When In Rome...Find Yourself: A Sweet New Adult Romance (2 page)

And now, they couldn’t even help her if she needed them. To be fair, she’d given them plenty of opportunity for concern. Plenty of opportunities to rescue her. But this time, she’d be across the ocean. They couldn’t drive a few hours to pick her up. This both terrified and excited her. For the first time, she’d be really, really on her own, with no one to fall back on.

After a while, it grew dark outside and there were no lights below. They were somewhere over the Atlantic. She didn’t want to think about that, so she flipped through an airline magazine someone had left in the seatback pocket. An ad for a photography contest caught her eye, and she reached her foot under the seat in front of her until she felt the edge of her camera bag, familiar and solid. For a second, she imagined sending in her photos of Rome and winning the prize, an internship as a travel photographer for their e-zine. She could just imagine what her parents would say about that.

She flipped to the next page, where the glossy, gorgeous face of her sister’s favorite popstar stared back at her. “Where in the World is Brody Villines?” the headline read. Brody Villines had mysteriously disappeared six months before, and no one in the media had seen or heard from him since. The article theorized that he was hiding at his family’s Kentucky mansion, but they were staying mum to protect him, as old Southern money was apt to do. The writer suspected drugs.

Rory carefully pulled the pages out and folded them, so she could later send them to Quinn, who was constantly glued to her phone for the latest news from the blogosphere, and had listened to his solo EP,
Does Me Plus You?
at least a thousand times, searching for clues as to why and to where he might have vanished. After a second, she pulled out the page before the article, too. While she was tearing up the magazine, she might as well.

Not that she’d ever do something as crazy as applying for a travel internship. She’d barely left America. Still, she could use it for her vision board. She folded the page and slipped it into her backpack before returning the magazine to the seatback pocket in front of her.

CHAPTER TWo

They arrived in Rome the following afternoon. It was seven hours earlier in Arkansas, so Rory knew her parents would be getting to work right about then, her father at an insurance company and her mother at the daycare center in their church. She’d already texted from the Atlanta airport as well as London’s Heathrow. Now she texted her dad before calling her mom.

“I’m here,” she said. “In Rome.”

“Oh, thank the Lord, you made it,” Winnie said. “I was so worried about you.”

“Didn’t you get my text from London?”

“Of course I did,” Winnie said. “I couldn’t sleep worth a darn last night, waiting for it.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

“You got in okay, though? No bad weather? How was the flight?”

“It was fine,” Rory said. “Kind of scary, but not too bad.”

“You’re taking your meds, right? Don’t forget to stay on Arkansas time for your schedule.”

“I won’t forget,” Rory said, shuffling through the airport with her phone clenched between her ear and her shoulder. The group she’d been following went to a bar in the airport, but Rory was afraid she’d miss her ride if she stopped, so she stood outside the bar for a minute, contemplating her options. To her relief, she saw a sign that was in several languages as well as Italian, so she followed the English directions and found her way to the baggage claim.

This wasn’t so hard. She could do this. After six weeks, she’d be a pro, and both she and her parents would know that she could handle life on her own.

She looked around for her bags, checking her flight number several times. She had the right carousel, but the bags weren’t there yet, so she looked around for someone holding a sign with her name. Her mother had told her to use a fake name, so that no one in the airport would be broadcasting that she was a tourist named Rory Hartnett.

A large black suitcase thumped out of the gaping mouth atop the carousel, causing her to jump. She took a deep breath and clenched her shaking hands into fists. And then she saw a dreadlocked guy about her age, wearing baggy shorts and a tie-dye t-shirt, holding a sign that read
Stefani Germanotta
. It couldn’t be. Someone else had chosen her fake name!

Her eyes darted around the cavernous baggage claim. What if her host mother had taken the wrong Stefani Germanotta home? And she had no way to know if her host mother had already come and gone, or if she hadn’t arrived. All she could do was speed walk up and down the terminal, her heart stampeding through her chest, pushing past crowds surrounding each baggage carousel, eyes darting from one sign to another.

Finally, in a panic, she pulled out her phone and jabbed at the screen with trembling fingers. She couldn’t call her parents. They’d freak out, too. But she knew exactly who would help her calm down.

“Why are you calling me at this obscene hour?” Quinn groaned into the phone, her voice heavy with sleep.

“It’s like eight in the morning where you are.”

“Obsceeeeennnnne,” Quinn moaned. “Worse than I even thought.”

