Sweet Rome Read online

  Her eyes glossed and her shoulders slumped. “My daddy wants it to happen. My momma taught me from a young age what it would be like to marry for money, and like most women in my position, I would have to let you do your own thing, have your little flings. I accept that. But in society’s eyes, I would always be your wife. I would be the one on your arm at social functions and I would be the mother to your kids. We could give each other what our folks—and Tuscaloosa’s society—expect.”

  Her gaze had dropped during her speech, but then she looked up at me with her bloodshot eyes and said, “I’m not stupid, Rome, despite what you think. I know you don’t love me, but, let’s face it; it’s not about love, is it? It’s who we are, who we were raised to be.”

  “Don’t you want more for yourself? Don’t you have dreams? Things you want to achieve away from all the pressure to be something that we’re not? Hell, Shel, I’m not made for that kind of life! I’m football player. That’s what I was born to be, not some miserable suit!”

  Her head began to shake back and forth. “No! I don’t have something like football as an alternative. I don’t have a perfect four-point GPA or some other skill to use as a backup. I’m a Blair, and you know what, Rome? I want the life my momma has, and I need you to make that happen.” Her eyes narrowed and, glancing at the open balcony, she stated, “And I will do anything to get it.”

  I straightened at her thinly veiled threat, realizing there was no getting through to her in this state. “It ain’t happening, Shel. I’m sorry.”

  Whipping back to face me, she once again adopted her usual bitch façade and shouted, “You’re such a selfish prick! Think of me! If it’s about sex, don’t worry. You know I’d fuck you anytime you wanted. It’s all here for you to take! The perfect life on a silver platter!”

  “Have some damn pride, woman!”

  “I have pride, but I’m starting to wonder if you even have a dick, pussying out of your duty and acting like a whining little bitch instead of just doing what you’re told!”

  I strode to the end of the bed, Shelly shuffling back at the severe look on my face. “You and me—never happening. You’re pathetic and I hate everything you stand for. I’ll never marry you. Ever. You get me?”

  She faltered for a moment before answering. “You will, Rome. I’ve known you my whole life and you’ve always done what your folks told you to do. What’s changed?”

  It was rhetorical, but I glared at her for the longest time before smiling victoriously. “Everything.”

  I pounded out of Ally’s room, not bothering to evict Shelly, and went searching for Molly to make sure she was okay. Down on the lawn, I spotted her on a bench with Ally, Jimmy-Don, the scary girl I’d seen with Jimmy-Don, and some chick with black lips and jet-black hair.

  Molly looked so pissed off, so sad, and, not wanting to cause a scene, I got the hell out of there. I needed to do something while I had the courage, something that was in no way going to be easy but had to be done to finally break free.

  I just hoped I didn’t live to regret it.

  5

  “Mr. Prince will see you now, Rome.”

  I rose from the cold, hard leather couch in the vast, sparsely decorated white lobby and, nodding at Jean, my daddy’s assistant, I entered his office, firmly closing the door behind me.

  There he sat, king of the whole fucking world, dressed in his black pinstriped power suit, behind his desk, scowling as I approached. “Rome. To what do I owe this pleasure?” I caught the sarcasm in his voice but ignored it and slumped into the free chair at his desk.

  “I need to speak to you,” I said firmly, embracing the detached numbness I always felt in his presence.

  He sat back, smirking, crossing his arms. I’d never come to him like this before, and it had obviously humored the bastard. “Go ahead. I’m all ears.”

  Taking a deep breath, I met his cold eyes and declared, “I’m done.”

  That wiped the smirk off his face, and his graying eyebrows pulled together in confusion. “Done with what, boy?”

  “All of it. Your controlling shit, Momma being overbearing and ragging on me nonstop for being such a fucking mistake to you both.” I leaned forward to hammer the final nail into the Prince Empire’s coffin, seeing my daddy’s lip curl in annoyance at the bold gesture. “And I’m not marrying Shel, not for anything. There isn’t enough money in the world or any threat you can issue that would make me want to legally bind myself to her for life. Cut me out of your lives if you want, but I can’t and I won’t do it.”

