Page 28 of Romeo vs Romeo

“But how can we find anything like that?” Tristan asked.

You’d need someone close to the Big Boss. You’d need someone willing to betray Harold Langley. My guts twisted. This morning, as I dragged myself out of bed after a restless, sleepless night, my mother and father were discussing Neon Nights. Mother said, “It’s a disgusting place, Harold. You are doing this city a favor.”

“What do you know about that, Lavinia?” Father muttered impatiently.

“More than you know,” Mother replied in an icy tone. “I have seen the things that happen there, Harold. Those deviants bring young men and make them…do things. It should be flattened to the ground. It should be salted when it’s down.”

Father said something under his breath.

Mother lifted her knowing finger. “They recruit them, Harold. They’re perverts.”

“For the love of Jesus, Lavinia,” Father cried. “I know. I know that. It’s done now, and there’s nothing more to talk about.”

“Well, I don’t understand why you need to be so fussy, Harold. I am only telling you that you are doing the right thing in the Lord’s name.” She spotted me standing there and pressedher lips tightly together until they turned white. “Everett, it’s ten in the morning.”

For a moment, I was completely stuck in the replay of the morning. My father was a religious man, I knew that, although my mother’s righteousness was unmatched. I had always thought of their faith as something good, but that was before they had moved the lines much deeper into the conservative territory. Their intolerance was what placed me in this sitting room above Neon Nights.

I looked at Roman. He was so handsome and passionate. Last night, his lips pressed against mine and left a blazing imprint that still lingered.

I swallowed. “We’ll need someone’s email correspondence to illustrate the depth of that relationship,” I said, shedding away the fearfulness in my tone. I was on the path to betraying my father, and if Hell was real, this would send me there just as surely as my never-yielding lust for Roman. “Meeting in the city once or twice won’t cut it. We need to prove that these men rubbed elbows for a long time if you want anyone in the press to pay attention.”

Tristan leaned in, puzzled. “Okay, buthow?”

“I might have a way,” I said, my mouth dry. “I know someone who works at Langley Corp. Maybe he can find the proof we need.”

“Everett, are you serious?” Roman asked. “That…that’s huge.”

I cocked my head a little.I’d do it for you, I thought. It felt appropriate—even if I couldn’t voice that through my tight and treacherous throat—because Roman had me on his mind when he decided he would fight to preserve this place. After all, Neon Nights was the very location where I first let myself admit who it was that I wanted.

“It would be a huge boost,” Luke said. “That’s something we can spin.”

“I can’t guarantee it’ll work,” I said.

Rafael, the tall guy with pierced ears and milk-chocolate skin, met my gaze. “We can fight without it if it comes to that, but if you can get in touch with your contact, it would be a big help.”

“Can you trust him?” Roman asked.

I looked into Roman’s green-gray eyes and wished I could give him an affirmative answer. I wished I could promise to solve this whole mess. But instead, I shrugged.

“Should we risk it?” he asked me, then looked at Mama Viv for the final decision.

The queen nodded gravely. “There’s little else we can put on the line. No use in half measures.”

And that was it.

We left Mama Viv to rest and think. Luke and Rafael approached me before leaving Neon Nights to welcome me to the circle. I thanked them awkwardly, unsure if I belonged in the circle at all. This was all happening too fast for a lifetime of trained reflexes to simply disappear. I pretended that seeing two married men was nothing strange, but every Sunday Mass had taught me it was against all the laws of nature and God. However much my rational brain rejected those Bible verses, it was impossible to fight my instincts. In my heart, I knew I wished them well, and I knew I was jealous of their happiness when mine had always slipped out of my grasp.

Martha decided to meet with Layla Zahran to discuss the legal challenges and if Layla and her team could do anything beyond what we had already put together.

Tristan and his boyfriend, the tall guy with a foreign accent I couldn’t place exactly, stood a little further away, something heavy and deterministic passing between them. They spokequietly, their heads close together, and small nods of something like reassurance occurred between them.

“Are they okay?” I asked Roman, who was having sparkling water at the bar.

“They’ll be fine,” Roman said. He focused on me. “And you? How are you?”

I knew what he was asking. Tingles spread over my lips and face just at the thought of it. I was great. If only I didn’t feel like each of my limbs was tied to a willful horse and my body was about to be quartered. If only I didn’t feel like a vicious tug-of-war pulled at the two halves of my soul. One path led to misery, another to eternal damnation. One led me to life within the confines of my parents’ norms, the other to become an outcast in the only world I had ever known.

“Look,” I said carefully. “Do you think we could talk somewhere…in private?”

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