Читать книгу Love Like That - Amanda Hill - Страница 9

Roman didn’t mind that Ava was waiting at the airport with me. He’s not the kind of man who would think that was irritating. He hugged us both and kissed me and it was so good to see him. I don’t see him very often because he lives on the other side of the country. Sometimes he goes and lives in other countries. Sometimes I forget about the wonderfulness of him because he’s gone from me so often. But when I see him I always remember right away. I’m reminded that a smooth dark midnight sky is okay, but a sky with bright glittering stars is even better.

Ava talked most of the ride home about what had happened with Tim. How she couldn’t believe he would ditch her when they started off as friends. Roman was good-natured about it and listened as if he was really interested, even though I knew he really wanted to be hearing about my life and not Ava’s. He’s very nice to her, though. He doesn’t say cruel things about her like Jeremy does, like that she’s fucked up and beyond help. He says she’s just a sweet, wayward kid. I think she just gets involved with guys who are friends way too often, and there are risks involved in that situation. The same thing happens every time. A guy friend, most likely suffering from lack of a consistent lay, starts thinking his girl friend is a halfway decent piece and he should probably fuck her. The girl friend assumes that means he has fallen in love with her, so she falls in love with him. Then they’re not friends anymore. I could tell Ava a few things about that, and do, but she never listens, and she never learns. She says I’m a hypocrite.

She says I’m a hypocrite because I try to give advice and then I act however I want to and don’t even care at all. She says I’m a hypocrite for having a nice boyfriend like Roman and cheating on him when he’s away.

But that’s not what it’s about. I think Ava just doesn’t understand. She loves eternal. No questions asked. When she’s in love, there could never be anyone else. Even if her man was on the moon.

It’s not like I don’t love eternal. It’s just that I suppose I am more guarded at first. Ava dives right in without checking to see if the water is shallow. I guess what I mean is that when I met Roman, he was unbelievable in an almost ethereal sense…like Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles. I thought for sure it would never last because it just seemed too good. So when Jeremy, who seemed much more like the kind of guy I should end up with, walked into my life about three seconds after Roman did…I took a chance.

And now it’s two years later. And I’m still taking chances.

Roman kept his hand on my knee while he drove us home. He’s not the kind of man who would ever expect me to drive, even in my own car. We kept smiling over at each other. I felt warm and happy. It was good to have him home. L.A.’s not his home and he says it likely never will be, but I always feel like he’s home when he’s visiting because then he’s home with me.

Electra was doing her toes in the living room when we got back to the house. She was wearing a turquoise-and-silver kimono with silky butterflies all over it. She got up to give Roman a hug. She highly approves of him. He doesn’t drive her crazy hanging around like most other guys would.

“Hey, I like that new poster of Marilyn,” Roman said appreciatively. Never mind the layer of dust coating the TV screen, the coffee table crowded with multiple nights’ worth of discarded Del Taco trash. Never mind the array of empty bottles nobody’s bothered to toss, the overflowing ashtrays. Roman only notices the new poster of Marilyn. I love how he looks on the bright side. I think that is a special quality in him.

“Thanks,” I told him. I didn’t tell him Jeremy gave me that poster for my birthday. He also gave me The Exorcist on DVD, which I suspected he purchased more for his own enjoyment than to celebrate the fact that I was turning twenty-five. He’s twenty-seven already so the thrill was lost on him. The thrill usually is.

Roman kissed my neck. “Want me to make drinks, Dalton?”

“I can do it,” I told him as I kissed his neck. I love my man. I think we are the perfect combination, just like peanut butter and jelly.

“So what’s new with you?” Electra asked Roman as he settled down to relax and I went into the kitchen to fix us some drinks.

He leaned back against the cushions and looked content. “I’m waiting to hear about my next placement. I won’t know anything definite until next week or so, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Really? Tell me about it,” she said. “I find your career so fascinating.” Electra can be overly sarcastic, but she was actually sincere.

Roman’s career is pretty fascinating. He works for the International Center for Relief and Advancement, which is a D.C.-based nonprofit organization. He and his colleagues are relief specialists who travel to nations with underprivileged economies and try to help them. Most of them have Dr. preceding their name, and a long string of impressive credentials to follow. At Roman’s level they research countries to assess their assistance needs. Then they strategize and write proposals about how to go in and improve the quality of life for the people who are most affected. If a proposal is accepted, it becomes a project, and then a team is sent to carry it out. It’s a far cry from event planning, which is what I do, but Roman says in many ways our jobs are similar. I think he is incredibly kind.

