ROMAN HUMMED the melody of City of Stars from La La Land.
He had found that he surprisingly enjoyed the movie. He had never really liked musicals—sure, he enjoyed listening to music and watching movies, but to him, they were two separate entities. He always thought that movies with songs were cheesy and childish, but he had a lot of fun watching La La Land with Verona yesterday.
Emilia dashed into the car, her cheeks pink from her run. She barely had time to buckle her seatbelt before Roman raced off. Roman considered himself as a man of many talents, but punctuality was definitely not one of them.
"'Morning." She greeted as she exchanged the chocolate doughnut in her hand for the cup of coffee in his hands. It was part of the morning the two had developed in the five months they had been dating.
"'Morning." He replied with a smile, glancing at her, "Are you cold?" He asked. She was wearing a plaid sweater that looked awfully warm, considering it was barely autumn.
"No, I'm okay. Thanks." She replied.
"I can turn on the heat, so you don't have to be stuck in your sweater." Roman offered.
"It's okay." Emilia smiled at him, "I'd prefer to keep this on."
"Okay," Roman said, "It's up to you. Just tell me if you're cold."
"Thanks. You're so considerate." Emilia beamed at him.
They continued their car ride in silence until Roman began humming the theme song of La La Land again.
"You watched La La Land?" Emilia asked.
"Yeah, did you?" Roman asked absently.
"Yeah, I watched it with my brother. I would have asked you to come, but I didn't think you would want to watch La La Land"
Roman grinned, "I hate musicals, but I love Ryan Gosling."
"Really?" Emilia sounded surprised, "I didn't know, I thought you would have preferred Emma Stone."
"Oh, Emma Stone is cool too, but everyone knows that Ryan Gosling is my idol."
"Huh, how did that happen?" Emilia wondered aloud.
"It was a joke. Rona made me watch all his rom-com as a dare." Roman laughed, "She didn't expect me to adore Ryan Gosling afterward."
Emilia smiled.
"I like Verona and Katrina." Emilia commented, "I'm glad you're friends with them. Your guy friends are jerks sometimes."
"Rona and Katrina are jerks sometimes too." Roman pointed out.
"Yeah, but Verona and Katrina are nice jerks. Your soccer teammates are just jerks."
"True too."
There was a brief pause of silence at this.
"Is Verona okay?" Emilia asked, concerned, "I don't know her that well, but she seemed really down."
"I don't know." Roman sighed, "Rona is a complicated person. It's hard with her."
"Being a hard person doesn't mean she should be sad though. It's not good to be sad all the time."
Roman cast a quick look at her, "Are you ever sad, Emilia? You always seem so happy and bright."
Emilia was silent.
"I can be happy when other people want me to. I guess that's all that counts." She said.
"Are you happy when you want to be?" Roman asked back.
"It's hard to be happy when you're always pretending," Emilia responded.
"You don't have to pretend with me. You know that, right?"
"I know that." Emilia told him, "But why do you feel like you need to pretend with me?"
Roman inhaled sharply.
~~~