When in Rome(60)

A soft smile touches his full lips. “Okay, I will. Here I go. I’m going to hug you now.” I’ve never been preemptively warned about a hug. It’s adding a whole new anticipation to the embrace.

His hand slowly rises and I stay very still as his fingers settle lightly against my bicep. His thumb rubs a quiet little streak of heat across a one-inch section of my skin, and I feel myself melting toward him. I shuffle a little. He tugs a little. The result is me entering his arms, and just before we’re settled into what I know would be a life-changing hug, the front door flies open.

“Hiya! Oh shiiiit!” It’s Madison, holding a pan covered in plastic wrap. She whistles while coming to a stop in the doorway. Noah and I jump apart looking as guilty as teenagers emerging from a dark room. The other sisters come up behind Madison.

“That’s another dollar in the jar,” says Annie, popping her head over Madison’s shoulder.

Emily surfaces on the other side. “What? What did I miss?”

My face is on fire. Noah rubs his jaw.

“I think I just interrupted a little sensual rendezvous,” says Madison with an indulgent eyebrow arch.

Noah grabs a hat from the coatrack on the wall and pushes his hand back through his hair before slapping it firmly on his sexy head. Sexy? No…stop that, Amelia.

“It was not…that,” says Noah with pain in his voice. “Okay, I’m leaving.” He won’t make eye contact with me. I think he’s too embarrassed.

The sisters part as Noah barrels through them out the door and into the night. I’ve never seen someone jump into a truck and back out of a driveway so quickly.

The moment he drives off, they all turn their eyes to me. I am one big prickle of embarrassment. Did we just get caught naked playing Twister rather than about to hug? Feels like it. But geez, that was going to be some hug. A hug so powerful it would’ve made Noah’s baby.

I hold up my hands and lie. “It wasn’t sensual.”

Madison scoffs. “Yeah right, that was so sexy. I know because I was grossed-out seeing my brother in a sexy situation.”

“A hug! That’s all,” I plead defensively for myself as much as them.

“An erotic hug,” Madison adds with a wicked gleam in her eye as she closes the front door with her foot, closing us all in together.



* * *



—

We all sniff and wipe our eyes as THE END flashes across the TV screen.

“I love her,” Annie says in a weepy voice.

“I told you she was incredible.” I use a tissue to blot under my eyes. It doesn’t matter that I’ve seen this movie twenty times, Roman Holiday never fails to make me cry at the end. Weep. Like a pitiful little baby.

“But…” Emily has to take a moment to collect herself before continuing. “But why did she have to leave in the end?”

Madison blows her nose. “She had to! She had a duty to her country. She couldn’t just stay in Rome with him forever. She had to go, Em.”

We’re all spread out in various positions of sitting and lying down across Noah’s living room. I’m on the couch with Annie, Emily is in an armchair, and Madison is lying on a pallet of blankets and pillows on the floor. We’re all disheveled and dressed for nothing but comfort in sweats and messy buns. I’ve been having to blow my bangs out of my eyes every other second because I’m not used to them yet, but they’re worth it. I love them. I love what they represent to me.

The girls all see me fidgeting with the bangs and look at me meaningfully. “What?” I ask, lowering my hand from my freshly chopped locks.

“You cut your hair,” says Madison.

Emily’s eyes bounce from me, to the TV, and back to me. “Just like Audrey did in the movie.”

“And you’re in Rome,” Annie adds.

I gasp and my hands fly to my head. “You’re right. But, you guys, I swear I’m not being creepy and trying to copy the movie. I just…well, I did intentionally copy it in the beginning by leaving in the night and coming to Rome and all that…but the copying stops there!”

Emily nudges my knee with her foot. “That’s not why we’re worried. We’re worried, because…Audrey leaves in the end. There’s no happily ever after.”

Oh. That.

I swallow. “Well, that’s not necessarily true.” I’m grasping at straws. What felt liberating about this movie at the beginning of my adventure is now feeling like a death sentence. “I think Audrey did get her happily ever after. It just…wasn’t with Gregory Peck. She had a happily ever after for herself. And that was enough for her. I think we can all learn a lesson there.”

I have three puppies staring back at me that all look as if I’ve just mercilessly kicked them. Madison is the first to attempt to recover the happy mood, but her voice sounds too peppy. “True. And…it’s not like we actually expected you—I mean Audrey—to stay in Rome for good. That’s impractical for your—HER career.”

“But now we know you—her—or…ugh. Forget it. We’re all talking about you, and we know it,” Annie says quietly, pulling that mood right back down. “And it’s going to be hard to say goodbye.”

“And Noah…” Emily adds, ensuring that the mood is now buried six feet under and completely unrecoverable. “He’ll have to say goodbye to you…just like Gregory Peck did with Audrey.” All our glittering eyes shift to the TV screen frozen on the downcast face of the man himself.