When in Rome: Part 6

“So the best pizzeria in Rome only does take-out, huh?” Kimberly asked skeptically.

Her date flashed an innocent grin. “Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “But admit, the pizza is very good, yes?”

“It’s good,” Kimberly admitted. “It’s freaking delicious, actually.”

Vincenzo was certainly a man with a plan. He’d shown up on time, whisked her off to a tiny hole-in-the-wall pizza shop, gotten them a to-go bag, then led the way to a beautiful stone bridge overlooking the water where they were currently sitting, admiring the view of Rome all lit up for the night. It all had the whiff of routine -- Kimberly figured he did this with plenty of girls -- but that was kind of what she was looking for.

He cleaned up nice, too: he’d ditched the centurion costume, apart from the plastic sword, which he’d jokingly brought along (“So you will recognize who!”). Now he was wearing a crisp white shirt that offset his tan, slacks, and a pair of well-made loafers. Kimberly hadn’t realized how much she’d missed seeing well-dressed men ever since moving to Green Lake. Most of the dudes there had zero sense of style.

To accompany the pizza, Vincenzo had brought a bottle of wine and two plastic cups, each of which he pulled out of his bag with a dramatic flourish. And from the second they sat down together, he’d been casually finding excuses to play with her hair, touch her bare arms, and even play with the skirt of her dress. Kimberly couldn’t lie: the cocky, Devil-may-care attitude was really doing it for her. The only disturbing thing was how much it reminded her of Bobby.

The wine helped. She wasn’t sure if she’d had a really good wine since leaving California -- her mom had quit drinking, and the other cheerleaders’ moms all bought terrible red blends or deathly-sugary Moscato. She was drinking it a little too quickly, but hey, when in Rome.

“And so, why are you in Rome?” Vincenzo finally asked, topping off her cup for the third time.

Kimberly blinked. For a second, she’d almost forgotten. “For Barbie,” she said. “You know, my friend from this morning? She’s a model, and I handle her social media.”

“You should be model,” the Italian said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Thanks,” Kimberly said dryly. “But I’m a little outclassed here. These girls are, like, perfect.”

“No girl is perfect,” Vincenzo shot back. “I know.”

“Oh, really?” Kimberly set down her wine, pulled out her iPhone, and flipped to one of the photos from the show she was most proud of: Bobby, laced into a bone-crushingly tight corset, posing at the end of the runway with his hips cocked, arms behind his head, and a vacant, incredibly sexy pout on his lips. “What do you call that?” she asked, passing Vincenzo the phone.

The Italian’s eyes bulged, but after a moment, with just a hint of reluctance, he passed it back. “Small tits,” he said simply. “The underwear helps, but not enough, I think.”

Kimberly rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m working on it,” she said. “How about this one?”

She flipped to another photo, this time showing Bobby backstage, bending over to unfasten his towering stilettos and inadvertently displaying the taut curve of his ass to full advantage. Vincenzo’s gulp was almost audible.

“She’s definitely supermodel material, right?” Kimberly pressed, working her way through the photos. “I mean, she definitely deserves to be on billboards. For Blush. Specifically.” She could feel herself getting weirdly agitated, but she couldn’t stop. “And if it weren’t for me, she would still be a nobody,” Kimberly continued. “Well, a high-school hoops star. So more or less nobody.”

“What is hoops?” Vincenzo asked, puzzled.

“Basketball, but it’s not important,” Kimberly said. “The important thing is that I’m the one who got her here, and now her mom is acting like I’m just some dumb bitch along for the ride. She used to be a guy, for God’s sakes.”

Holy shit, the wine had gone to her head fast. She clapped a hand over her mouth, wincing. Vincezno blinked, then grabbed her phone away, studying the last photo even more closely. He shook his head, seemingly bewildered, muttering to himself in Italian. Finally, he seemed to regain himself, handing the phone back with feigned nonchalance.

“Wow,” he said. “She must be doing the, how you say, the hormones.”

Kimberly hadn’t been expecting a guy who made a living showing off his six-pack and taking selfies with tourists to be quite so blase about transgender issues, but that was probably her own biases talking.

“I mean, obviously she was always a girl deep down,” she backpedalled. “What I mean is, I, you know, helped her. To become who she is now. And I shouldn’t get cut out of it, especially when I’m in the middle of getting her the Blush campaign. She’s way better than that walking emoji, Bianca freaking Buccino.”

The nonchalance disappeared again, as a choking Vincenzo sprayed a mouthful of wine over the side of the bridge. He pounded his chest. “Bianca Buccino?” he demanded. “Your trans friend, your Barbie, she is competing with Bianca Buccino? Dio mio!”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what Barbie’s mom thinks, too,” Kimberly said sourly, reaching for the wine bottle. “She thinks it’s a longshot.” She glanced over at her date, who was now staring up at the heavens with an expression of disbelief. “What?”