Roman lit a cigarette and tossed the pack to Electra. “Okay, so you really want to know? I have been busting my ass lately. I’m trying to get the director position for this next project so that Landon might finally start giving me the respect I think I’ve earned over the last six years that I’ve given my entire goddamn existence to ICRA. As it is, I’ll be working out of our charming West Coast bureau during most of my visit so Landon doesn’t think I’m just out here fucking around. That’s the one good thing about L.A.—having an office to go to when I’m here.”

I handed him a refreshing vodka tonic as I sat down on the couch with him. “That’s the one good thing?” I asked skeptically.

He relaxed an arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. “Not the only good thing, baby. You know what I meant. Gets Landon off my ass if I say I’m coming out here for work and not just to see you. We both know I come out here just to see you, but Landon doesn’t need to know that. If he did, he’d be imagining that all we do here is eat health food and go surfing, and that would horrify him, and then he’d give me a bunch of shit. Landon doesn’t understand the concept of leisure—even if we hardly eat health food and have yet to catch a wave.”

I laughed. Landon is Roman’s totally demanding asshole boss. Roman says he still treats him like an intern even though everybody else knows Roman has fully reached big-cheese status. Roman says Landon is on his case all the time, which is one of the reasons he has to work so hard. He loves his work, he says, and loves working hard—but Landon says, “Don’t just love it, Roman. Be in love with it.”

“Where will you be going this time?” Electra asked.

“I put in proposals for three places in Africa.”

“Africa’s awfully far away,” I said dubiously.

He jostled my shoulders. “It’s really not when you think about it. You just get on a plane and go. Besides, I’m staying here for three whole weeks. Just to be with my baby.”

I smiled. He wrinkled his nose at me as he smiled back.

“Can we go to Ruth’s Chris tonight like we did the last time when you came, Roman?” Ava piped up. She was sitting on the floor, cutting out magazine pictures with pink-handled scissors.

“Just say when, bella.”

I love that Roman is so generous without being grand or boastful about it. I love that he is so easy-breezy. He treats my friends as if they are special because he knows they’re special to me. It’s not like he’s some walking, talking, ever-smiling human Ken. I’ve seen him get pissed. I’ve heard him yell. Sometimes he can be the biggest SOB. But he doesn’t get put off very easily and that is really important to me.

Having Roman around was great. He would drop me off at work in the mornings so he could use my car during the day. Then he would pick me up in the evenings and we’d chat about this and that as we drove to the house. We’d cook dinner together and watch movies he’d rented for us, or read side by side in bed. I thought about how nice it was to be together, not having to worry about stupid shit like getting wasted or wasting time. It was cozy and fulfilling. When he’s here, life is grand. When he’s gone, life’s just life. When he’s not around I feel like there’s no end in sight. I’m a fish in a tank, dreaming of the ocean.

“You got a nice guy there,” Ava’s friend Dylan Waters told me one night, having randomly materialized. Technically you could say Dylan’s my friend, too, but I’m happy to let Ava take all the credit. It irks me how he’ll disappear for months and then suddenly he just shows up and starts hanging around all the time, giving unsolicited advice and acting like he owns the place.

“Thanks for the tip. Now, what are you doing here?”

He was in control of the kitchen, chopping up vegetables for a burger barbecue. He handed me a piece of avocado before dragging on a cigarette. “Miss me, did ya?”

I rolled my eyes.

“She called me,” he explained, with a shrug.

“That much I gathered. Now, what are you doing here?”

He laughed as he pressed a bottle of Tim’s Pete’s Wicked Ale into my hand. “Just shut up and drink this, will ya? It’s the last of the dude’s brew. He packed up his khakis and moved back to New Haven without even saying goodbye.”

“I take it you’re here to console her, then?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“You know it,” he said proudly, like it was some seriously gallant act on his part. Yeah, really chivalrous. I’ve been observing this asshole’s methods since I was eighteen. He picks people up just to throw them over.

“You single right now?” I asked, eyeing him.

“Right now I am,” he said, winking.

It was a balmy evening and Ava and Electra were clustered around the patio table, wearing bright mango-and-banana tube tops and shimmery lip gloss. I pulled out a chair to join them as the men gravitated toward the grill.

I met these two during our very first week of college. We were having an “Around the World” party in our dorm where every room represented a different country and served a corresponding cocktail. My room represented the Ukraine so we were serving white Russians. You had to decorate and dress up so it was really authentic. I wore a fur hat and a sweater with fur cuffs to match. I don’t really remember how the three of us bonded. It’s hard to define the moment that you first become friends with somebody. They are so different from each other. Definitely the sugar and spice in my life.

In private, sometimes Jeremy refers to Ava as “Deprava.” He refers to Electra as “I’llfuckya.” Isn’t he clever.

Roman thinks Ava and Electra are entertaining and comical. When I asked him once if he thought they were freaky and over the top, he said of course not—they’re just girls.

