Filed to story: My Dark Romeo (Dallas & Romeo) Drama Story
Each time he struggled to walk in sudden bouts. The fatigue. The slowed speech. The only time I ever listened to him speak, really.
“He has a rare inherited disease that causes progressive nervous system damage.” I strode to the dining room, refusing to match her volume.
I didn’t care if Senior heard me.
In fact, I would enjoy it.
Her forehead creased. “Inherited? Will you-“
“Get it? No. It requires two recessive genes.” I leaned into her, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Careful, Shortbread. Wouldn’t want to mistake you for caring.”
Dinner consisted of Bruce and Shelley cross-examining Shortbread about the debutante ball, Monica trying to lure Dallas to European shopping sprees, and Senior prying her for obvious flaws.
Of which there were many.
My bride slumped in her seat like an overcooked shrimp, most certainly to grate on my already raw nerves.
I could tell Shortbread didn’t enjoy defending our relationship, for the simple fact that it did not exist. She was forced to lie through her teeth for a man who had plucked her from her charming life.
By the time dessert was served, shockingly, she didn’t even touch it.
Bruce and Shelley grilled her with their millionth question about her relationship with Madison Licht. She took frequent sips of water, her usual fire long doused.
“…just find it odd that after Madison sang your praises to half the DMV, you two would break off an engagement following a short flirt with our little Junior-“
Bruce would’ve drilled the subject until oil poured out if Shortbread hadn’t blurted, “May I be excused?”
My parents shared a puzzled look.
“Go ahead.” I stood, pulling her chair for her.
She disappeared faster than a bikini top in a Cancun spring break party.
Bruce turned to me. “Junior, son, what you are doing to this child is deplorable.”
“So is what you’re doing to me,” I pointed out.
“What am I doing to you?”
“Existing.”
“Romeo,” Senior faux-chided. He fucking loved our competition for his throne. “Stop mocking Bruce. You know better than to disrespect your elders.”
I sipped my brandy. “He started it.”
Bruce frowned. “How so?”
“By being born.”
Nothing brought out my inner child like arguing with my nemesis in front of my father.
“Madison is going around telling people the DOD will make them an offer for an annual contract.” Senior dug into his pie, changing the subject. The fork pinched between his fingers rattled, either from irritation or his disease. “The one we’re currently grandfathered into. You know, their company holds the rights to the taser shockwave system prototype. My sources tell me it’s a deal breaker. They have cutting-edge blueprints we don’t.”
A direct consequence of Senior relying on engineers and experts with dated knowledge and no field experience to speak of.
Senior hadn’t just dropped the ball. He’d let it roll all the way to our enemy’s home field.
During my undergrad at MIT, he’d admonished my engineering degree as wasteful since Costa Industries boasted an army of engineers, yet here we were.
A decade behind, pants around our ankles.
“Madison is right. We’re old blood. Weak in the teeth.” I slammed the tumbler on the table, staring Senior in the eye. “Make me your CEO, and I’ll give you a state-of-the-art weapon. I’m talking nuclear-level destruction.”
“Romeo.” Bruce gulped. He was in it for the money. We both knew Senior needed to make a decision soon-and that decision would either be our windfall or drought. “You should sleep on it. At the very leas-“
“Let’s see you walking down that aisle first, Son.” My father tried and failed, yet again, to slice his pie. Definitely his disease. His fork clattered to his plate as he reached for his drink. “And then I’ll seriously consider it.”
I’m not your son.
Not where it matters.
I crushed my gum between my teeth.
Other than wanting the Costa dynasty to continue, Senior also saw my reproduction as entertainment for his wife. He figured that if he blackmailed me into marriage, I’d have children, a family, something to keep Monica engaged and fulfilled.
She wanted grandchildren and cheesy Christmas vacations and Hallmark-worthy holiday cards. The makeshift family she’d never had because my father was too busy dicking down anything on the East Coast with a skirt to pay us any real attention.
Monica lifted her glass. “Romeo?”
“Yes?”
“Where is Dallas?”
Good question.
She’d escaped my mind.
And possibly the premises.
Since there was a reasonable chance the answer to it was running off to live in the woods with a family of badgers, I tossed my napkin over my plate and stood. “I’ll check on her.”
Monica touched her throat. “Look at him. I haven’t seen Rom so involved with anyone since Morgan.”
Morgan.
I didn’t even bother checking if Shortbread was in the kitchen, the garden, or Senior’s library. I knew exactly where I’d find her and took the stairs two at a time.
I rounded the massive mahogany hallway, flinging the door open to my childhood room. Sure enough, Dallas was there, perched on the edge of my teenage bed, flipping through an old photo album.
Morgan and me vacationing in Aspen.
Morgan and me in New York.
Morgan and me kissing. Hugging.
Existing in our own little universe.
She didn’t look up, even when I entered the room and shut the door behind me.
“Why didn’t you marry her?” Her voice sounded faraway. In another galaxy. “Morgan. You obviously still love her.”
Why wouldn’t Dallas assume so?
My old room was a shrine to my ex-girlfriend.
Photo albums. Framed pictures. Stubs from concerts we’d attended. Memorabilia from exotic places we’d visited.
I refused to throw away the evidence that I was once a fully functioning human.
Morgan’s face stamped every inch of this room. Her slight ballerina frame. Her dimpled smile.
She was as graceful as a perfect autumn day. Exceling everywhere my current fiancée fell short.
Approaching my future wife, I swiped the album out of her hands and tucked it back inside the nightstand drawer, its usual residence.
For all I cared, I could burn every memory of Morgan to the ground, then piss on the remains to avoid a fire. I’d completely recovered from our five-year relationship and the broken engagement that had followed it.
But I couldn’t destroy the proof of our relationship, or the members of my so-called family would misinterpret the reason.
“Marrying her wasn’t an option.”
Mainly since I’d kicked her out of our shared penthouse stark naked on the day our engagement had fallen apart, then filed a restraining order against her when she continuously found her way to my door, begging for forgiveness.
“You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?” Dallas slanted her lovely face upward, blinking with those dark, curly lashes that made her look like a Disney animal.
Denial settled on the tip of my tongue before I realized that, if I said yes, I’d spare Shortbread from heartbreak when I eventually got rid of her.
Already, her body was too attuned to mine.