For a second, it almost looked like Vincenzo was going to burst into laughter. Instead, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a kiss on the forehead. It was an unexpectedly cute gesture from a playboy type, and she was tipsy, so it caught her completely off-guard.

“You think too much about Barbie,” he said, seemingly recovered from his attempt at breathing wine. “You talk too much about Barbie. Who are you?”

“Kimberly Quinn,” Kimberly said, rolling her eyes.

“And what do you want, that is nothing to do with model campaign?” Vincenzo pressed, looking into her eyes while also putting a casual hand on her thigh. “Nothing to do with Barbie.”

Kimberly blinked. Serena’s last words before leaving, the words that had been hanging around in the back of her mind, resurfaced: You might not be dating him anymore, but your whole life still revolves around him -- he’s your whole identity.

For the first time, Kimberly was scared her ex’s sister was dead on the money. But there was a relatively simple way to push all that out of her head. “I want more wine,” Kimberly said casually. “And then I want to go back to your place. I seem to recall I was promised dessert.”

Vincenzo grinned. “Good, good,” he said. “This is progress, see?”

#

Bobby had been half expecting some big Italian bouncer to send them running, but when they walked into the bar nobody even gave them a second glance. Well, no. That wasn’t true. Most of the guys inside were giving second, third, and fourth glances. A few of them hadn’t been able to take their eyes off him since the moment they heard the clicking of his stilettos and looked up.

Bobby was very, very aware of all the attention focused on his swivelling ass as Andreas led him to a table, and the Italian boy obviously noticed it too, because he tightened his grip around Bobby’s dainty waist and puffed out his chest a little. Realizing he had become another guy’s sexy trophy was almost too much for Bobby to take, but at the same time, a very small, very embarrassed part of him was glad he wasn’t walking in here dressed like this by himself. So long as Andreas staked his claim, Bobby didn’t have to worry about all the other horndogs trying to pick him up.

With that in mind, he nestled a little closer to his date -- Andreas didn’t reciprocate, but didn’t pull away, either. They slid into the booth and the Italian boy proceeded to completely ignore him as he chatted with the waiter, who was clearly a friend, in rapid-fire sing-song nonsense with a bunch of hand-waving.

Bobby found it pretty freaking aggravating, especially since the waiter, who kept stealing looks down his top, was clearly congratulating Andreas on scoring a hot date, while Andreas was playing up the whole suave, “I could take it or leave it” attitude, as if he pulled models on the regular. But he was being “Barbie” for tonight, so instead of telling them to speak English like normal people, he just sat there smiling through gritted teeth.

Finally the waiter disappeared, came back with drinks, and, after a final congratulatory fist-pound with his buddy, left them in peace. Andreas lifted his beer, smirking slightly, and Bobby followed suit with the glass of white wine his date had ordered for him.

“Cheers,” he said.

“Saluti,” Andreas corrected, and took a deep swig of his beer.

Bobby sipped at his wine. It was overwhelmingly sweet -- Andreas had probably ordered him the girliest thing on the menu -- but it was cold and refreshing, and a bit of alcohol could only help with what he had to do next. Bobby absolutely hated apologizing to people, but he could do it when necessary. The problem was, he couldn’t just mumble his way through this one. He had to make sure Andreas the asshole actually bought it.

“It’s pretty cool you don’t get ID’d,” he said tentatively. “I guess, um, the moustache really works for you?”

“This is Europe, not America,” Andreas said, staring off into space as if Bobby wasn’t worth his attention. “The drinking age is fifteen.”

Bobby blinked in surprise. Maybe Europe did have a few things going for it, after all. He took a fortifying gulp of wine, then set it down on the table, trying to remember all the bullshit Kimberly had made him recite in the mirror while she did his hair.

“Um, I’m really glad you came to the show,” he said. “I really wanted to message you, but I kept chickening out, because, well… You know.”

“Know what?” Andreas asked vaguely, still not meeting his eye.

Bobby ground his teeth. This douchebag was not going to make it easy on him. “I was kind of a jerk to you before,” he said. “Like, in America. I was kind of mean.”

“Kind of mean?” Andreas echoed.

Bobby momentarily shut his eyes. How was this guy still so butthurt? It had just been some good-natured, emotionally-targeted hazing. It wasn’t his fault Andreas was so freaking sensitive. But, of course, that wasn’t what “Barbie” would say.

“Okay, really mean,” Bobby said, exasperated. “I was really mean to you for no reason.”

“For no reason,” Andreas muttered. “Huh.”

Bobby grimaced. “Maybe I was…” He racked his brain, trying to remember Kimberly’s term for it. “Disgracing my insecurities?”

“You mean ‘displacing?’” Andreas asked, frowning.

“Yes!” Bobby snapped his fingers. “Displacing. I was displacing my insecurities, because, you know, I was scared of people finding out about me.”

Without warning, Andreas almost jumped out of his seat. “Cazzo sì!” he shouted, at the same moment half the bar erupted in shouts of excitement. Bobby was so startled he nearly spilled the rest of his wine down his top. The whole place had gone crazy: Italians were hugging each other, singing, slapping each other on the back. Andreas was pumping his fist in the air.