“I need your help,” Rory said, glancing at the hippie with the sign, as if he might suspect her. But he was staring off into space. “I got to the airport, and there’s a guy with a sign with the fake name we picked out. But it’s a
guy!
It’s not my house mom. There must be another person using that name.”

“There are a lot of Lady Gaga fans in the world,” Quinn said through a yawn.

“Not helpful.”

“You’re going to have to go talk to him.”

“What? How? How can I do that, Quinn?” Rory snuck another glance, but the guy hadn’t moved a muscle since she last looked.

“Go up and just tell him what happened. Ask who he’s waiting for, and he obviously won’t say a girl studying abroad, and then tell him that was your fake name, and wait with him, so you know he finds the right one. Your house Mom probably hasn’t even gotten there. Make sure he knows that there are two of you so he gets the right one.” When Quinn said it, it all sounded so rational and sensible.

“Okay,” Rory took a deep breath. “Thanks.”

“Text me later and let me know how it goes.”

After they hung up, Rory took a few more deep breaths and squeezed her hands into fists. This was it. She was going to have to approach the guy. She bit down on her lip, willing herself to stay calm. He didn’t look too scary. He was skinny and short, maybe five foot eight, with light brown shoulder length dreads and what might possibly be a prematurely receding hairline, or just an exceptionally high forehead. And he looked kind of lost, still staring off into space instead of looking for Stefani.

Before she could weigh all the terrible possibilities, she strode over to the guy. “Hey,” she said. “Hi.”

“Heyyyy,” he said in this slow way, like the cliché stoner from a stoner movie.

“Your sign?” she said, gesturing. “That’s who you’re waiting for?”

“Are you Stefani?” He pronounced it like Gwen Stefani instead of Stephanie. It occurred to her that she didn’t actually know how to pronounce her fake name.

“Um, so, I think maybe, well, maybe someone else took my ride, maybe this Stefani you’re waiting for. Because my host mother, see, I’m studying abroad, and I’ve never met my host mom, but she’s supposed to be here to get me. With that sign.”

He peered down at the sign like he was reading it for the first time. “There’s two Stefani Germanottas?” he asked after reading it.

“See, I didn’t think there would be, or that anyone else would use that name, so I used it, in case…you know, for safety reasons.” She was so hot, she thought her skin might start peeling like it did every time she went out in the sun for five minutes without sunscreen. “But now I’m thinking I should have used my real name.”

“Yeah,” he said in that same stoner voice. “Lying isn’t cool.”

“Um. Yeah. I know.”

“So you’re not Stefani?”

“Uh…no. But that’s what my sign says.”

“Cool,” he said. “I think you’re the right person.”

She took a step back. “Right for what?”

“Your host mom sent me to get you,” he said, like he hadn’t done anything wrong at all, like he hadn’t let her ramble on and make a fool of herself for five minutes. “She doesn’t go out much. Or ever.”

“Who are you?” Rory asked, her mind racing. Why had she told him all that stuff? He could be anyone, and now he had her background information so he could pretend to be someone related to her host mother, and then she’d leave with him and he’d turn out to be a serial killer, and she’d end up in the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea without eyeballs or hair. Or whatever calling card he had.

“Oh, I’m Ned,” he said, thrusting out a hand to her and shaking his dreads back.

She looked at his outstretched hand. “Okay, but first, tell me the name of the person you’re picking up. I can’t just leave with any random stranger.” She was so proud of herself she couldn’t help but smiling. She’d stood up for herself already, instead of just going along so as not to make a scene. Maybe she could do this after all.

“Rory,” he said. “Uh, Hartnett, I think. Is that right?”

Her smile vanished. She wasn’t sure what to do now. He’d gotten her name, first and last. That meant she should go with him. Didn’t it?

“You got your stuff?”

“I have a suitcase,” she said.

“That’s not it?” he asked, nodding to her carryon bag.

“No.”

“Let’s get it then.”

“How do I know—my host mother sent you?”

“Her name is Theresa,” he said, like he was reminding her rather than convincing her of his identity. “She makes mean sugar cookies.”

“O-kay…”

“Oh, and she never leaves the house. She says she’s going to, but she doesn’t. Not like ever, dude.”

“She didn’t tell me she’d be sending you.”

“Well, here I am,” he said, following her to the baggage carousel. She got out her phone with the emails from Theresa. Just because he knew her name didn’t mean she trusted him. She made him give her the address, and she still called Theresa, who assured her that he was supposed to be there for her.