“Dylan’s seriously unexpected appearance better not be your solution to getting over Tim,” Electra said to Ava, authoritatively. “I mean, if you’ve just summoned him here to dote on you, that’s acceptable…but I better not see you swooning!”

“I see you swooning over Dylan and I will definitely puke,” I added.

“He’s going to be my date at Aunt Carlotta’s wedding this weekend,” Ava explained. “You know I have to bring a date or Papa will make a fuss and try to set me up with Tony Montesilvano. I do realize Dylan’s hardly ‘date’ material, but at least he already knows the family.”

Electra and I exchanged glances. Yeah, okay. We could buy that because Ava’s pretty sensitive about exposing an unknown to the family. In fact, an unknown will usually run after meeting the family. The first complaint is typically the crazy priest, Father De Marco, who’s always shaking a crucifix and shouting drunkenly in Italian. The Damianos brought him along when they relocated from New Jersey. Ava says they moved for a change of pace, but I swear I once overheard Uncle Paolo say they had to “flee” New Jersey because of that “dispute” with the Gasparellos. Now they live on a heavily guarded, walled estate in Del Mar. I mean all of them, and we’re talking like thirty people. Ava’s stepmom, Anna, used to be a showgirl at Bally’s. She is only twenty-nine. Ava’s father, Carlo, married her after one date. Oh, and just for the record—Ava’s little brother, Luciano-Marciano, told me once that he and Anna do it in the closet sometimes when his father isn’t home. Why the closet? You tell me.

“I’m going to call Josh after dinner and make sure his ass is on a plane,” Electra told us. “Because if I find out he took a later flight due to some bullshit market disaster, you just better know he’s not getting any kitty when we go to Palm Springs!”

Electra’s boyfriend lives in New York City. She met him while he was getting his MBA at USC and these days he is a big-shot investment banker on Wall Street. Ava and I call him Mr. Big Bucks in private. Electra is supposed to move out there when she’s ready, but since she’s not ready, he just flies in every now and then to spend a bunch of money on her and get laid. They are planning to get married, but they don’t know when and neither of them is worried that they’ll break up so they don’t press the issue. Out of sight, out of mind is how she feels about Josh. But when Josh is in town, hey, love the one you’re with! Josh thinks Electra is all that and a bag of chips. The cat’s meow. The bee’s knees! He suspects nothing and thinks that his little jewel of a girlfriend is as faithful to him as the Pope is to the Catholic Church.

“Hey, how do you ladies want the burgers?” Dylan called.

“Bloody,” I replied.

“Ew, disgusting!” Electra shrieked. “And here’s something for you to file away for future reference, dipshit—you don’t cook a Gardenburger like a meat burger, you just cook it till it’s not frozen anymore.”

“Kiss my ass, bitch!” Dylan said merrily.

“Kiss mine!”

“You first!” He stuck his ass out and pointed at it. She kissed the air and he went crazy laughing. Roman shook his head and winked at me over the flames.

When we were done eating, Electra went inside to call Josh and the four of us stayed outside and smoked twilight cigarettes. The sky was all violet and red. Electra wrapped the fence with bamboo and put out tiki torches last summer to feign tropical. If not for the police helicopters circling overhead and the constant rush of passing traffic out on Fountain, the ambience would be downright sultry.

Dylan gave Roman a long look. “Hey, brother, can I ask you something?”

“Sure you can, brother,” Roman replied. He had a hand resting comfortably on the back of my neck.

“Is it hard for you to be away from your fine-ass woman so much of the time?”

“Please,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“No, seriously,” Dylan said, rolling his right back. “I want to know.”

Roman looked thoughtful. “Well, of course. Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.’ Cause you know chicks, they get lonely. And when they get lonely…well…all I’m saying is you shouldn’t leave a fine-ass woman unattended for too long.” He gave me a sly wink, looking devilish in the firelight. We settled into an uncomfortable silence. I shot Dylan the look of death and kicked Ava under the table.

“Bacco, tabacco e Venere riducono l’uomo in cenere,” she said to Roman, knowingly. Wine, women and tobacco can ruin a man. Roman laughed.

“What the fuck was that?” Dylan demanded.

“Nothing, bastardo. You come inside with me now,” she commanded him. “If you’re coming to San Diego with me for the weekend, then we need to get packing.”

“Anything you say, bella.” He slung an arm around her neck and kissed the top of her head as they got up from the table.

I watched them go.

Roman was frowning. He looked concerned. “Do you get lonely?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “You should tell me these things.”

I shrugged again. “It’s nothing, Roman. I just get lonely. I miss you.”

He kissed me. “I miss you, too, Dalton. You have to know that.”

“I do.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

We kissed again. He told me he had something special planned for the weekend, in honor of our two-year anniversary. We were going away, just the two of us. I said I couldn’t wait.