Page 25 of Made For Romeo
“It took a month after you left for me to reach out to talk to someone,” I admit to her. “I didn’t know who else I could talk to, and I didn’t want to tell my parents because I was afraid my mother would come and shoot me in the ass herself.” She laughs at this and then looks down. “I needed someone to point out why I did what I did. I thought about even turning to my sister, but she probably would have put my face on a billboard in the middle of Times Square, telling everyone what an asshole I was.”
I wish I was joking. My sister is hands down the ballsiest woman I know. She’s literally my father but in female form. She doesn’t act; instead she went to law school, and now she’s working on taking over the district attorney’s office in Chicago. “To be honest, I thought if I spoke to her for a week, it would help me make sense of what happened. But instead, it took a while for me to admit that the reason I did it was, well, because I was a selfish asshole who just did it for his friends.” She is about to say something, and I stop her. “Friends I don’t hang around with anymore. It made me so pissed I fell for the bullshit that I did. I was better than that. I am better than that. I grew up in Hollywood, my father told me long before those relationships were not always genuine, but I just thought he was being my dad.” I shake my head laughing, knowing that he was so fucking right but still stubborn enough not to admit it, at least not to him. “I don’t know why it took me so long to see I need someone who will be there to make me a better person and not be the one who will push me to be the man I’m not.” I shrug, thinking of the “friendships” I had, and sadly admit that no one really knew me, the real me. No one but her that is. “Last week, when I left here, I called her, and she told me to make a list of why I thought you should be with me.”
“And?” she asks, and I shake my head and laugh, the nervousness rushing through me at admitting this to her. I don’t know why I was afraid to tell her I have a therapist, especially sharing some of what we discussed with her.
“Well, there wasn’t much in the ‘why you should be with me’ column,” I admit to her. “I mean, I tried list after list and there were a lot of reasons as to why you shouldn’t be with me.” I’m trying to joke about it, but the reality is that the list of cons outweighed the list of pros. “There was just the main one, really.”
“Which was?” she asks. I hold my breath, not sure I should just tell her, but knowing that if I’m fighting for her, I have to leave all the cards on the table.
“That I love you.” She gasps. We never spoke about our feelings when we were together. To be honest, I don’t think I even knew that I loved her back then. It took losing her to know how I felt about her. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but I also know it might be now or never.” I chuckle as the nerves fill my stomach. “I’ll show you the list if you want, and we can go through them one by one.” I run my hand through my hair. “But the bottom line is that I’m madly and wholeheartedly in love with you.” I shrug, the tears stinging my eyes because I want to kiss her so badly, but I’m also scared she isn’t going to see how I’ve changed.
“Romeo,” she says my name softly and I hope it’s not the calm before she tells me to go fuck myself. “Bottom line is, I don’t know if I can ever trust you again.”
“I know,” I say right away, pissed I made her ever doubt us. “Trust me, I know. My therapist kept asking me the whole time, what if she doesn’t accept it?” I swallow down the lump that is forming in my throat. “I’m going to be honest, I refused to go there.”
“You’ve met my family,” she starts. “In my family, there has never been anyone who has been…” She stops talking, and I can see her hands shake as she puts them on her stomach.
“Cheated on.” I say the words for her, and she just nods.
“I’m used to the whole fairy tale,” she explains. I can hear her voice tremble and I take a step to her. When she sat on that couch and rehashed that night, I never went to her, it silently killed me and I won’t do it again. “My mother, God, she had the worst life before my father. My whole life it was about finding someone who would love me like that. And then you broke me.”
“I’m so, so sorry,” I apologize as I hold her face in my hands, making sure I’m looking in her eyes as I say this. “For the rest of my life, that moment in time will be the worst moment of my life. If I could go back and change it, I would in a heartbeat.” My thumbs rub her cheeks as I try to catch her tears. “I know my words mean nothing, and my actions have to speak for themselves.” I swallow down, asking her the biggest question of my life. “Do you think you could give me another chance?”
My heart beats so fast in my chest that it’s all I can hear in the quiet of the room. I don’t even think I’m breathing as I wait for her answer. Her eyes leave mine as she looks down, and then the heart beating so fast in my chest feels like it stops. “I can’t promise you anything.”
