Jock Romeo

by Sara Ney

  Roman hits the green button to accept his mother’s FaceTime chat.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hey, honey bunches of oats! How is my baby doing today? Getting ready for the game?”

  Roman’s face turns red at the endearments. “Yeah. Eliza is making food and we’re going to watch it.” He pauses. “What’s up?”

  “Well, as you know, Thanksgiving is next week and I’m trying to plan the meal. Dad doesn’t really want turkey this year and Aunt Myrtle can’t eat yams, so I was going to see if—” His mother stops talking. “Is that Lilly in the background? Turn your phone.”

  Roman groans but obediently turns the screen in my direction.

  “Lilly!” his mom enthuses. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing good, Mrs. Whitaker. How are you?”

  “So good. I’m planning Thanksgiving—I don’t want to keep you if you kids are having a party.”

  “Not a party—just a few of us gathered at Jack and Eliza’s house. She’s making food.”

  Roman pans his phone around the room, and Eliza gives it a wave.

  “Oh yummm!” Mrs. Whitaker makes the appropriate noises. “I remember those days, but back then we ate more junk food than you kids do now. So health conscious!”

  She’s not wrong. I would choose a bottle of water over a bottle of wine or soda any day of the week.

  “Alright, well, I just had a few questions for Rome about Thanksgiving—don’t want to be a party crasher.” I can clearly see a spiral notebook set in front of her on the kitchen counter, and she’s holding a pencil in her right hand. “You must be excited to go home for the holiday. What’s your favorite item on the menu?”

  “Well…” I speak slowly, feelings still fresh in my heart. “My, um, parents are going on vacation this year so I’m not going home. But my favorite thi—”

  “Not going home!” Roman’s mother’s voice has risen ten decibels. “I insist you come here with Roman. And what about his roommates? Jack and Eliza, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

  Jack doesn’t miss a beat, sliding toward the phone on his stockinged feet and hamming for the camera. “I’m from the UK, ma’am, and Eliza lives three hours north of here, so we were planning on going to a restaurant for dinner.”

  Roman’s mom is shaking her head so vigorously I’m surprised her reading glasses haven’t fallen off her nose. “Absolutely not. You are coming here—we have plenty of room at the table and a huge living room. You can watch the Turkey Bowl after dinner or whatever that college football game is called.”

  Not only do we not have a game on Thanksgiving this year, our team isn’t in any bowl games, either, which means I get the week off.

  “That would be brilliant!” Jack is nodding and clapping his hands. “I love a home-cooked meal. My mum doesn’t cook, and obviously we don’t have the holiday in Britain—this will be my first!”

  “Your first Thanksgiving in America!” Mrs. Whitaker could not look more thrilled at the news. “And you’re going to spend it here! I am honored.” She scribbles on her paper. “That settles it then—the four of you are coming for the holiday.”

  And that is how I wind up seated at the Whitaker family table, next to Roman and across from Great Aunt Myrtle, wearing a soft sweater vest in a deep burgundy color. Gold necklace around my neck, tweed skirt beneath the table.

  Jack sits next to Roman, Eliza next to him, the four of us taking up one entire side of the table.

  I adjust the napkin across my lap, the aroma from the gravy boat making my mouth water. I love stuffing and mashed potatoes, but I love fresh bread even more, helping myself to another serving—after all, it’s Thanksgiving, and I’ve been working my tail off.

  To say the ride here was awkward is an understatement.

  Both Eliza and Jack claimed the back seat of Roman’s car before I could protest sitting in the front seat with him, though their truck has way more passenger space.

  Dammit!

  I’ll have to be craftier for the ride home…

  “Why don’t you play any sports?” Alex Whitaker is asking Jack as I steal another dinner roll—my third. “You’re huge.”

  Mrs. Whitaker gasps. “Alex, where are your manners?”

  “Yeah,” their dad says. “You can’t just call someone huge.” He winks at his younger son as he spoons green beans onto his plate.

  “Sorry. I meant, you look like an athlete. Why don’t you play?”

