Page 13 of Made For Romeo

“Yes.” She looks around again to see if anyone has their phone up. The place has filled up since we sat down, and there is chatter everywhere. “Aren’t you?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I really don’t care.” I make sure she is looking at me when I say that last line.

“We were together for seven months,” she reminds me between clenched teeth and with a smile, just in case someone is filming or taking a picture. “And there was not one picture of us anywhere. When we went to the beach, we didn’t even walk close together.” My stomach tightens when she says the last line.

“I’m different now,” I say because she isn’t wrong.

She rolls her eyes at me. “Whatever,” she mumbles.

“I know I have a lot to make up for,” I say softly, and she holds up her hand to stop me from talking.

“That is where you’re wrong,” she declares, and she grabs her drink and brings it to her lips. I watch her take a sip before she puts it back down. “You have nothing to make up for. So if that is what you’re here for, you can check it off your list and be on your way.” She looks around. “But know that I will not entertain this conversation anywhere that isn’t private.” She tilts her head to the side and smiles at me so fake it hurts my chest. “Now, you want to talk about what we’ve been doing in the past eight months and pretend we are long-lost friends, then let’s do that. But…” She crosses her arms in front of her again, the smile never leaving her face. “I’m not going down memory lane with you.” I can see her eyes have darkened, so I know it still bothers her, which should make me happy. But the fact I hurt her, and it still bothers her, even if she hates me, makes my stomach tight, and I feel like someone kicked me in the balls, and they traveled up to my throat.

“Noted,” I reply softly, nodding at her. The fact that she isn’t going to cause a scene shouldn’t be a surprise to me. She’s too mature for that. Even after everything that happened between us, no one ever knew. There was no tabloid story. There was no chatter with other people. There was not one person who came up to me and was like “Hey, I heard you fucked over Gabriella.”

There was none of that because that isn’t who she is. She is private, and she is classy, something you don’t get in Hollywood. It’s like winning the Powerball and getting struck by lightning all in the same day. Even after everything that happened, she didn’t send me back my things shredded or burned. It came in a brown box labeled with my initials. “I saw some of the pictures you’ve taken in the past couple of months.”

Bruce comes back with his hands full of plates, followed by another server as he puts the plates down. The chef comes out from the back, drawing even more attention than I wanted, but luckily, everyone is so consumed with their own shit, no one really pays attention to us. Not that I care, but I know it will bother Gabriella, and the last thing I want to do while trying to win her back is piss her off even more.

“Thank you.” Gabriella smiles at them, and they eat it up.

“You are most welcome.” The chef nods at her, and I add him to the list of people on my throat-punch list. At this point, there will be no one on the safe list, not even myself.

“What do you want to try first?” Gabriella looks at all the food, and it’s a question that she would have asked me all those months ago. Every single Saturday, we would either go out to these small restaurants we found online or order in. Once, we ordered everything on the menu and did a taste testing.

“I’m going to start with the meatballs,” she says, grabbing her fork before putting one on her plate.

I grab my own as she takes a bite of hers, and then I take a bite of mine. “Not bad.”

“It’s really good,” she states, and for the rest of the meal, I don’t push anything or bring up anything. We talk about the food and rate it all, and even though there is still a huge elephant in the room, we just dance around the subject.

When she tosses her napkin on the side of her plate after she takes the final bite, I push back my chair, getting up and putting my own napkin down. “That was nice,” I say as we walk out of the restaurant toward the lobby. I want to slip my hand in hers, but instead, I let my hand graze hers.

The car is there as soon as we walk out, and the valet guy has the door open for her to get in. I tip him before walking to the driver’s side, where the door is open for me. I pull away from the hotel, looking over at Gabriella who just gazes out the window. The drive back to her house is quiet, and I wonder what she’s thinking. I want to ask so badly, but I’m afraid of what she’ll say. I’ve never been this on edge before in my life. I’ve never felt worse about myself either. I didn’t think she would let me off the hook, that is for sure, but I also didn’t know how much it would bother me either.

Her hand is on the door handle as soon as I pull up to her house. She looks over at me, and I turn in my seat. “Thank you for tonight,” I say gently, the soft light from the street coming into the dark car.

She takes a deep breath. “You’re welcome.” She takes one look at me before she opens her door. “Hopefully, now you can get going,” she mumbles, getting out and then ducks down. “Take care, Romeo,” she says before she closes the door, and I watch her walk into her house.

My stomach tightens and my fingers literally itch to touch her. I hate that she didn’t laugh as much as she should have. I hate I couldn’t lean over and kiss her tonight. I hate that once we got into the car, I couldn’t lean over and grab her hand in mine to bring it to my mouth. I hate, hate, hate this whole thing, but I know deep down inside that I have to earn her. I also know deep down inside that it will be so worth it.

NINE

GABRIELLA

I close the car door as soon as I grab my purse from the other seat, pressing the button on the handle to lock it. The side mirrors close into the doors as I make my way over to the side door. Pulling it open, the security guard stands there looking at me. “Hi, Jay,” I greet him as he nods at me. “How are you today?”

“I’m doing great, Miss Gabriella,” he replies to me, pressing the elevator button. “You are one of the last ones to get here.”

“Well, now it’s a party,” I joke with him and laugh as the silver elevator doors open, and I step in. “See you later.” I press the number three when the elevator doors start to close.

The phone beeps from the back pocket of my jeans, and my heart speeds up just a touch. I ignore it because it annoys me how my heart reacts every time it beeps or rings. I want to kick myself every single time because I’m expecting it to be him, but when it’s not, my heart twinges just a little. Then I want to kick myself again because I’ve been here, and I’ve done that already. It took me a long time to get over Romeo Beckett, especially since I had no one to talk to about it.

I look down at the phone and see that it’s Abigail, and she sent the messages within seconds.

Where are you?

Are you not coming?