***
Rome,
I want to tell you a secret.
Today I saw my ex, and I didn’t turn around immediately and run away.
You have no idea how big of a deal that is for me.
If I’d have seen him six months ago, I’d have run away so fast that you’d have smelled burning rubber. He scares me that much.
Lucky for me, you’ve given me confidence that I never thought I’d have.
Today is the Fourth of July. I went to buy sparklers. The first thing I saw when I turned the corner was him. He had a basket full of crap, and his arm around a new girl.
It was the best feeling ever to know that he’s moved on and has shifted his focus.
Thankfully, I was able to get my sparklers and go before he confronted me.
Because it was inevitable. He would’ve introduced the new girl, and he would’ve found a way to make me feel just as low as ever.
That’s what he always does, which is why I usually run.
The good news was that it didn’t happen.
And I was able to be strong enough to buy my favorite things in the world.
I took some extreme slow-motion shots. I printed them out and sent them with this letter.
Hope you like them!
Have a good week,
RP’s Biggest FanChapter 11Funny guys are dangerous. They’ll make you laugh and laugh and laugh, then BOOM. You’re naked.
-Rome to Izzy
Rome
I don’t know how she managed it, but the moment that Izzy forced her way back into my life, we became friends.
It was a week after she’d confronted me, and not a day had gone by that I hadn’t seen her.
At first, it was just for coffee.
Then, it was for dinner.
The night after that, she’d forced me to go to the movies—though at that point I wasn’t sure it was because she wanted to hang out with me or just because she needed a ride to the movie theater to see the newest superhero movie.
And so, it went.
Night after night, I spent it with her.
When she got off. When I got off. When we both had off. Even if it was for an hour a day, we still spent our free time together.
Which led us to today.
After waking up the morning after our encounter with a cold, she’d pushed the day that she was coming to clean my house back to Saturday—today.
I was just finishing up my workout at the twenty-four-hour gym when I got her text saying she was ready.
Grinning, I pulled the phone out of my pocket, ignoring the way that sweat dropped onto the screen, and called her.
She answered within moments.
“Hola, Romeo.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Very original,” I teased. “Are you ready to be picked up, or are you saying ‘you’re ready’ just to see if I’ll wait outside for you for ten minutes.”
She let out a very unladylike snort. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t do that.”
I narrowed my eyes, finding myself grinning despite the wariness rocking through my bones, and walked to my bike. “Yesterday I got there at six, and you weren’t ready to go until six thirty. You didn’t even have the excuse of work to use seeing as you had the entire day off.”
She giggled, and I felt something inside of my chest thump.
“You were the one who asked for more tamales,” she pointed out. “It’s not my fault I was waiting for the last batch to finish cooking before I gave them to you.”
She had a point.
“Whatever,” I muttered, remembering the reason for the cardio this morning. I’d put away about twenty of her tamales, and I had to admit, they were even better than the ones she’d brought me at the prison.
Her grandmother was good at what she did, but those tamales that Izzy made put her Abuela’s to shame.
“I’m done except for putting on my shoes,” she continued. “I’ll be standing out on my porch when you get here.”
I would believe that when I saw it.
I wasn’t sure how the hell Izzy was ever on time for anything that she did.
Not only did she walk everywhere she went, but she was also consistently late. The two together probably had quite the snowball effect in her life.
“I’ll see you when I get there,” I murmured.
Izzy made an agreeing sound and then hung up, leaving me staring at my phone and wondering how the hell I’d gotten myself into this position.
I’d been bound and determined not to let her get under my skin, but after only a week, it was more than obvious that I didn’t have a choice in the matter.
It was one of the reasons why I’d avoided her for so long, too.
She made me feel things before I even knew her name.
At first, completely innocent—just me replying to a fan.
But the more we wrote to each other, the more I fell for her.