  The silence was suffocating in the expansive, antique-decorated room as the two Prince men stared each other down. Finally, my daddy sat forward, calm as the sea, and said, “I don’t know where the hell you got the idea that you had any choice in this.”

  Exactly the response I was expecting.

  “I do have a choice. And I’m not going through with it. I’m going to enter the draft, and this time you can’t stop me. I’m gonna leave this place once and for all, and live my own goddamn life. God, you should be proud! Why do I get the only father in the whole of Alabama who doesn’t want his son to enter the NFL? I’m good, Daddy, real good, if only you’d realize it. Maybe if you come to one of my games, you’d see I wasn’t right for a life in the business world.”

  Daddy stilled, his face burning red. Then he launched to his feet, swiping at his desk. It took me completely by surprise, and I jerked back in my seat. He’d always been physical, domineering, but this reaction seemed kind of extreme, even for him. He was always calm and collected, especially in public, especially at his work.

  Slamming his hands on the solid mahogany desktop, he yelled, “You will do it, boy! It’s your duty! Prince Oil needs the Blairs, and I will not allow some nobody from outside the family to weasel his way into my company when Shelly finally marries! The business has been passed down to the next generation for years, but, oh no, I get the punk of a son who decides against it. Jesus Christ!”

  I quickly stood and, shocked at his outburst, shouted back, “What the hell? What’s wrong with you? Why’re you reacting like this? This can’t be just about me not wanting to marry Shel. You’re acting crazy. What’s really going on?”

  His eyes narrowed and a strange, almost panicked expression flashed across his face. “It is about the marriage! You’re gonna do it, if it’s the last thing you do!”

  Running my hands through my hair, I sighed deeply and began backing out of the room. “I’m done. Deal with it. And don’t bother trying to convince me otherwise.”

  I opened the door to the lobby, and Mr. Blair, Shelly’s daddy, spotted me. “Rome!” He held his arms wide, smiling his expensive veneered smile. He wasn’t a bad man, just had his priorities messed up: money and social standing first, and they trumped everything else. Shelly clearly had daddy issues, and the way he put most things above her, it didn’t take a genius to figure out why.

  “Hey, Mr. Blair,” I said as he embraced me.

  “You here to talk about the wedding? Just think, by this time next year, you’ll be officially family.” My stomach dropped and I stepped back. Mr. Blair lost his smile as he glanced over my shoulder and saw the state of my daddy’s office. “Joe? What the—”

  “I’m not marrying your daughter, sir. I don’t want her as my wife and I don’t want anything to do with the company either. I just came down here so my daddy knows I’m serious. Sorry if it causes you any problems, but I just can’t do it.” With that, I left the building.

  I’d stood up to my daddy. I’d actually fucking done it. But the determined look in his eyes as I left made me feel nothing but dread for what lay ahead.

  * * *

  Texas A&M, Kyle Field, College Station, Texas.

  “What’s going on, son?” Coach sat before me in the locker room. We’d just finished playing the Aggies, and to say I’d just had a nightmare of a game would be an understatement. Three interception passes… Six sacks… Six fucking sacks!

  Sitting head d
own, still in my dirty uniform, still in my cleats, I shrugged my shoulders. “I can’t focus. Shit! I was terrible! Thank fuck we won or I’d be getting run out of Tuscaloosa!” I threw my head back, running my hands down my face, feeling completely drained.

  Coach sighed, moving his chair to sit opposite me. “Rome, I’ve known you nearly four years now, went to some of your high school games before persuading you to join the Tide. This is no time for you to mess up. The world knows you’re certain to be a first-round draft pick.” He grew silent for a moment before he asked, “Is it your folks?”

  That surprised me, and I snapped my head back to face him. “What?”

  “Look, son, I don’t know much about your home situation. You keep your personal life pretty locked tight. But I know when someone don’t have the support of their folks. I’ve been coaching a hell of a long time, and you’re not the first player to leak his home life onto the field.”

