Page 50 of Made For Romeo
“Romeo.” I look over and see Mrs. Potter coming out from the back. “I just finished wrapping your food,” she says, smiling at me. “Is this your lovely lady?” She smiles at Gabriella. “It’s nice to meet you, Gabriella. I’m Mrs. Potter.” She wipes her hands in her apron. “You are just as beautiful as he said you were.”
“Thank you,” Gabriella says, smiling and looking up at me. I put my arm around her shoulders. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She shakes her hand.
“Why don’t you guys go sit, and I’ll bring your coffee over,” she says to us, and I walk over to the bench I usually sit at in the corner.
“You made some friends,” Gabriella says, looking around at the motivational quotes hanging on the wall.
“That is my favorite one,” I tell her, pointing at the one that speaks to me every single day. I say it out loud, “It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
She smiles at me, leaning in. “I loved you back then,” she says softly. She uses the love word for the first time ever. My head screams, if she loved you once, she can love you again. “I just was scared to admit it, I also didn’t really know it until it was over.” She slips her hand in mine, and the smile on her face just gets even bigger. “But that love never really went away. It’s more like it paused. It was as if my heart had just stopped, waiting for you to return. It’s as if my heart knew you would be back.” I don’t say anything to her because I can’t. “I’m babbling.” She shakes her head, looking down at our hands. “What I’m trying to say is that I loved you back then, and I love you now. In my heart, you’re the same person I’ve always been in love with.” She smiles as she blinks away tears.
“I love you, Gabriella Stone,” I say her name and lean into her. “Thank you for giving me another chance to prove it to you.”
She puts her finger on my lips. “No more.” She shakes her head. “No more beating yourself up. Besides, who knows, we could have ended up having a fight and breaking up with each other, hating the other.” She leans over and replaces her finger with her lips.
“Here you are.” Mrs. Potter has two cups of coffee to go along with a brown paper bag. “And this is what you ordered.” She hands me the bag. “This is the vanilla latte with nonfat milk.” She passes me the cup. “And the regular.” She smiles at me. “Have a great day hiking,” she says, turning around.
“I didn’t pay you,” I remind her, and she shoos me away with her hand.
“You better get going before the rain comes,” she advises, looking over her shoulder.
“What rain?” I mumble, walking out and seeing the clear blue sky. “There is no rain coming.”
We walk back to the house and get right in the car. I put in the address a couple of the local people gave me for a nice hiking spot. The drive there is done with the windows down and the soft music playing, mountains on both sides of us. “This is so beautiful,” she says when I pull over and park the car. The little trail is off to the side. Slipping her hand in mine, we make our way up the mountain side, stopping a couple of times to take pictures.
Passing a couple of people, who just smile at us as we walk by, we spend most of the afternoon hiking up the mountain and then making our way back down. When we are a couple of feet from our car, I feel a drop on my hand. I look up, and the clear blue sky is now covered in dark gray clouds that look angry. “Um, is that rain?” Gabriella must feel a raindrop on her hand, then looks up, but not before the sound of thunder fills the air, and then big drops start to pour down. We run to the car as fast as we can, but the rain is pouring at that point. “Um,” she says when we get in the car, “it’s safe to say Mrs. Potter was right.”
I look over at her as the rain pelts down on the car. Shaking my head, the water flies everywhere, making Gabriella laugh. She pulls off her sweater, leaving her in just her bra. “I’m soaked.”
I pull off my own sweater, tossing it in the back. “You know what sounds really good?” I ask, pulling out of the parking lot. “A nice hot bath.”
“Yes,” Gabriella agrees as I pull onto the road. The wipers are going crazy back and forth, but the rain is coming down so hard and so fast I can’t see.
“I can’t see anything,” I tell her and put my hazard lights on right before I pull over at the side of the road, the sound of gravel crunching under the tires. “We are going to have to wait out the storm.” I look over at her, and she just smirks.
“I think I know just the thing to pass the time.” She winks at me, and it doesn’t take me long to realize what she means.
TWENTY-NINE
GABRIELLA
My eyes flutter open once, and then I quickly close them back again, turning to my side. My head sinks farther into the pillow. I pull the thick white duvet closer to me as I try to slip back into sleep. I reach out my hand for him, but the bed is empty. His side of the bed is still hot from his body. Listening to see if he’s in the bathroom, I mumble his name, “Romeo.”
I wait for a couple of minutes before I turn to my back and open my eyes, the light trying to come into the room from around the closed curtains. “Romeo,” I call his name a bit louder but still nothing. I get up on my elbow and look around my bedroom. His clothes are on the chair in the corner with mine.
I toss the duvet off, the cold air hitting my naked body and making me shiver once. I get out of bed, going over to the chair in the corner, grabbing his white T-shirt and putting it on before walking into the bathroom. I wash my face and tie my hair on the top of my head before heading down the stairs. I can smell the coffee wafting through the house.
I can hear his voice softly as I get closer and closer to the kitchen. I walk in and see his back to me; he’s wearing just black boxers as he waits for his coffee to finish. “When would you need to know?” he says to whoever is on the phone as I walk up to him and wrap my arms around his waist, kissing his bare back. He puts his left hand on top of mine. “Yeah, it would be great,” he replies as I lay my head on his back. “I will get back to you for sure.” He listens to what the other person is saying. “Thank you so much for calling,” he says before hanging up and putting his phone on the counter. “Good morning.” He turns in my arms, his arms wrapping around me as he bends to kiss the top of my head.
“Morning,” I mumble, laying my head on his chest and listening to his heart beating. “Who was that?”
“Sander.” He says the name, and I have never heard it before. I look up at him as he looks down, and my heart skips a beat, just like every single time I look at him. “He’s one of the directors on the film we just finished filming in Turkey.”
“Everything okay?” I ask, and he nods, but I can tell from the look on his face that things aren’t really okay.
“Let me make coffee, and I’ll tell you all about it.” He kisses my lips once before letting me go. I don’t know why, but the way he said it makes my back tingle, and I get this nervous feeling in my stomach. “Where do you want to have coffee?” he asks as he walks over to grab another mug to make my coffee. We’ve been back from the beach for two weeks now, two weeks that we’ve been living with each other without saying we are living with each other. He still has his suite at the Ritz-Carlton, and we’ve stayed there a total of two nights, but he keeps packing a bag and bringing things back to my house.
“We can have it on the couch,” I suggest, walking toward the couch, trying to tell myself that everything is okay. I ignore the way my heart speeds up or that my stomach is in my throat. I even ignore the way my mouth gets dry and the way the back of my neck gets really hot. I sit down, grabbing the throw blanket hanging on the back of the couch. I curl my feet under me before placing the cover on top of my bare legs.