Taming Romeo (3 page)

I mark the next crossroad and walk to it. Now I start running. It’s a slight downhill. Good show. I stretch my legs and pound my way down the hill. The theme song to
Chariots of Fire
plays through my mind before I realize I haven’t turned on any tunes in my music player. Actually this is Genie’s iPod and I have no idea what’s in her playlist.

Another excuse to take a walking break. I turn on the iPod and scroll through her playlists. One is marked Romeo García. Incredible. My sister has every one of his singles. Admittedly, some are too sappy for my taste. Cheesy love songs for preteen girls. Now that Genie is eighteen, she should be outgrowing this teenybopper stuff. Come on. Even when I was secretly dating Romeo, I never listened to this sugary, empty calorie fluff. Give me Three Days Grace or Breaking Benjamin any day.

Nevertheless, I select her Romeo playlist and crank it up. His voice back then was too boyish, cute. I’m sure as all-get-out he doesn’t sound so sugary now. Maybe it’s me, but there’s something really sexy about a strong, booming voice shouting with the blasts of an electric guitar. I’m working up a sweat, gawking at the mansions and elaborate landscapes, energized at the thought of the new powerful Romeo. That shit-eating grin alone could topple a row of pretty boys like dominos at a nursing home. Okay, I’m here doing the my-dog’s-better-than-your-dog thing with Romeo. Must be lack of oxygen to my brain. How much time have I been jogging, er running? Thirteen minutes.

A sharp pain spears my right side. Yeoch. And here I thought I’d get a runner’s high by now. The pain rips through my rib cage and has me gasping for air. I’m about to slow down when I hear the roar of a motor behind me. What if it’s one of the rich boys in my neighborhood? Didn’t my parents mention Olympic snowboarder Shaun White used to have a house here? Fake it until you make it. I swing my arms harder and lengthen my stride, taking deep, gasping breaths. Run through the pain. No pain, no gain. But my calf muscle has other ideas. It seizes and when I grab it, the roar rushes by me too close and I fall into a ditch.

Some asshole on a motorcycle zooms by. Jerkowitz.

My medical school self assesses the damage. Scraped knee, second-degree abrasion, slight bleeding, not deep, probably won’t scar. First-degree abrasion on palm and strained calf muscle. Hands on my knees, I blow out my carbon-dioxide laden breath and check my phone. Nineteen glorious minutes of running translates into how many calories?

The motorcycle whirrs toward me from the opposite side of the street.

Romeo. What art thou doing?

He circles around and stops in front of me. “Hop on.”

“Excuse me?” I yell to be heard above the sputtering motor.

He does that tilt of his head, and like the silly teenaged girl I used to be, I place one hand on his shoulder, step on the foot peg and swing myself onto the long banana seat. Romeo removed the sissy handle long ago, for obvious reasons. I gather he doesn’t let anyone ride unless he wants to make a move on them. Well, I’m twenty-three going on twenty-four. I’m not the quivering teen groupie wannabe. I’m not holding onto his waist, because dangit, if I got my hands under his tight t-shirt, oh yeah, I can see the dips and planes of his laterals and obliques, there’s no telling where my fingers might wander.

The engine revs and whoosh, Romeo kicks off, throwing me backward. My baseball cap is history. No sissy bar. My inner thighs clench and I throw my arms around his waist, my face pressed to his broad back. He leans and corners around the hairpin turns, almost scraping my knees, but I hang tight, quivering and shuddering.

There’s nothing quite like the feel of a vibrating bike between my legs and the chill of the wind slapping my thighs. But most of all, I feel young and free again, melding to the rippling warm man I once knew and wondering if things might be different this time around.

Romeo takes the roundabout way back to my parents’ house. After all, my almost twenty minutes of running would have been but a split second on his bike. He loops around the Rancho Santa Fe golf course and navigates the twists and turns through eucalyptus-lined lanes before depositing me on my slanted driveway.

“Thanks for the ride.” I’m more breathless than I was while in the throes of running uphill. And my heart? It has left the realm of normal EKG results somewhere back on La Granada. I wave and walk backward toward my front door.

He removes his helmet and hangs it on the handlebar, then cuts the engine.

“Come closer.” He jiggles his finger. “I told you I’m not done with you.”

I punch my hands onto my hips and glare. “You haven’t even apologized for sending me into the ditch.”

He cocks a lopsided grin. “As I recall, you were grabbing your calf and falling before I passed you.”