  A lump bobbed in my throat, and I checked around me, only to find that the rest of the team was long gone. I stared Coach straight in the face and nodded. “They don’t want me to enter the draft. They want me to take over the family business and marry a chick I don’t want. I had a huge argument with my daddy a few days ago over it all. I can’t stop reliving it.”

  “And what do you want, Rome?” Coach gently questioned.

  There could be no hesitation. “Football. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “It ain’t my place to tell you what to do, Rome. But I will say this. You are one of the best… if not the best quarterback it has been my honor and privilege to coach. You’re at a crossroads in your young life. Only you can mess up the decisions you must make.” For a few seconds, he left me to ponder what he’d said, then continued. “NFL teams have you on their radar. Everyone expects you to make it at the next level.”

  I stared at the dirty white-tiled floor, unseeing, when coach sighed heavily. “Look, what can I say? Try hard to get yourself into a better place. Rome… no matter what it takes… yeah?”

  “Yes, sir!” I exclaimed, lifting my head and looking Coach straight in the eye… at the same time silently thanking the Lord that Coach hadn’t threatened to bench me.

  Slowly standing up, giving me a fatherly pat on the shoulder, he quietly said, “Get changed. We head out in twenty.”

  6

  That was two days ago. The team… my team… was now back at practice. After Coach’s talk with me, things felt easier, and I was thankful to be back in Tuscaloosa. Of course, the texts ordering me home to discuss the marriage were constant, but I decided I needed to put some space between my folks and me for a while.

  I’d been thinking hard about what coach said and came up with a plan. One, get my head back into football. Two, sharpen my focus on what I do best. Three, try real hard to shut out all the shit screwing with my game—drinking and whoring around being top of the list.

  My cousin and I were walking to class, and Ally was talking nonstop about some chick she lived with pissing her the hell off, but I zoned out, a feeling close to excitement in my stomach as we approached the Humanities building. Yeah, that had never happened before, especially not for philosophy, but here I was, almost sprinting to get to the classroom. I wasn’t in denial about why.

  “Hell, Rome! Slow down!” Ally said, running to meet my quick strides. “What the hell you in a rush for?”

  “Nothing. Just don’t want to be late.”

  Her hand gripped my elbow, pulling me to a stop, brown eyes huge. “Since when?” she asked with a disbelieving laugh.

  “Since when, what?” I tried to evade her questioning. She was too fucking nosey for her own damn good.

  “You! Why’re you so concerned with class all of a sudden? You’re not exactly student of the year.”

  “Let’s go or I’ll leave your ass behind.” I started walking again, and she let out a huge gasp from behind.

  Turning, I groaned in exasperation. “What now?”

  Her lips pouted and then she broke out into a smile. “I’m on to you.”

  Ignoring her, I made my way to the class. As we headed through the door, Ally was still chuckling beside me—which only served to piss me off more—and I immediately checked out Molly’s TA desk, feeling instantly disappointed when she wasn’t there. As hard as it was to admit to myself, I’d missed seeing her all week. Was sick of her image in my damn head, preventing me from sleeping, and thought it was about damn time I viewed her in the flesh again.

  “Aww, Rome, would you look at that? No Molly,” Ally lilted as she climbed the stairs. I was used to her trying to rile me up, like a little, annoying sister would, but this time, she was really getting to me.

  Someone entered the room, and I caught a look at them from the corner of my eye. It was Molly, head down, dressed in jean shorts, a tight white tee, and a white version of those fucking horrendous shoes. She skirted past me to her desk, not even acknowledging me.

  That pissed me off.

  “Shakespeare,” I greeted, trying to get her attention. But still nothing. She was completely ignoring me and it wasn’t sitting well, my good mood now completely gone.

  I made my way up the stairs to my seat next to Ally, trying to pay no attention to Shelly, who, as always, began batting her eyelashes in my direction.

  Shaking my head, I questioned why she was being so fucking stupid? I couldn’t believe she would keep up the fake flirtations after the mindfuck that was our last meeting.

