Love Takes Trust

9

HUNTER

The day at the beach seemed to go by slow. Everyone was running around, kids were playing and building sand castles, Rose practically trying to drown Alex, and Santiago trying not to let Leona drown in the water. Romeo was resting his head in my lap as we talked about a bunch a things.

In all honesty it was really hard for me to even concentrate on the conversation when he was just there.

"How would you rate my english?"

"six out of ten."

"What how!?"

"It's good, you know how to form sentences just your pronuncation is wonky sometimes."

"Well I'm sorry I wasn't born knowing how to pronounce English words properly. You taught me so you're to blame."

"Just now you pronounced "pronounce" wrong."

Romeo hits me playfully, his laughter vibrates against my stomach, "I fucking hate you!"

I had a sudden urge to kiss him? I don't know just seeing him like this made me want to but I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. He would flip his shit if he knew.

"Hunt, your face is red. Are you okay?"

No, I'm not okay.

"Yea, I'm good. I just-"

"Hey, Lovebirds! Want food!?"

The sound of Rose's voice gets our attention. It's obvious she was talking to us, it was also obvious how much she regretted it because not long after she was getting swarmed by a bunch of people asking for pictures.

"Let's hope they don't notice me next. Just the fact of us being in the same place will set people off."

"How so?"

"Right, I forgot you didn't know. We used to be together but it wasn't that big of a deal people just treated it like it was. To us, it didn't feel like we were dating it felt like we were still friends. Eventually, Rose found out her company was using our relationship to gain popularity from me. That's another example of how her parents make money off people."

"So if people saw you here together-"

"They'll assume we're dating. Let's just hope they don't make rumors about this." I pointed to the both of us.

"How?"

"People think I'm bisexual."

"Is it true?"

I nod slowly, "I thought Rose told you?"

"I'm so fucking stupid! I'm gonna kill Rose Goldstein!"

"Is it really that surprising? You don't have a problem with that, right?"

Romeo shakes his head no then sighs heavily, my heart stops for a moment. He said no, but I was so afraid to hear that he was lying.

"Wanna get some ice cre-"

"You don't have to lie to me, Roma."

Rome sits up so that he's sitting cross-legged next to me. He doesn't look up instead he looks down at the ground.

He sighs before speaking, "Back in Italy I dated this guy, he was a complete asshole. He made up rumors about me, treated me like shit. The Romeo you know now wasn't who I was then. I was so fucking weak, I was scared to say no to people because I was afraid of what would happen when I did." His voice cracks as if he was close to crying.