away. His fingers moved down the side of her neck, and a chill curled itself around her body. She watched his hand move down her chest, then left, over her heart. Slowly, he peeled the cup of her bra back. For a split second, she was startled by the pinkness of her nipple against her white skin.

  His trembling fingertips brushed across it and it seemed to curl in, closing like a morning glory in the midday heat. For a second, they both sat looking, not moving. A gust of wind raked across them, throwing rain against the windowpane at the same moment. She didn’t see the rain come in, but she heard it splatter on canvas, and Ned jumped up, swearing, and ran to the window.

  Rory reached for her glasses, her fingers groping blindly on the nightstand until she found them. She dried them on Ned’s tangled sheet while he grabbed up an armload of something—papers?—and shoved them aside, then grabbed something yellow—towel?—off a chair and threw it on the floor. By the time he’d mopped up the rain, Rory had replaced her glasses and could see again for about two seconds before Ned snapped off the light and joined her on the bed again.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “I don’t think I can do this.”

  It was as if the words had jumped out of her mouth a second before her mind caught up. But then she knew they were the right ones.

  “We don’t have to,” he said. But he was leaning in like he was about to kiss her again. Yellow light filtered in from the city outside, casting shadows across his face.

  Her fingers shook so hard she had trouble buttoning her wet shirt. She wasn’t even sure of all the reasons, but she had to leave. If she let him kiss her, she would want more, and she was too weak to break away and once she started. She wouldn’t be able to control herself, and she’d repeat all the same mistakes, and she’d hate herself all over again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he said, catching her elbow. “You don’t have to leave. We won’t do anything you don’t want.”

  “I know. It’s not that,” she said. “I just…I have to go. I’m not ready for this.”

  “Okay.” He sat back, and she could see the emotions crossing his face as clearly as if they were written there—hurt, frustration, confusion, guilt. If he was the rare guy who took the time to really see things, to understand how other people felt, he certainly hadn’t learned to hide his own emotions. In that, he was nothing like Jack, who not only failed to recognize other people’s feelings but also his own. If he even had any, besides hunger and horniness. She supposed he must have, though he’d have been the first to deny it.

  She wished she could explain it to Ned, tell him it wasn’t his fault, but she wasn’t even sure she could explain it to herself. He reminded her of Jack, and he didn’t, and she had changed, but she hadn’t.

  “I have to go,” she said again, and she fled from his room before he could ask questions that she couldn’t answer. In her room, she shed her wet clothes and climbed into her pajamas, then into bed. The rain pounded outside, and lightning lit up the night sky. She thought about calling her sister, but she wasn’t ready to talk to anyone, not even Quinn.

  What had just happened? She’d gone to the club and mostly ignored him, which she’d thought wasn’t working the way Kristina said it would, but it must have bee
n. Maybe it had worked too well. She’d gotten him a little more than she’d anticipated, more than she was ready to deal with. When she’d come to Rome, she’d never meant to have to deal with these kinds of things. She was not prepared, had not guarded her heart well enough. And while she didn’t think Ned was going to simply discard her like Jack had, she didn’t know what he was after.

  She lay there wide awake for a while, waiting for him to come knock on her door. What if he did, what would she say? What if he didn’t?

  It wasn’t just the pact she’d made with her sister, with herself, that scared her away. It was the exuberance of his paintings, the way he smiled like he was the one who had won. It was the way his hands shook when he touched her. It was the wet clothes clinging to her, and the fact that she couldn’t see what was happening, and the way that made it feel like it was happening to someone else, like she was just watching it happen to her, like it had always been with Jack.

  It was too much like it had always been. He was too much like Jack, with the pot and the drinking, the obsession with his art, the presumptuousness, like it never occurred to him that she might not want to be with him. She did, but she didn’t want that to be the reason that she was with him. She didn’t want to pray for things to happen to her anymore. When she’d come to Rome, she’d been firm in her vow to herself. The minute a guy came along, was she just going to abandon that? What would her sister think of her then? She couldn’t do that to Quinn.

  If they were playing games, she had obviously won. She’d gotten Ned to show his hand, and she hadn’t shown hers. She’d rejected him. The thought startled her wide awake again. For once, she hadn’t waited for some guy to call her to his room and then snuck out as unobtrusively as possible, giving him anything he wanted and making things as easy for him as possible. She had rejected a guy. A guy she liked, too. Her resolve had been tested, her vow of celibacy brought into question. And she had been the one to stop. She had been the one to walk away.

  All along, she’d thought she was too weak to say no, but she had been strong enough to stick to her love boycott under the toughest circumstances. She had succeeded in her goal. But for some reason, it didn’t feel as good as she’d thought it would. Even though she’d proven to herself that she could stick to her guns, she didn’t feel like she’d won. Instead, she had to go to sleep by herself, knowing Ned was next door wondering what he’d done, if he’d messed up, why she’d run away. She knew those self-doubts all too well.

  She wanted to get up and slink back into his room and apologize, but she couldn’t do it just then. He was probably too mad. And he had a right to be, after she’d run out like a nutcase again. One of these times, he was going to give up. The thought made her stomach curdle. She didn’t want him to give up. She liked him. A lot.

  Tomorrow, she would apologize and explain herself. Her real self, not the one Kristina had coated in makeup and squished into tight clothes, the one who danced with other guys to make Ned jealous. She didn’t want to be that person any more than she wanted to be the coward who waited for a guy to call all the shots. But she also didn’t want to be the kind of person who treated people the way Jack had treated her, disappearing with no explanation.

  CHAPTER seventeen

  Rory woke to the overly earnest, heartfelt pleas of Brody Villines to be his baby doll. “Quinn,” she growled, “Turn it down!”

