Falling for Romeo (10 page)

house. John and Runt hanging in the back yard as John mowed the lawn, the two of them mulling around the annual Strawberry Days carnival every June. And when they went to dances, he always made sure Runt didn’t stay pressed against a dark wall somewhere.

It impressed Jennifer that, even now, when everything beautiful and socially acceptable was available to John, he took time with Runt.

“If you need a ride that night, let me know.” John ripped a ticket and handed it to Runt. Runt nodded and went on his way.

“Is it true you kiss Juliet in the play?” a girl asked.

John looked up from writing out another receipt and gave a quick nod.

“It is.”

The girl looked at her friends with a sparkling grin.

“How many times?” she asked.

John’s cheeks flushed. Jennifer felt her own do the same. “Guess you’ll have to come and see for yourself.”

“Oh, I’ll be there.” The girl handed John her money.

John took it and stole another glance down the hall where Runt had gone.

“I’m Kimmy,” the girl said. Her friends rattled off their k

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names.

John gave each of them an acknowledging nod.

“You’re all coming to the play, right?” Of course they were.

Jennifer let out a sigh. Her allotment of tickets sat in her pocket. She’d never sell all of them.

After the girls left, John happened to see her. He didn’t smile, rather sent another sharp look like the ones he’d sent her in Miss Tingey’s class. She wanted to say something mean, something to tear him down a notch.

But she couldn’t find it in her heart, beating faster now that he’d pinned her with that opal gaze.

“John.” Mr. Daniels, the Western Civilization teacher, was heading toward him and John finally looked away.

John smiled and extended a hand to him.

“Hey, Mr. Daniels. What can I do for you?”

“I could use your help for a minute in my classroom.” The slightly-hunched teacher turned back around and started down the hall the same way he had just come.

John glanced at his watch before he took off after him.

“Hear you’ve got tickets to the play.” Mr. Daniels dug into his front pocket and produced a brown, leather wallet.

“I sure do, sir.”

“Give me six. I’ll bring the fam.”

“You have four kids? Wow.” John scribbled onto his ticket book and followed Mr. Daniels. Jennifer went on to her next class.

John pulled into his driveway and glanced at the Vienvu’s house. Nagging curiosity still pestered him. His

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mind wouldn’t stop flashing images of the red truck, the steamy windows, the locker room brag session he’d heard from Alex. Did Jennifer know she was shower-room fodder? She’d hate it.

He looked at his watch. There wasn’t a lot of time before he had to be back at school for the final dress rehearsal. He had time for dinner and that was all. Any studying would have to be squeezed in between scenes.

Inside the house, John smelled basil, garlic and onions. His mother had made his favorite meal— lasagna.

She never made it unless they were having guests, the huge pan she baked it in made enough for two families.

He went directly to the kitchen and found her fussing over a large bowl filled with colorful greens.

“John. What happened to you today?” He headed for the refrigerator. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you forgot Elise’s driving test appointment.” John’s teeth grazed his lower lip. A wave of guilt drowned him. “Lasagna?” He wanted to change the subject. “Who’s coming over for dinner?” He took out the orange juice carton and drank.

“Get a glass.”

“Ah.” He stuck the carton back in the refrigerator with sigh.

“The Vienvu’s.”

John’s hand froze on the handle of the refrigerator door. “Tonight?”

“Right now.” His mother reached for salt and pepper.

John looked at his watch. “Is Dad home?” Janice Michaels nodded toward the hall. That k

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meant his father was in his office, working. It also meant his dad was under pressure. He never brought his work home unless things weren’t going well at the office.

“He wasn’t happy about having to take Elise,” his mother warned.

He could avert a face-to-face meeting with his dad, he’d done it before. But that was cowardly and his dad would call him on it. There was something to being the first to say
sorry.
John figured it would put this screwy chess game of apology at checkmate, in his favor.