“All I want is a chance,” I tell her. “I just need a chance to show you how I’ve changed. I need a chance for you to see how much I love you. I just need a chance.” Her eyes move up to mine, and I wait for her answer, unsure how it will go if she says no.
SEVENTEEN
GABRIELLA
“All I want is a chance,” he tells me as he holds my face in his hands. My heart is soaring in my chest at his words. He is standing in the middle of the room where I thought it would be the end the last time I saw him. But this time, he’s the one pouring out his heart. My eyes go from his and then down to look at the floor, not sure I can stand seeing what is in his eyes. It’s just so much more than I thought it would be. “I just need a chance to show you how I’ve changed. I need a chance for you to see how much I love you. I just need a chance.” My eyes finally go up again to see his eyes. My ears are not sure if I heard him actually say he loves me.
“What?” is the only word that escapes me. All I could do was look at him during his whole declaration, saying he loved me. The back of my neck burned with nerves while my stomach flipped and flopped back and forth as he stood there and bared his soul to me.
“What part did you not understand?” he asks, his voice breaking. “It’s you, Gabriella.” He smiles through his own tears. “It’s always been you.”
I can’t even believe that I’m entertaining this. “If you would have asked me eight months ago,” I start to tell him, my mouth suddenly getting super dry. “I would have said you were insane.” I blink away the tears, and one escapes me, but his thumb catches it and wipes it away.
“Sadly, my head was still stuck up my ass eight months ago,” he jokes, trying to laugh, but it comes out shaky. I also laugh nervously at his joke. “But now here we are.” I know if I don’t give him a chance, if I don’t do this, it’ll always be a what-if, and I’ll regret it forever.
“Okay,” I finally say in almost a whisper. That is the only word I say because all the other words are stuck at the lump in my throat.
I know I’m not the only one in shock when his mouth opens and hangs there. His eyes move from my mouth to my eyes and then back again and again. The shock is written all over his face. I don’t know why that just makes me even happier. It also makes my heart so full. As I take in his beautiful face, it makes my stomach flip-flop over and over. “Really?”
“As long as you know that I’m not promising anything,” I repeat, because no matter how much my heart wants to give in to this, my head is screaming at me to run the other way.
“As long as you know.” He rubs his nose with mine, my body shivering at his touch. “In the end, you’re going to be mine.” I roll my eyes at his words while my knees go weak. Which sort of angers me also because this is the thing my female relatives hear all the time. It’s also what I said I would never fall for. It is also time to admit that it’s okay to be worshipped by the man you love. Not that you love him, my head quickly snaps out.
“Relax there, Romeo.” I start to say something else, but I can’t because his lips lower onto mine. I think my heart even sighs when he kisses me. My mouth opens for him as his tongue slides in to play with mine. My hands go to his hips, and then I close the little distance between us as I slide my hands up his chest and wrap them around his neck. As his hands fall from my face, he turns his head to the side to deepen the kiss. His tongue goes around and around as he pulls me even closer to him. His kiss leaves me breathless and aching for more.
My hand plays with the collar of his shirt, and I’m about to move my hand from the back of his shirt to the front of it when he lets go of my lips softly. “Did you just tell me you would give me a chance?” he asks softly again as he kisses my lips. “Say it again.” He trails kisses from my lips to my cheek and down to my chin.
“I’m not promising you anything,” I say as he kisses my neck exactly where he always kisses me. I even move my face to give him more access to it. My whole face lights up. “But I’ll give this a chance.”
His hands return to my face, and he holds it in his hands, and I find this peace in myself. “I’m not going to make you regret this,” he reassures me before his lips crash onto mine. This kiss isn’t like the last one, where it was soft. This kiss is like the ones I tried to forget yet always remembered. It’s filled with heat and longing. My body suddenly remembers everything about him. The way his tongue slides with mine, and he knows exactly how to move my head so the kiss gets even deeper.
My hands itch to touch his skin, and my body itches to be touched by him. My hands roam to his chest as I go to a button on his shirt, unbuttoning it. But instead of moving to the second one, he moves away from me, and my hand falls back to my sides. “I should get going.” He turns and starts to walk out of the room.