Page 4 of Roses are Royal

“It was so nice to meet you, Dante. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, so we can go over the plans I have for your home.” I stick out my right hand to shake Dante’s, but I’m stuck standing there awkwardly when he doesn’t immediately take my hand in his. In fact, he just stands there, staring at my hand like it personally offends him.

As I go to drop it and move past yet another embarrassing interaction with my potential client, Dante grasps my hand in both of his, makes eye contact with me, and responds, “The pleasure was all mine.”

Before I have a chance to squeak out a response to his intense reply, Luc cuts in with an invitation to dinner at a diner in the nearby town.

“Oh, dinner would be great actually! I’m starving.” Turning toward Luc, I can barely contain my excitement at the mention of food. Plus, this will give Luc and me a chance to catch up. I have so many questions. It’s then that I realize Dante is still holding my hand in his much larger ones, but he is no longer looking at me. Rather, he is staring at Luc.

Clearing my throat, I slowly pull my hand from his, breaking his stare off with Luc and bringing his attention back to me.

“See you in the morning, Dante,” I add with a smile and a short wave of my hand as I start toward the front door.

“Good night, Rose.” Dante’s words and gaze follow me the entire way to my vehicle as I climb in the driver’s seat and close my door.

5

ROSE

As I pull into the parking lot of the only restaurant still open in the small town I’m staying in tonight, Luc climbs out of his truck near the side of the building. I’ve had butterflies in my stomach since I got into my car at Dante’s house. I don’t know why I’m so nervous to spend time with Luc when we basically spent every waking minute together in high school. But things feel different now that we are adults and basically strangers again. It was easy for me to spend so much time with him since my home life was not the most warm and welcoming.

I was left on a church’s doorstep as a newborn baby, so I grew up in foster care. I waited until I aged out of the system to start living my life for me and wasn’t just government dollars in a foster parents’ pocket.

Luc had always been my safe space since the moment we met our freshman year of high school. I was always a loner growing up, since I had to change schools whenever my foster families changed, and they changed a lot. It was easier to keep to myself instead of making friends, only to have to say goodbye a year later or sometimes sooner if my foster parents got fed up with my “attitude.” It only got worse as I got older.

I started to understand that I would never be adopted into a loving family and that the foster families I was placed into cared more about the money they received from the state rather than the happiness of a moody preteen. But then everything changed when I sat down in my first class during my freshman year of high school, and there Luca was, doodling in his notebook in the chair next to me, oblivious to the world around him. I envied the escape that drawing seemed to give him. Once he noticed he had a tablemate, he looked up from his drawing and gave me a genuine smile. I knew the pain of one day having to say goodbye to him might be worth the potential friendship, or maybe even something more.

Sure, I had flirted with a few boys in middle school and even held hands with one, but I never wanted a relationship. It would just be one more thing I would have to leave behind if I had to move again. Besides, even at my young age, I had enough foresight to know that relationships were meant to be treasured. Something rare, that should be handled with care and should not be entered into lightly. I’d experienced enough bad relationships with foster parents and other foster kids to understand what I wanted in a relationship once I was willing to be vulnerable enough to try.

6

LUCA

Wow, seeing Ro in person after all these years is not something I could have prepared myself for. It felt as though our time apart didn’t happen, yet I still experienced guilt and pain over how I left things after graduation.

While the Ro I knew in high school was like my other half, this Ro before me is no longer a girl trying to find her own way in life. She’s a woman who has accomplished more than even her own dreams could fathom. When I stepped out of my truck at the house, and it took her only a blink of an eye to come barreling toward me and jump into my arms, something inside me felt whole again.

A piece of my heart, or maybe even my soul, has been missing for years since I walked away from her and never looked back. Now I’m trying to remind myself why I walked away and what’s at stake. We never kept secrets from each other before, but things have changed. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep Ro in my life this time, and if that means certain information stays hidden, then so be it. I just need to pull it together long enough to get through this dinner and regroup my emotions when I get back to the hotel. That will be easier said than done, considering how fast my heart is beating as I watch Ro walking toward me. Focus, Luc—food first, then you can figure out the rest.

“Hey!” Ro says as she slowly approaches. She looks nervous, which is understandable, considering what a crazy day it’s been.

“Hey.” I give her a sheepish smile. “Should we head inside?”

“Yes, I’m starving! And I have so many questions I can barely contain them all. Like, how is this even real? How are you here right now? Where have you been for the past fifteen years? Why didn’t you say goodbye? Why didn’t you reach out? How did you even know to recommend me for a design job?” Her voice gets higher, and the questions come faster with every second.

“Ro, I promise I’ll answer whatever questions you have as best I can, but let’s grab a table and get you some food since it feels like we might be here a while.” I try my best to give her a reassuring look to set her nerves at ease, but I’m not sure she’s buying it yet. She could always tell when I was lying or trying to evade a question, so tonight will be a testament to everything I’ve learned over the past several years if I get out of her inquisition unharmed.

7

ROSE

My mind is reeling at the moment, and questions are piling up faster than I can even control. I might burst if I don’t start getting some answers from Luc quickly. On the surface, he is seemingly the easygoing, funny, caring boy I once knew, but I can tell he’s keeping something from me. I’m going to figure out what it is, no matter how long it takes. I’ll play his game for now, but I’ll get my answers one way or another.

The bell over the door dings as Luc pushes it open for me. I deliberately brush against his chest as I walk by, knowing he used to get flustered when I did stuff like that in high school. I need to be on my A game tonight.

The diner is empty except for one older gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair sitting on a stool at the counter with only a white ceramic coffee mug in front of him. The diner could have been frozen in time with its red vinyl booths, cracked into a perfect patina, and tables with chrome edging dulled just enough to prove it has lived a life. A checkerboard linoleum floor runs crooked beneath bent tubular chairs, each one mismatched by a few decades. In the corner sits a sun-faded jukebox, its plastic arch yellowed and its song list permanently stuck somewhere in the 1970s. I would be shocked if that thing still worked, given the clear effects of time and age on its cracked finish, but I am a sucker for a jukebox.

The sole server, mid-fifties maybe, dressed in a standard diner-issued blue polyester uniform with a white apron tied neatly around her waist, moves with practiced efficiency. She gestures for us to sit wherever we’d like and lets us know she’ll be right over.

This will be another test to see how far apart Luc and I have drifted over the years. In high school, we loved spending hours in diners just like this to pass the time. We didn’t really have any other friends besides each other, and we weren’t into partying like other kids our age. No matter what diner or restaurant we went to, we always sat in a booth, and we always sat on the same side. (Cringe, I know. But it was our thing.) Luc claimed it was because we always shared food, and it was easier to share if we were on the same side. That might have been the first lie he ever told me. I knew the real reason was because he had a crush on me, though he’d probably deny it to this day. But I liked the physical contact and connection we had and secretly wanted him on the same side as me, even if I teased him about it at first. It made me feel safe, tucked in the booth with Luc by my side, almost like my personal protector. I knew no harm would ever come to me if Luc was with me.