He ventured down the dark hall to the open door of the office and peered in. His dad sat over the desk, deep into a pile of paperwork. John hesitated before clearing his throat. His dad’s dark head swung up. A small wave was all his dad granted him before he was back at work again.

John waited a moment longer, not sure if he’d be called in and yelled at because he’d missed Elise’s appointment. Heavy tension kept his father glued to his work. John wished there was something he could do to help, but he knew very little about security investing. All he knew was that when the stock market went up and down, his dad’s moods often followed.

John was glad the Vienvu’s were coming for dinner.

If anybody could get his dad out of a mood rut, it was Randy Vienvu. The two men were more like brothers than neighbors. John thought of Jennifer then, of the two of them. No matter how close they’d been, they weren’t close any more.

He wanted to change that, thought he was, until Alex came along.

“You got another letter,” his mother told him as he

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threaded back through the kitchen on his way upstairs.

His stomach tightened. She pointed to a pink envelope sitting on the counter.

Casually, he reached for it. The handwriting was different this time.

“Who are these people writing you?” Janice went to the oven, mitts in hand.

He shrugged. “Just friends.” He tucked the letter into his back pocket. Before she could ask anything more, he headed up. He’d been getting letters from girls for a while now, a strange, strange thing. Some were anonymous, filled with expressions of love, sugary poetry, even obscene things. Others were invitations to call or go on dates. He declined them, embarrassed to acknowledge the attention at all.

The phone calls were worse. How the random girls got his cell phone number, was a mystery he figured he’d never know the answer to. Most of the girls wanted to talk to him: ask if he had a girlfriend, if he wanted to hang out – what his favorite things were. Did he wear boxers or briefs? A creepy shudder ran down his back.

“You are so going to get it.” His sister, Elise, came out of her bedroom and into the hall with a smile he recognized well: vengeance.

He passed her and continued to his bedroom.

“In your haste to be the next Zac Efron, you spaced taking me for my driving test today. Dad had to do it and was he pissed.”

Few things got to John like being unreliable. He grew up taking on whatever came his way, first to prove to his father he could do anything, then to prove to everybody else that he could.

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He’d seen the tired look on his dad’s face tonight, and he’d contributed to that weariness.

“He was so mad,” Elise went on, so close she almost bit his heels. “He was already mad when he came home from work, but this just pushed him over the edge. You know how bad things are right now. I can’t believe you forgot.”

John whirled, glaring down into her shocked eyes.

The shock only lasted a second before turning into the pure pleasure of sibling power. Elise grinned. John’s fingers curled and uncurled. So easily could he shove her. The temptation was more than he could resist after listening to Alex in the locker room, keeping his temper in check.

With one hand, he pushed her.

She barely rocked back on her heels, but her green eyes flamed, her long, black hair swung around her shoulders. She shoved right back.

He so wanted to shove at her again—harder this time. He was tangled up in guilt for letting his dad down.

Elise set her smug face close to his, baiting him with a sneer. Before he let himself do something he would regret later, he turned and went on to his room.

“You’re a wuss,” Elise called after him.

He entered the sanctuary of his bedroom and slammed the door. She’d never dare follow him in; it was a rule in their house that no one was allowed in another’s space unless invited. Of course, his younger sister Katie never kept that rule. John’s bedroom was the safe-haven on thunderous nights when their parents were away.

Elise ran in a few months back when the security alarm went off at two in the morning. Katie was hysterical, clinging to John and Elise as the three of them hovered in

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his bedroom. He thought of how he’d calmed them both, told them he was sure it was just a fluke in the system. Elise held Katie on her hip, standing in his door as he’d tip-toed off to search the house for intruders—baseball bat in hand.

The memory brought a wry smile to his face now and he crossed the room to the window.

Girls.

He looked over at Jennifer’s window. No light glowed from behind the drawn shutters. It was true, whether Jenn wanted to admit it or not. Girls dug it when guys were heroes.