“Well, I have to irrigate my wound and dress it.”

He gives me that look, a halfway wink, a single brow lift, and a tilt of his jaw.

The prepubescent teenybopper in me melts; the adult narrows her eyes and purses her lips, adding a hostile nostril flaring for good measure. I turn my back and my teen self whimpers,
he wants a kiss, can’t you tell? He’s into you.

“Evangeline María Apostol Sánchez. Are you dating anyone?”

I whip around so fast my hair slaps my face and I advance two steps. “What business is that of yours?”

He crosses his arms, his biceps flexing and raises his eyebrows. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“Well, no.” I’m in his face now. “But you don’t get to—”

He ropes me in and crushes my lips against his. My teeth clack on his and I let out a cross between a grunt and a moan. Oh, shit. Teenage me already has her arms around his neck, running her hands through his hair. I let out a sigh, an involuntary one caused by fight and flight hormones and momentary hypoxia, and the rascal takes the opportunity to slip his hot, wet, luscious tongue between my lips. Iridescent butterflies and shaved ice and fairy dust jelly and sugary shivers render my resistance futile.

While my mind’s reeling, Romeo draws back ever so slightly, his lips tenderly caressing mine. The ball on his lip ring jiggles my lower lip, and his tongue dips and darts, barely slivering into my mouth.

Hungrily, I press into him with whimpering, mewing kisses, like a woman on a deserted island presented with a coconut shell full of
halo-halo
. This is how it should have been. Romeo and I. His kisses are forever seared in my soul, ruining me for every man who came after. Especially Eric. Scratch the thought.

What am I doing kissing Romeo? I’m passing out. Temporary insanity. Someone resuscitate me, shock me with the defibrillator. Nine-one-one what seems to be the emergency? Oxygen saturation below eighty percent. Change in mental status. Oh, what a wonderful, soul-sucking kiss. I pass my tongue between his lips, slurping, drinking him in, making up for all the missing years. My fingers fist the back of his shirt and he tugs me closer, still seated on his motorcycle.

He whispers against my mouth. “You’ve always been mine.”

My eyes pop open and I’m sucked into the dark inky pools of his. He looks at me so sincerely, both hands cupping my face, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. If I could stop time… It. Would. Be. Now.

Bang! The garden gate slaps and we jolt apart.

Genie claps her hands to her face and screams, “How dare you kiss Romeo?”

Behind her, my parents advance like armed guards, one on each side of Genie. How much did they see?

My father’s jowls are shaking and my mother wrings her hands.

What did I do? I glance at Romeo, but his expression is stony. He lowers his forehead and peers from under his eyebrows. “Tito, Tita.”

They don’t extend their hands for the traditional
mano-po
blessing. Oops. Something is seriously wrong and I feel like I walked onto the set of a soap opera.

“Heya, thanks for the lift.” I give Romeo a tiny wave. “I have to fix my boo-boos, owies, abrasions, lacerations, whatever.”

“Sure, get a helmet, okay?” A silent message passes between us. “Tito Rey, Tita Anna, I’ll see you later.”

My cheeks are hot as I brush past them and storm to my room. I’m a consenting adult. I lived with a man for two whole years, although my parents pretended he didn’t exist. What is the problem with one little kiss?

Don’t lie to yourself, Evangeline María Apostol Sánchez, that one little kiss is attached to one big badass man, and guess what? You didn’t ask if he was seeing someone before plunging your kissy bits onto his.

You’d think I declared World War III at my house. After I showered, exfoliated, shaved, and bandaged, I emerge from the steamy bathroom and walk right into a posse of inquisitors, otherwise known as the Sánchez gang.

They drag me into the kitchen and sit me in front of a plate of
tapsilog
, marinated beef strips, spicy, garlic rice and two eggs over easy. Not an auspicious start for the new vegan me. I pick at the rice and mumble about making a fruit salad.

My family sits around the dining table, each waiting for the other to speak. Mama’s hands shake as she sips a cup of tea, while Choco looks nervously between me and Genie who is sitting at the far end of the table, her face marred with a huge pout. Even my youngest brother, Brian, the one with the normal name, has torn himself away from his video games to watch the amusement.

Papa, of course, clears his throat. “Evie, it is disappointing to come across you consorting with a man on our own driveway.”

“Oh, please. Don’t use such stiff language.” I plop my foot onto the chair. “Would you rather I took him to my bedroom?”