  I sat in my seat, wondering why Molly was being so weird, when she strode up to the lectern, face tight, tapping the small microphone, the echoey dull thuds attracting everyone’s attention.

  “Hey, everyone. Professor Ross asked me to lead today’s seminar on the introduction to utilitarianism, and in the coming sessions, I will be giving brief notes on the main arguments before exploring some examples for discussion.”

  There was that confidence again, almost arrogance when it came to her subject, and she moved from the lectern, dropping her notes, her tight ass flexing under those shorts. I shifted as my cock grew hard. She licked her lips, adjusting her glasses, and I struggled not to groan out loud at the sight.

  “In simple terms, the idea of utilitarianism is the theory that actions of an individual are based on the fact that we, as humans, actively seek pleasure when making decisions. Therefore, this argument is seen as the hedonistic approach to ethics—we do things to feel good, are driven by the quest for pleasure. Jeremy Bentham proposed that humans operate on a pleasure-pain principle, i.e. that we seek pleasure and avoid pain at all costs.”

  She never once looked my way as she spoke. The class was small and she met every pair of eyes in the room except mine. It got to me… really fucking got to me.

  “Bentham believed that this principle could be adapted to society as a whole and that it would function better if it operated on a system that considered the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. This is evident in many sectors of society, but a good example is the way we vote in a democracy. The majority vote benefits most people. Therefore, the majority of people in that society are happy, i.e. feel pleasure at the outcome, creating a more utilized society.”

  After minutes of still getting nothing, not even a glimpse, I decided it was time to cut the shit and make her acknowledge me. What Shakespeare didn’t know was that I had a firm grasp of this topic. And I’d use it to show her I didn’t like to be ignored.

  I waited until she paused in her lecture and let out a dramatic cough, edging forward in my seat and pretending to listen intently, purposely being obnoxious. Her eyes darted to mine and they narrowed. Perfect. I’d started to piss her off too.

  “Where was I?” she said out loud, subtly glaring in my direction in admonishment. “Oh, yes. Today we will be discussing the concept of the pleasure-pain principle and whether humans really do function this way. I, for one, tend to agree in the most part with this theory—”

  “Really?” I blurted, stopping her mid-flow. My clas
smates gaped at me from their seats. Yeah, I never participated in class. Hell, most of these people probably hadn’t heard me say anything in nearly four years of sitting in this room. I knew I had the reputation of a dumb jock, and what did I care? Let the fuckers believe what they wanted. I was going to speak today, though, and it was all because I wanted a certain girl’s attention.

  Molly had stopped still, the pulse in her neck beating furiously under her exposed skin. “Pardon?”

  There it was, that fire, that spark she kept so well hidden. Taking my pencil, I rolled it in my fingers as if I didn’t give a shit and, by the look on face, succeeding in riling her up.

  “I was expressing my surprise that you agree with Bentham, for the most part,” I said, exaggerating the last four words.

  “Then the answer is yes, you heard correctly,” she snapped.

  Christ, she looked even cuter when she was mad as all hell, and her attitude was turning me on. “Huh!” I muttered, biting on my pencil. The room was absolutely silent, and even the professor was watching us both with rapt attention.

  Ally struck me with her elbow in my rib and hissed out, “Quit it, Rome. She ain’t finding you funny. Leave her the hell alone.” For a moment, I did feel a bit guilty, but I was having too much damn fun sparring to really give a shit.

  “Huh, what? Romeo?” she queried with a bitchy smile. That stilled me, and any humor I had soon morphed into rage. She used that fucking name, knowing exactly how I felt about it… and in public too? It was so far below a low blow it was arctic and I couldn’t believe she’d done that to me, didn’t believe her capable of being so damn mean.

  Her eyebrow rose, a clear challenge, and I snarled. She wanted to play dirty? Game on.

  Taking a deep breath, I said, “I just think it’s foolishly idealistic to think in such a way, Shakespeare, and for someone of your supposed intellect, I’m surprised it came out of your mouth at all.”