  “I played rugby for a bit. Do you know what that is?”

  Alex rolls his eyes rudely and gets another scolding—he is the perfect human being to have around. He diverts all attention from me and Roman, whose family corralled us into the formal living room when we first arrived so his mom could take photos of the two of us sitting on her fireplace hearth.

  “You’re all dressed up, I don’t want to miss an opportunity.” She flutters around, messing with the camera on her cell phone before insisting Roman put his hand on my shoulder, positioning him beside me. “You look so good together!” she fusses.

  “Do not put this picture in the Christmas card,” he warns, hand hovering above my waist but not actually making contact with it.

  Mrs. Whitaker trills her tongue, excited, clicking away. She then invites Jack and Eliza into the photo for a small group picture, Alex wedging himself in beside Jack—his new hero.

  “Yes, I know what rugby is,” Alex is saying in a less sarcastic tone, pushing his mashed potatoes around his plate with a fork creating a gravy river. He gets scolded for that, too. “I don’t understand the rules though.”

  “Neither do I, mate.” Jack laughs. “It’s why I quit.”

  “You quit?”

  “I was getting pummeled. Wasn’t at all fun.” He’s eating and talking at the same time, and with a smile on his face, too, as if remembering rugby fondly.

  I heard he was terrible at it, remember Kaylee coming back to the house, embarrassed that the “hot guy” she was “in love with” was so bad at his sport, actually pitied herself about it.

  Eliza does not seem to care one bit that Jack isn’t a college athlete.

  They’d both rather watch action movies and read comic books and spend their free time at this little café they love on the outskirts of campus.

  Basically they are couple goals, if there is such a thing.

  “I went out with a rugby player once,” Aunt Myrtle is saying from her side of the table, a small blob of cranberry sauce stuck to the corner of her already bright red lips. “Worst lay of my life.”

  Mrs. Whitaker groans.

  “I’m not kidding. He had a glorious shaft but didn’t know where to stick it, if you catch my drift.” She blinks twice, but I’m convinced she’s trying to wink. “That man shoved it in the wrong hole so many times I started to get a complex.” She delivers the line without so much as flinching. “Gives new meaning to the phrase butt hurt.”

  “Aunt Myrtle!” Mrs. Whitaker’s eyes dart from her great aunt to her young son, whose eyes are as round as saucers.

  “What wrong hole?” he immediately wants to know, glancing at both his parents. “Her butthole?”

  His mother gasps as if he’s dropped an F bomb. “Don’t say butthole at the dinner table.” Roman’s mom is the exact shade of the cranberry sauce.

  “Butthole isn’t a swear word, Mom. Chill,” Alex smarts back.

  To be fair, he’s not wrong. But in this context, Aunt Myrtle is basically implying accidental anal sex, which makes it inappropriate? At least it does in Mrs. Whitaker’s eyes.

  She is. Freaking. Out.

  So very entertaining, I must say.

  Way more fun than staying home and watching subscription TV, which is what I would have been doing had I not chosen to drop in on Eliza and Jack unannounced last week.

  It was fate.

  And Roman smells amazing—better than the food—as he leans forward and kicks up his cologne. He’s shaved, and have I mentioned his haircut?

  Gone are the
shaggy, long locks. Gone is the man-bun.

  Gone is the face scruff.

  I thought Roman was handsome before he trimmed his hair and shaved, but now?

  He looks like Prince Charming from a movie screen.

  A modern-day Romeo.

  A Greek god who isn’t remotely Greek.

  Handsome.

  Cute. Hot. Attractive. Gorgeous—pick your adjective; I’m no thesaurus, and I’m no poet. All I know is, when I climbed into that car tonight, I could barely keep my eyes off him. And because Roman is sweet, and charming, and smart—he’s all the more beautiful to me.

  I fidget in my seat, our knees bumping.

  He’s tall so our knees have been bumping a lot, and each time has my blood pressure skyrocketing.

  To avoid looking over at him again, I gaze out the dining room window, noticing for the first time the winter white trees. The snowflakes are not just falling but falling sideways in a frenzy.