“Evie!” Mama snaps. “Your brother’s listening. Brian, get ready for school.”

“Brian’s sixteen, I’m sure he knows the score.” I’m unrepentant. If they want to rag on me for kissing a guy, they should know I’m not going to listen.

Papa seems to stall, but Genie gives him a wide-eyed appeal, as if there’s more to say. Fine. I get that she’s jealous of me for having gone to the senior prom with Carlos while she isn’t allowed to attend any event unchaperoned due to my bad example. But this doesn’t call for a public flogging.

Mama gamely takes the baton. “We know you’re distressed from your broken relationship, although we tried to tell you about the milk.”

“Yeah, yeah, why buy the milk.” I roll my hands, then scoop a mouthful of rice. I lived with Eric. I played wife. Despite my busy schedule, I cooked his meals and kept our apartment clean, and yes, I slept with him. Shocking for the twenty-first century.

Genie glares at me, her nostrils flaring as if she smells a stench. Maybe it’s her body odor, because I’m fresh from the shower.

Papa sighs and taps the table for my attention. “It’s not your fault. Nobody told you.”

He looks at Choco as if she should step in.

She mimes, “Oh, no,” shaking her head, then puts her arm around Genie who acts like the hurt party.

“Told me what? About the benefit concert he’s putting on at the restaurant?”

They gape at me with their mouths open. Uh, guess that wasn’t the big news.

“Then what?” I appeal to Choco. She knows everything.

Genie lets out a small yelp, a stricken look on her face. “How could you, Evie?”

Oh, I get it now! I slap my forehead. Brian’s smirk confirms it. Genie has a crush on Romeo and somehow, my family thinks he’s her intended. How wrong could they be? Had nobody peeked into the parking lot and seen him with Blondie? Vegan Blondie, to be exact.

Mama comes to the rescue and pulls her chair close to me. She takes my hand and does the smoothing of my knuckles thing she does to comfort me. “Tita Elena has asked our permission for Romeo to court Genie and we granted it.”

My first thought slams my brain out of the partially eaten
tapsilog
fog: Romeo is courting Genie? That’s impossible. He always thought her a brat.

Second one rolls over the first: They’re accusing me of stealing my sister’s boyfriend.

Third: Only Choco knows the truth, and she’s not coming to my defense.

Indeed Choco avoids my gaze, but I’m not letting her off. “Choco, tell them Romeo’s my friend first.”

Genie wipes a tear, or a fake one, and gives me the woe is me, you hurt me look before pawing Choco like a kitty wanting to be picked up.

“I’m not taking sides between you two.” Choco scrambles from the table, all five-feet of her tiny self. “Come on, Brian, show’s over.”

I gape at my parents. “Honestly, this is a big misunderstanding. I was out jogging and fell into a ditch. Look, my knee’s scraped, and see here, my palm is too. Romeo happened to drive by and gave me a ride. My side was already hurting and I caught a cramp in my calf. So, being the good guy he is, he naturally brought me home and when I got off the bike, I wanted to say thank you and…”

No one’s listening. Like a summer thunderstorm, the family intervention blew in and blew away.

Mama pushes from the table. “Eat, Evie. Romeo invited us to the movie set to watch a shoot.”

“I’m not hungry, and actually I can’t eat meat and eggs anymore.” I bring the plate to the garbage disposal, but Papa stops me.

“What do you mean, no meat and eggs?”

“No milk, either.” Oh, this is going to be such a sacrifice. “I’m turning vegan as of today.”

Mama’s quick to palm my forehead, her second favorite mother gesture. “Is there something you’re not telling us? Are you sick? Are you pregnant?”

“No, Mama, I’m not pregnant. Sheesh.” Thankfully, my period started the day after Eric announced things weren’t working, which didn’t stop him from having goodbye sex, but I used protection and there are things they don’t need to know about. “Can I go now? When is this film shoot and where?”

“UC San Diego Main Library. Four o’clock,” Papa says. “He specifically invited Genie, but I forbade her to ride on his motorcycle and he doesn’t have a car, so he got us all passes.”

“Great.” I pick up my keys. “I still have time to go shopping for my vegan diet.”

“I need the car. Mama and I are going to a gown fitting.” Genie sniffs, her nose in the air and glides off in her virginal splendor. I can’t believe my parents are letting her cut school, but she did get into Berkeley and all they have left is the prom and grad night.