When In Rome...Find Yourself: A Sweet New Adult Romance (5 page)

“Not really,” Rory admitted. “My little sister is obsessed with baking, and sometimes I help. But mostly I’m her guinea pig.”

“Guinea pig? You mean you eat them all?”

“I try them all,” Rory explained. “I’m her taste tester. Sometimes I eat them. Sometimes…” She made a face, and Theresa laughed.

“I like you,” she said. “You remind me of my daughter. When you talk, with the humor. But she was not so quiet as you.”

Though she had her back to Rory, her voice betrayed a bit of sadness. And the use of past tense made Rory think her daughter must not be with them anymore. She waited a moment for Theresa to explain, but when she didn’t, Rory changed the subject. She didn’t want to pry. If Theresa wanted her to know, she’d tell her.

“I’m not much of a cook, but I’ll help with dinner, if you want.”

And so, while the other girls went out to a club dancing somewhere, Rory stayed at home and made prosciutto pasta with her house mother. Wherever she went, there she was. Things fell into the same old patterns. There was no running away from that.

CHAPTER Five

The next morning, Rory woke to the smell of frying ham and the sound of dishes clattering downstairs. It dawned on her that she didn’t really know Theresa at all. Maybe she had a breakfast book club every Saturday morning. Maybe she had her family over, and Rory had been wrong about the dead daughter. Who knew what a single, elderly woman did with her Saturdays.

She stared up at her white ceiling, cracked in two spots, with water marks spreading like layers of sandstone in some southwestern landscape. Other water marks were odd shapes, traveling along the ceiling in lines and swirls instead of circles. One of the marks definitely resembled a dragon chasing its tail.

Rory wasn’t sure if she should get up and go downstairs. She didn’t really want to meet a bunch of strangers, and though Theresa was super nice, she probably didn’t want Rory hanging around when she had company. Since it was still early, it might be a good day to explore the city on her own. If she got lost, she had the whole day to find her way home. And that’s what this trip was all about. Being able to stand on her own two feet, without her parents there to rescue her.

After a quick shower, she took her meds and dressed in a light skirt and t-shirt, then grabbed her camera and her bag. But she still didn’t want to go downstairs and face a bunch of strangers. It was awfully quiet down there now. Maybe they were playing cards or something. She stopped at Ned’s door, squeezed her hands into fists, and tapped on the door.

No answer.

Maybe he was still sleeping. Or maybe he hadn’t heard. But if she knocked again, he might be annoyed. If he wasn’t answering, he probably didn’t want to be disturbed. She tried one more time, then cautiously turned the knob.

It was locked. She stepped back quickly and glanced around, as if someone might catch her trying to break into his room. She’d never thought to lock her own door. It seemed like a courtesy to trust your fellow boarders. But he must not trust her. Did he think she’d go in and steal something? Or maybe he didn’t want her snooping. She hadn’t really been snooping—she’d thought he was in there. Maybe he was. But why lock the door when he was there?

She crept downstairs, feeling as if she really had snooped through his room. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she hesitated. She heard him laughing in the kitchen. The smell of ham was stronger, along with the smell of coffee.

“Is that you, dear?” Theresa called.

“Hey, Rory,” Ned called. “Join us for breakfast, dude. It’s killer.”

She slunk into the kitchen, aware of him and Theresa looking at her. She bit at a hangnail and looked from one to the other, sure they could read the guilt on her face, that they knew she’d been prying into their business. But if Ned was in the house, why had he locked his door? He must think she was really nosy if he was that paranoid about her going into his room while he was in the house.

For a few seconds, which felt more like years, she stood in the doorway to the kitchen with nothing to do with her hands. No one else was there. Ned and Theresa had been making all that noise themselves, laughing at their inside jokes, cooking together, like she and Theresa had—much more quietly—the night before.

“As Ned taught me to say, let me get you a plate,” Theresa said, starting to rise from her chair.

“No, no, don’t get up,” Rory said, rushing forward. “I’ll get it. You stay there, eat. Don’t let me disturb you. I’ll do it.”

“Well, alright.” Theresa sank back into her chair and raised her hands in mock surrender. “Don’t have an attack of the heart. You can make your own plate.”