  “Wait. Was it supposed to snow?”

  Everyone’s heads swivel toward the windows.

  “Let me check the weather,” Mr. Whitaker announces, pulling the phone from his pressed khakis and swiping open what I assume is a weather app of some kind.

  “You don’t have to check the weather, Josh—everyone can see it’s coming down in buckets.” She looks at Alex. “You’re going to have to shovel.”

  Alex Whitaker lets out a groan so loud Aunt Myrtle startles in her seat.

  “Eight inches!” Mr. Whitaker broadcasts the news. “There’s a winter weather advisory in place.” He sets his phone on the tabletop and resumes slicing through the meat on his plate. “Bit early, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Eight inches?” Roman’s mom’s eyes widen.

  “That’s what she said.” Alex laughs, unable to contain himself.

  His mother ignores him. “Eight inches—no one is driving anywhere tonight.” She’s shaking her head furiously. “Do you know how many accidents there are going to be? First snow of the season?” She wipes her hands on a napkin and stands. “I’m going to go get the guest bedroom ready—Eliza and Jack, you can sleep in there. I’ll go make it nice and cozy.”

  She’s practically buzzing with excitement. Her son home for the night?! It’s what she’s wanted since the day he moved out. The fact that he has friends with him?

  Bonus!

  “She’s momming so hard right now.” Roman laughs and we laugh along with him, but deep down inside, my mind is reeling. If Mrs. Whitaker is putting Eliza and Jack in the one guest bedroom, that means she expects me to sleep with…

  Roman.

  “Roman is the modern-day Romeo,” his mother tells me with a sly smile, reading my mind just then—and I half-believe he is, despite the way he’s frozen me out after we had sex. “I don’t mind you two spending the night together.”

  “Oh no. No, no, no, ma’am—Eliza and I can bunk together if the guys want to stay in Roman’s room. I totally understand if you’re not okay with it.”

  I’m a tad over the top, even to my own ears, protesting the sleeping arrangements, mind whirling. Roman must be dying inside—it’s not his fault he’s shy, and it’s not his fault he had no idea what to do after we slept together.

  Sex and sleep.

  Is that all it was to him? All it meant?

  Am I so terrible that he had to avoid me?

  Well.

  Plot twist: now he has no choice!

  I thought we were developing a friendship, but even that couldn’t withstand the physical turn our relationship took.

  So much for maturity.

  “Did you just call him Romeo?” Aunt Myrtle cackles. “In my day, there was no such thing, just men marrying a dame so he could finally get her in the sack. They only pretended to be gentlemen.”

  The four of us cast furtive glances around the table, Jack’s eyes wide as saucers and Eliza’s ready with a laugh.

  “You use the word dame, too, Auntie?” Jack asks her, adopting the family nickname for their great aunt. “Blokes back in the day were bored—they didn’t have Netflix.”

  Aunt Myrtle shakes her head. “Netflix is the code word for sex.”

  “No, Netflix is the code word for ‘I want to stay home and be lazy.’”

  “Well we didn’t have that when I was young. We didn’t even have phones or computers. All I had was a Jack in the Crack.”

  Rome’s dad laughs. “Don’t you mean a Jack in the Box?”

  “Had one of them, too.” The old woman slaps at her knee, and I wish I felt as much gusto at the moment as she does. Instead, I’m dreading the night to come.

  13

  ROMAN

  There is no talking my mother out of having us stay; already she is a flurry of activity, bustling from room to room, making sure Eliza and Jack have enough warm blankets and pillows, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and towels for the guest bathroom.

  It’s as if the king and queen of England have arrived.

  She is positively tickled we’ve been marooned.

  Snowed in, as it were, a cliché if ever there was one.

  We shouldn’t be driving, obviously—the snow is coming down so heavily I can’t see the street in front of the house, and in the distance, the telltale orange blinking lights from the salt truck and snowplow appear through the low visibility.

  Another thing I cannot talk my mother out of? Rooming me with Lilly. Mom thinks we’re in a relationship so naturally she’d pop us in my bedroom; I certainly can’t tell her we broke up because:

  That’s a lie.

