Rendezvous in the Romanowskian Empire

57. So close

Althea

Numbness overtook me at the one thought that kept repeating itself.

All this time I was doing all that... with my friend's greatest grandad?

A violent shudder ran down me. I couldn't breathe. It was as if someone was constricting my airway.

Greatest granddad...

This was so so wrong.

Lorenzo had an equally odd expression as me, "Uh isn't it... weird?

"I mean he hates me with a burning passion. No one does that to their greatest grandkid right..." he trailed away.

"Bish," Dunkin snorted, "Why the heck would he know you're his grandkid?"

"But seriously though, even your ancestors are bombshell hot," Cheryl sighed dreamily.

I was seconds away from losing my shit altogether.

Lorenzo's eyes shot towards her, but a slow grin spread across his jaw as he fixed the meaning of her statement. Aarmen and Dunkin began wafting a hand at themselves in an act to cool off when Cheryl and Lorenzo gave each other a weird as hell smile.

"I used to play dirt bike games," Dunkin munched on his snack, stressing on those two words, "I miss it now, but it's nice knowing two people are playing it right now in their heads." That snapped both of them out of whatever daze they'd gone into.

I wanted to laugh out loud like Aarmen and he did, but I couldn't.

My fingers clutched at my dress, and I shifted my head aside, sweating like crazy. I'd need a word ten times stronger than Embarrassment to describe my situation.

This was so so wrong.

Crushing on someone's granddad is wrong beyond measure.

It was the moment I knew my time was up.

I can't bear to stay here even for a day longer. The thought of what I was doing this morning made me want to hit my head so hard that I could get amnesia.

Fuck, Coretta Hayes. For real, fuck!

"Also, I don't know if anyone has noticed, but Lorenzo sucks on his upper lip when he's nervous. Julian does that too?" She turned to me.

I was going white with fear.

Julian sucked on his upper lip all the damn time when he was in thought.

"Hey, Cors, what's your stand is this?" She tapped my shoulder, her voice enthralled at what she'd discovered.

"It's so cool!" I yelped, a wide grin on my face that I tried hard not to waver, "Isn't it great, I was writing about Lorenzo's ancestor all this time?!" I exclaimed with an over-enthusiastic smile.

But she looked at me with an odd expression. My breath hitched.

"You've gone all red Cors, what even?" she huffed, "I told you to bun up your hair or else you'll die of this Egyptian heatwave."

I so wanted to die! I cried inwardly.

"But..." Aarmen was still looking confused at Julian, who was now staring up at the statue of Aphrodite.

"Look properly," he muttered, "Lorenzo looks like a baby in front of him."

A strangled laugh escaped me and Dunkin was full-on howling. Lorenzo narrowed his eyes.

"Moreover, family titles don't change that easily," Aarmen rolled his eyes, "Romanowski and Swarwoski are two different things."

Cheryl laughed lightly, wanting to ease the hot head that Lorenzo had become, "That's what I meant when I saw Julian for the first time," she heaved a breath, "That he looked like a very manly version of someone I knew. And that someone was," she waved beside her, "Lorenzo."