An attack of the heart, Rory thought as she slid a slice of ham onto a plate. That was a good way to describe falling in love, not a coronary artery blockage. She’d have to remember that for Quinn, who’d had as bad luck with love as she had.

After adding a slice of bread to her plate, she slid into a chair, avoiding the eyes of the other two. They were talking about painting the bathroom. They had the kind of ease that seemed possible only for those with family ties. Rory could not imagine suggesting someone paint her bathroom, or even talking to her with such ease, if she wasn’t related to her.

“Did you know that Ned is colorblind?” Theresa asked Rory, as if it were something of an accomplishment, like valedictorian.

Ned frowned. “Why’d you tell her that?”

“It’s okay,” Rory said. “I…I mean, I won’t say anything to anyone.”

What a stupid thing to say. Who would she tell? Her face burned as Ned frowned at his plate, slicing into his ham.

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“Whatever.”

“I’m legally blind without my glasses,” she offered. “Even with them, I’m not allowed to drive.”

Ned didn’t answer. They ate for a few minutes in silence. The disgusting sound of her jaw masticating the fibrous ham made her lose her appetite, but she didn’t want to be rude and stop eating. They would think she didn’t like their cooking. Could they hear how loud she was chewing? Was it making them as nauseous as it made her? She tried to chew more quietly, swallowing chunks of ham after just moving them around her mouth for a minute.

Ned chugged his glass of orange juice and pushed back from the table, collecting his plate as he did so. “What you got going on today?” he asked.

After a brief silence, Rory swallowed a piece of ham without chewing and said, “Who, me? Oh, uh, nothing.”

“You going out?” he asked, nodding at her bag, which she’d hung on her chair.

“Oh, I mean, yeah, that.”

“Want me to take you?”

“Uh…sure.” She’d wanted to go alone, but she didn’t know how to say no to someone who had just had his disability revealed to her against his wishes. Somehow, she felt like she was the one who had done something wrong, who owed him an apology.

“Can’t miss a chance to ride in the jelly wagon,” Ned said with a grin, his earlier frown seemingly forgotten.

Rory spread butter on her bread and crunched into the crust. Little flakes of it scattered across her plate and her lap. Hoping no one had noticed, she leaned forward to cover the mess. If it stained her skirt with butter, she’d have to change, but she didn’t want to call attention to what a slob she was. And she couldn’t just sweep the crumbs onto the floor. She hurried through her bread, eating so fast it scraped the top of her mouth and left it feeling raw, like she’d eaten a bowl of Cap’n Crunch but without the sugary goodness.

Then she was left with the dilemma of how to get up without scattering bread flakes all over the floor. As discretely as possible, she swept them into her other hand. Theresa didn’t seem to notice, but when Rory turned, Ned was leaning against the counter watching her. Her face burned as she brushed her hands together over her plate, then pushed her chair back and took her plate to the sink.

“I got it,” Ned said, taking the plate from her hands. Wordlessly, she surrendered her plate and returned to push in her chair and slip her camera strap over her head. She’d meant to spend the day photographing Rome, but now, she’d have Ned along. Every move would be weighted with his glance. But it was too late to change her answer now.

Outside, the day was warm and the usual traffic noises were not yet as loud as on weekday mornings. Tom sat near the front step, licking his paw and glaring at them with belligerent hatred. Ignoring him, Rory followed Ned to Jelly. With a few rattles and clanks, Jelly sputtered to life, and they turned towards the heart of the city.

“Was someone else there this morning?” Rory asked. “I thought I heard a lot of noise when I woke up.” As soon as she’d said it, she realized how it sounded, like she was asking if he’d had someone over the last night. For all she knew, he had. He’d been up in his room all evening with his music on. It had played for hours, into the night, when she’d finally put her book down and gone to sleep.

“That’s just me and Theresa,” he said. “We fight like an old married couple.”

“You’re pretty young to be part of an old married couple.”

“What can I say, Theresa’s a real cougar.”

“Really?” Rory asked in disbelief. She must be at least three times their age.

“Dude, I’m kidding,” Ned said, laughing. “You take everything so seriously.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m going to have so much fun with this.”