  You can’t break up with someone you’re not dating, even if you are fake dating them.

  Why the hell would I have brought her to Thanksgiving if we were broken up?

  “Oh by the way, Mom, she and I had sex and I came in three seconds and now I’m a laughingstock.”

  Yeah, no.

  Not happening.

  Dining room table has been cleared. Dishes have been wiped clean, washed, and stored away—leftovers will be evenly distributed in the morning. We’ve chatted while the girls prepare the guest room, more blankets added to all the beds for adequate snuggling.

  “No funny business under this roof,” Dad intones after the rest of the evening is spent talking in front of the fire, in the living room. We’re all yawning and tired—it’s been a long day of pretending.

  Pretending to be cordial to Lilly.

  Ignoring her with her seated beside me, afraid to touch her or bump into her accidentally—which happened every ten seconds during dinner.

  Sitting near her and smelling her shampoo and perfume only served to remind me of her naked body, her delicate moans, how quickly I came.

  Everything comes down to those last few seconds.

  “No funny business, sir,” Jack tells him in that refined British accent the ladies all seem to love. “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  He nudges me.

  I nudge him back. “Knock it off, I’m nervous enough,” I mumble.

  “You’re a corker, Romeo—you got this.” He uses the moniker my mother threw out tonight, and I cringe. I’m hardly anyone’s idea of a romantic leading character, but I appreciate his confidence in me.

  After Mom gives the girls each a set of her pajamas to wear for the night, I suddenly find myself alone with Lilly in my bedroom. I leave the door open longer than necessary, the lights and sounds from the interior of the house slowly fading into silence and darkness.

  The stark white snow outside seems to brighten everything inside.

  She is sitting cross-legged on the bed when I walk back through the bedroom door; I went to my brother’s room to help him beat the next level of his video game, something I used to do all the time when I lived at home.

  Alex is a little shit, but I love him to death.

  “Everything alright?” I ask Lilly, slowly closing the door behind me, wishing I could leave it wide open. “Why aren’t you under the covers?”

  She shrugs her shoulders, clothed in my mother’s
blue and white satin button-down pajama top. It’s a prim outfit, especially for bed. “I thought maybe you would…want me to sleep somewhere else?”

  Where? The floor?

  As if I’d make her do that.

  I go to my desk and set my phone down. “Why would I want you to sleep somewhere else? Unless you’re more comfortable in here alone? I can go to the living room, or sleep on the floor here?” I point to the beige carpet, already reaching for a pillow to throw down. “If anyone should take the rug, it should be me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—this is your room.” She goes to her knees but doesn’t climb down off the bed. “If anyone should sleep on the floor, it’s me.”

  “Why are we arguing about this? This is a queen-size bed—why should either of us sleep on the floor?” I mumble the next part under my breath; I can’t stop the words from coming out. “Why wouldn’t you after the last time we were in bed together?”

  Too loud. Lilly hears me. “I’m sorry—what was that?”

  My “Nothing” is such a feminine reply that her face pulls into a snicker.

  “Because it sounded like you said ‘Why wouldn’t you after the last time we were in bed together?’ Did I get that right?”

  There isn’t much to deny.

  I shrug.

  Lilly plops back down on her ass, settling back into the cross-legged position. “You know I’ve been wanting to talk to you since we slept together. Why have you been avoiding me?” She continues before I can answer. “I mean, I know why you’ve been avoiding me, but I’d like to hear you say it.”

  She wants to hear me say it?

  I snort. “Do you blame me? I embarrassed myself.”

  “How did you embarrass yourself?”

  Is she being serious right now, or have I just entered a parallel dimension? “Don’t make me say it.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that your avoidance of me had its own affect? Or were you just worried about yourself?”

  I lift my head. What is she talking about? “What do you mean?”

  She gestures to the foot of the bed and encourages me to have a seat.

  I sit—mostly for lack of anything else to do, because who wants to stand around in blue plaid pajamas looking like a giant dork.