John stood next to Jennifer as the Vienvu family and the Michaels family formed a line around the Michaels’

kitchen counter to serve themselves from the array of fragrant lasagna, crisp green salad and soft doughy breadsticks.

She said her neighborly hello when she came in, but he knew she was faking it. The hello wasn’t aimed at him.

She hadn’t even looked at him. He figured she was still mad at him for Tingey’s class.

When they were younger and fought, she’d turned her nose up at him for a few days that dragged tortuously long and dull until they made up and were friends again.

He leaned over her shoulder as she dipped the spatula into the lasagna, cutting a chunk. “Good thing we’re both eating garlic tonight.” He grinned when she looked at him. A spark of something disconcerting flashed on her face. He wondered why, when what the two of k

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them did on stage was nothing compared to whatever had steamed up the windows of Alex’s truck.

Jealousy stole what appetite he had, thinking of her and Alex, leaving him with lingering bitterness. He couldn’t help but notice the secret smile tugging at her lips. He was pretty sure it wasn’t the salad she was dishing on her plate causing it.

She was probably thinking about Alex.

In frustration he reached around her and covered her hand with his as she held the salad tongs. Their eyes met. He stole the tongs, as if the act would steal whatever was making her smile.

“Excuse me?” Jennifer’s brow arched.

“Looked like you needed some help there.” With a glance at his dad, John heaped a pile of greens on her plate. His cheeks flushed when his dad eyed him.

“Enough?”

She looked wounded by his insinuation. “More than enough. I have six costumes to fit in.”

“And you won’t have a problem—eating salad.”

“But I should pass on the lasagna, is that it?”

“No. Jeez.” He was in trouble now.

“Six costume changes?” Janice Michaels looked at Jennifer from across the counter where she poured Kool Aid into plastic cups.

Jennifer nodded and reached for a bread stick. She held it under John’s nose. “Okay with you if I eat one of these?”

John forced a smile, watching Jennifer cross the room to a spot on one of their tan leather couches. She sat and shot him a grin.

“How are rehearsals going, Jenn?” Having finished

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pouring Kool Aid, Janice took her plate over. “I never get much information out of John. You know how he is.” The families gathered on the ll-shaped couches, setting their plates and drinks on the dark wood coffee table nestled in the elbow of the formation.

“It’s going great.” Jennifer cut into her lasagna with that same grin still on her face. John thought if she was anymore pleased she’d burst. She loved it when his parents asked her questions instead of him.
She wants to
play? Fine
. He sat next to her, just in case he needed to set his heel on her instep.

“John’s kissing me now,” Jennifer announced.

The room quieted. She chewed with a smile, looking at his parents faces in the way that only she could, a way John couldn’t deny was cute, like a puppy that had just gnawed a favorite slipper but you couldn’t resist.

“He is, is he?” Mitchell looked at John. “You’re being a gentleman?”

John appeased his dad with a nod before sending a narrow glare at Jennifer.

“Oh, he’s being a gentleman.” Jennifer speared a lettuce leaf with her fork. “He knows I’d bite him if he wasn’t.”

Everyone laughed but Jennifer’s little brother, Parker, and John’s little sister, Katie, who both grimaced.

“You should.” The pleasure in Elise’s voice was undeniable. “I’d do it. Not to John—sick. But if I had to kiss a guy and for some reason I didn’t like it, I’d bite him.”

“You’re twisted,” John told her.

“Not as twisted as you,” Elise snapped back.

“Hey.” Mitchell’s tone warned them to put a stop to the sibling boxing match.

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“I still can’t believe you two are the leads.” Randy took a sip of his drink. “Who’d have thought? It must be strange, you’ve known each other for so long.”

“I imagine it makes it easier,” Mitchell commented.

Far from it, John thought. Sweaty discomfort sunk to his bones. The lasagna in his stomach sat in a undigested heap. He set his fork down and let out a loud belch. The room exploded with the kind of easy laughter that comes with familiarity. He grinned, pressing his fist to his chest as another, albeit weaker burp, bubbled out.