Great. She’d given herself away. But there she was, again, wherever she went. Gullible Rory, who had fallen for the fake sleepover invitation in middle school, when a bunch of girls in her class sent her to an abandoned lot, all dressed up in her pajamas and so nervous that when she realized what happened, she actually threw up. Gullible Rory, who had a prom date for approximately six seconds before the guy said, “Just kidding,” and walked off to join his actual girlfriend, both of them in hysterics. Gullible Rory, who had fallen for Jack.

She never knew when people were joking—or when she was the butt of the joke—until it was too late.

“You can just drop me off downtown,” she said. “I don’t care where. I’ll find my way back.”

“Let me show you around,” Ned said. “I know a place where we can have lunch that has the best pizza in the world.”

“We just had breakfast.”

“It’s pizza,” Ned said. “You can never have too much pizza. I barely ate anything else the entire first month I was here.”

“Haven’t you only been here a month?”

Ned laughed. “No, dude. But I mostly live on pizza and beer.”

“You sound just like my friends back home.”

“You must have superior taste in friends.”

“Oh, yeah, totally. The crème de la crème.”

“I have to get paint,” Ned said, swinging the car to the side of the road so quickly she almost knocked her face on the window. He jumped out and disappeared inside a doorway with a light on above it. It looked more like an apartment than a shop. Rory looked around. She wasn’t sure if she should get out and go on her way, or go along with Ned. It sounded like he meant to spend all day with her. And while he was nice enough, she didn’t need the distraction if she was going to get good shots.

She climbed out of the car and removed her lens cap, adjusted her exposure and aperture, and started shooting. Jelly, squatting on the side of the street in what was certainly not a parking spot. The paint store, without a sign, but now that she looked, several paint splattered coffee cans filled with crusty old brushes in the window. She looked up and down the street, then stepped into the middle to get the perspective she wanted, with the buildings looming over the street and converging at the end on a plaza with a fountain.

A car horn bleated and she backed out of the street quickly, blazing with heat. The tiny car sped by, a mini of some sort. She raised her camera and snapped a picture, then turned her focus to a passing bicyclist, a guy wearing red short-shorts and a skintight yellow tank top and bare feet. Moving her camera to keep pace with him and create a background blur of the building behind him, she captured his intent expression and tense shoulders.

“Ready?” Ned asked behind her.

She startled and turned back. “Oh—sure.”

“We can stick around if you want to take more pictures,” Ned said.

“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I don’t want to hold you up. I can just go walk around for a while, if you have stuff to do.”

“We’re in Italy,” Ned said. “There’s always time later. People here aren’t so worried about filling every second of the day. We’ve got plenty of time for pictures and pizza. Just let me drop this in Jelly and we’ll go.”

She started back to the car, but Ned dropped his bag into the back seat, slammed the door, and turned to Rory. “Lead the way.”

“Where to?”

“Wherever you’re going.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Really.”

“I can leave you alone if you want,” Ned said.

“No, it’s fine,” she said quickly, not wanting to hurt his feelings. It wasn’t like he was getting in the way or being annoying.

His face broke into a smile. “Then let’s go see us some Rome, dude.”

“Where should we go?” she asked, finding it impossible not to smile back.

“Want me to show you some of my favorite places?” He looked as excited as a little kid about to show her his secret fort or favorite Lego creation.

“Okay. If you’re sure you won’t be bored.”

“It’s impossible to be bored in Rome,” he said, starting along the sidewalk. “Let’s go see this fountain. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“I thought you were going to show me your favorite places.”

“Just because I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not my favorite,” he said. “I can already tell it’s going to be a good one.” When they stepped into the piazza and gazed across the cobbled roadway to the marble sculptures bursting from the fountain, Ned took her hand and gave it a squeeze. She was so startled she didn’t react, but darted across the road to the edge of the fountain with him. A horn honked, but she didn’t look back to see the person inside, to know if they were angry or good natured. She was laughing as they reached the fountain.

Ned was laughing, too. He released her hand, and she pushed up her glasses before turning her eyes up to the naked torso extending from the fountain above her. Her hands found her camera without thought, and she brought it to her eye, taking in the shapes of each form, the way the water trickled over the smooth surface, focusing in a way she could only do through a lens. For five minutes, maybe twenty, she kept snapping, working her way around the fountain to find the angles she didn’t see with a naked eye, crouching and stretching and twisting whichever way her camera told her to.