  She pulled her pillow over her head and tried to go back to sleep, though her head was throbbing and her eyes were scratchy and dry. But something was wrong, because first of all, the smell of her bed was wrong, and second, Quinn would never get up earlier than Rory. When she sat up, her pillow tumbled to the floor. Sun streamed mercilessly through the window, and she was already damp and sweaty from the heat seeping in through the screen.

  Well. Apparently Ned had decided the appropriate punishment for rejecting him was to force her to listen to loud boyband music. At seven in the morning. When she hadn’t gone to bed until two. She clambered from her bed and glanced out the window at the steamy day outside before stumbling to the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she looked in the mirror, she saw with horror that all the mascara and eyeliner Kristina had piled around her eyes had run down her face in the rain the night before. Which meant Ned had kissed her while she looked like a hot mess.

  Even with the water running, she could hear the music clearly enough to recognize one of Quinn’s favorite songs, “Whistle At You.” Which reminded her, she needed to talk to Quinn. Her sister would find it absolutely hilarious that Ned was revenge-blasting Brody.

  After a text confirming that Quinn was awake, they set up a video chat while she got dressed. “Can you hear it?” Rory asked, turning the laptop towards Ned’s room. She’d forgotten to plug in her phone the night before, so she plugged it in to get a little charge while she used her laptop to talk.

  “Not really,” Quinn said. “That’s too bad. Which album is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Rory said. “I can’t even remember if it’s one with the band or his solo album. They all sound the same to me.”

  Quinn’s pretty face turned indignant. “Now you’re just trying to hurt me.”

  Rory laughed and pulled on her nautical shirt. She wanted to wear it with the yellow skirt, but Kristina had chopped it too short for a visit to the Vatican. While she picked a longer skirt, she told Quinn about the outing she was going on. And about Ned.

  “Sounds to me like somebody’s falling in love,” Quinn teased. She didn’t sound disappointed in her big sister at all. In fact, she was grinning her face off.

  “No way,” Rory said. “I’d never break our pact.”

  “You can’t help it if it happens.”

  “Oh my gosh, Quinn. What do I do?”

  “Avoidance hasn’t worked out that well for me. Maybe confront him. Tell him he’s being a child.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to help.”

  “Then tell him you’re sorry. I don’t know. Guys are weird.”

  Rory knew then that she’d called the wrong person. Of course she wanted to talk to her sister, but she couldn’t ask her for advice. She needed Kristina this time. That’s when it hit her—they were friends. For the first time since Patty, she had a friend outside her family. After Jack, she’d only hung out with that group once or twice a month. Patty had a new best friend, and Jack had other girlfriends. Everyone was nice to her, but she never fit in even to the small degree she had when she’d been sleeping with Jack.

  But now, she had someone to ask for advice who might actually know more about guys than she did. And she was about to see her, so she didn’t even have to risk calling and being told to grow up and deal with it herself. Ned was acting like a child…but she wasn’t doing much better.

  “But hey, good job staying strong,” Quinn said. “I mean, you were put to the test and you passed. Wasn’t that your ultimate goal? To prove you could do it?”

  “Yeah,” Rory said, though she didn’t feel very triumphant. She had to say goodbye then and go out to meet her group. She hesitated outside Ned’s door, trying to come up with an apology. What could she say? She’d already apologized.

  Summoning every bit of courage she possessed, she tapped on the door. After a minute, when he still hadn’t answered, she raised her hand to knock again. Maybe he hadn’t heard. He had his music up so loud. But then she thought maybe he had heard her, maybe he wasn’t answering because he didn’t want to, because he didn’t want to see her or talk to her.

  She turned and left without knocking again. She wasn’t going to throw herself at him and beg forgiveness. You couldn’t make someone forgive you if they didn’t.

  “Guys are fragile,” Kristina said when they’d joined her on the bus and Rory had filled them in. “They pretend they’re all tough, but their egos can’t handle the slightest slight. You really have to tread carefully.”

  “He’s being a complete ass,” Cynthia said. “Don’t you dare apologize.”

  “We don�
��t know the whole story,” Maggie said. “But yeah, sorry. It doesn’t sound good. Unless he apologizes, I say you need to stay away from that guy.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Kristina said. “At least let him explain. He’s a person, too. Maybe he has a reasonable explanation.”

  Rory was surprised to hear that coming from the girl who was all about playing games, and winning, and treating guys like the opposition to be conquered. But then, she didn’t know Kristina that well. She probably had all kinds of surprises, like everyone else.

  Soon, they arrived at the Vatican to hear the Pope give mass and explore the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. It was the perfect day for it, when her mind was racing with a thousand thoughts and feelings, to get lost in a museum and her camera. So that’s what she did. She managed to not think of Ned again for the whole afternoon. But as they rode back, he was all she could think about. Again.

  “Just confront him,” Maggie said on the bus. “Trust me, it will be so much worse if you don’t. You’ll have to tiptoe around in your own house for the next three weeks.”

  Maggie was right. It was worse to wonder. Even if it turned out he was a complete and total jerk, at least she’d know it. At least she wouldn’t walk around wondering if she’d made the right choice. She didn’t want to be the idiot who dumped a guy over a misunderstanding without even hearing his side of it. Like Kristina said, he was a person, too. She could give him the benefit of the doubt, couldn’t she?

  But as she walked the few blocks to Theresa’s, her stomach roiled with nerves. What could she say to him? She remembered the way he’d looked at her, that sleepy-eyed hungry look, right before he kissed her. And how he’d kissed her, so slowly, not like he wanted to tear her clothes off and toss her on the bed. Which she wouldn’t have minded, really. If he’d done that, things would be different now. But he’d given her time to say no.