“Where’s my bag?” she asked when she’d gotten off the phone. Most of the passengers on her flight had gotten their luggage and gone, leaving only two or three abandoned suitcases circling endlessly.

“Dunno,” Ned said. “You sure this is the right flight?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, twisting her hands. “It’s not here. What do I do? Do you think someone stole it? Or picked it up by mistake? Do we wait to see if they come back and exchange it for one of these?”

“Does it look like these?”

“No,” she admitted. “It’s Vera Bradley. Quilted, with flowers.”

“I don’t know, dude. I don’t see it. Want to go check with the information desk?”

“Yes,” she said, relieved that he was taking control of the situation, though he didn’t seem to know it. “That’s what we should do.”

They made their way to the desk, where Rory stood mutely while Ned stared off into space. “Um, so I can’t find my bag,” Rory said when the man behind the counter’s face began to move from boredom towards annoyance.

“Flight?” he asked in a German accent.

She recited her flight number, and he tapped away at his keyboard. “Uh huh,” he said, then tapped away some more. “I see.” Tap tap tap. “Right. Right.”

She glanced at Ned, who didn’t seem to notice the guy talking to his computer screen.

“It seems to be in London,” the guy said at last.

“London? What am I going to do?”

“It will be sent over on the next flight,” the man assured her. “We’ll send it to you in a taxi.”

What was happening? Everything had gone so well, and now it was all falling apart. Theresa hadn’t come to get her, and her bag had been inexplicably left in London, and who even knew why or when it would arrive or who might have shuffled through it while she was on her way to Rome.

“So you got this chick’s luggage?” Ned asked, snapping out of his daze.

“They’ll bring it to the house,” Rory muttered, her face warming as the man at the counter gave them an odd look. “Or we can wait…?”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to drive off with this guy, who couldn’t keep up with a simple conversation. It didn’t seem like the safest option.

“Nah, let’s go,” he said. “Theresa’s waiting for us.”

Rory bit at a hangnail, but she didn’t see any other options, so she followed Ned out of the airport. To her relief, he wasn’t driving. He hailed a cab, asked the driver if he spoke English, and directed him to Theresa’s address. The cab driver was a wide-faced, Middle Eastern guy with a turban and a grey beard.

What if he’s a terrorist?

No, that’s racist. Of course he’s not a terrorist.

She bit at one of her fingernails and glanced at Ned. He appeared content gazing out the window. Not at all like someone afraid their cab driver might be about to blow them all to hell.

Italy doesn’t have terrorists
, she assured herself.

Do they?

A twinge of pain alerted her that she’d bitten her fingernail down to the quick. She dabbed it on her leg, only to see a pinprick of blood when she lifted her finger. Oh crap. What if someone thought she’d gotten her period and leaked a tiny bit? But no, it was on her thigh. Still, it was pretty apparent on her pale pink skirt. It was growing, too. Spreading to the size of a pea.

She examined the end of her finger, where a tiny dot of blood was welling up where she’d bitten too far. Her mother always warned her to stop biting her nails. How was she going to remember for six whole weeks in a new and foreign place? How was she going to
survive
six weeks in a new and foreign place? She’d barely left the airport and already, she was freaking out.

Okay, deep breaths.

“Heyyyy,” Ned said. “You okay?”

Heat spread up her neck. When had he sobered up enough to stop staring into space and look at her?

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, balling her hand into a fist. “Nervous habit.”

“Oh, cool,” he said. “I have a lot of those.”

A laugh burst out of her, so relieving that she couldn’t stop once she’d started. She couldn’t imagine this stoner had ever been nervous in his life. Ned was looking at her blankly, which made her giggle harder. She could feel how red her face must be, like the sunburn she’d gotten when she fell asleep on the beach after applying sunscreen that had passed the expiration date, and her whole body blistered afterwards.

“Is she good?” the cab driver asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.

“I don’t know, man,” Ned said in his stoner drawl.

“Don’t get sick in my cab,” the driver barked at Rory. “No vomit!”

This made her laugh harder, until tears squeezed out of her eyes. Ned laughed uncertainly. The cab pulled over, and Rory thought they were about to get kicked out of their ride on the side of the street, and she managed to pull herself together.

“I’m fine,” she said, wiping at her tears. “I’m sorry. Really, I’m okay. I’ll stop.”