Bobby knew the exact feeling he was witnessing. As the realization dawned on him, he twisted around in his seat. His mouth fell open in indignation. This was why Andreas had spent the entire date so far staring over his head and barely responding to him: there was a wide screen TV behind him, and the freaking soccer game was on.

It was exactly the kind of thing Bobby would have done on a date, had he been able to get into a sports bar without ID, and it made him absolutely furious. He had not gotten all dolled up and put his balls into purgatory just to get ignored.

His first instinct was to reach across the table and backhand the stupid grin off Andreas’s stupid face. Appealing as the mental image was, however, he knew it wouldn’t get him the results he needed. It was a Bobby strategy, and what he needed to do was come up with a “Barbie” strategy. He was pretty sure he could be more interesting than a bunch of men chasing a ball around a big green field for ninety minutes with only the slightest chance of actually scoring any goals.

Bobby took a bracing breath, looking at the white wine he had come so close to spilling down his top. Anything to screw Serena, and besides, he was in Italy. Nobody in this restaurant knew him, and he was never coming back here in a million years. Trying to keep all those somewhat comforting thoughts in mind, Bobby pretended to reach for his purse, and did the deed. His squeal wasn’t entirely faked -- the white wine was still cold.

“Oh my God, I’m so clumsy!” he said, pushing his “girly” voice up an octave. “I spilled on my boobs.”

Andreas nearly got whiplash, as did several other bar patrons who clearly knew enough English to know when a girl was talking about her boobs. With the wine still trickling down his collarbone, Bobby squeezed his elbows against his sides, in the way he knew, from humiliating experience, would push his breasts up and together. He pointed one claw-like nail at the problem, in case Andreas needed even more of a greenlight to ogle.

“My top is, like, soaked,” Bobby said petulantly. It was true -- the flimsy material had soaked up the cold white wine like a sponge, and his newly-sensitive nipples had definitely noticed. Andreas had forgotten about the soccer game entirely, his full attention fixed on his date’s cleavage. Blushing furiously, Bobby plucked at the wet fabric. “Ugh, do you have, like, napkins?” he squeaked. “Please?”

The Italian boy stuffed his tongue back in his mouth, and for the first time that evening, he was blushing even more brightly than Bobby was. “Yes, yes, I am sorry,” he said. “One moment.” He snatched a napkin dispenser off the neighboring table and handed it over.

Bobby, still feeling somewhat shocked at what he’d just done, started slowly dabbing at the tops of his breasts. “Thanks,” he said. “So, um, what were we saying?”

Andreas gulped, tearing his eyes away from the drying process. “America?” he guessed -- clearly he hadn’t heard a word up until now.

“Right,” Bobby said, leaning forward and crossing his arms. “I had just finished apologizing and saying how sorry I was for how I treated you, and you were saying how it was okay, because you were kind of stuck-up.”

Andreas frowned. “I don’t remember saying that,” he said, but his attention was now clearly on the conversation again. “You were a bully. And now, just because you are prancing around in Jimmy Choo stilettos and fluttering your eyelashes at me, you think I forgive and forget everything?”

Bobby’s eyes widened. “How did you know they were Jimmy Choo…” He shook his head. “Never mind. Um, yes? I think forgiving and forgetting is, like, super important?”

“That semester abroad was the worst semester of my life,” Andreas said flatly. “And it was all thanks to you. Everybody made fun of my name! Girls laughed at me when I tried to seduce them, because everybody thought I was gay! Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

Bobby was already opening his mouth to argue, to downplay his actions, when he realized that the answer to Andreas’s question was a resounding “yes.” He sat back in the booth, feeling a little stunned. He thought back to people chanting “Barbie” at him during his basketball games, after he’d lost the makeover bet but before his forced “coming out” at the hands of his blackmailer. He thought about his hopes of hooking up with his ex, now totally dashed: Kimberly was off on a date with some other Italian douchebag, and he was here being “Barbie” for Andreas, showing off his cleavage and wiggling his butt.

“Dude, I actually do,” Bobby said. “I know exactly what it’s like.”

“Really?” Andreas asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

Bobby frowned, trying to reformulate his feelings in a way that made sense and wouldn’t blow his cover. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Because, I know how it feels to have people call me the wrong name. And to have people treating me like something I’m not. It sucks. A lot.”

Andreas’s forehead creased. “It does suck,” he said cautiously. “So you wanted me to feel what you were feeling, yes? This was your displacing of insecurities?”

Progress at last. Bobby nodded eagerly, making his hoop earrings bounce. “Yeah!” he said. “Yeah, it was that. And I’m sorry.”

The apology slipped out without him even noticing, and the weird thing was, he felt like he actually meant it for a change. Andreas nodded thoughtfully. For a second, Bobby thought he had pulled it off. All was forgiven. Maybe Andreas would be happy to watch the rest of his dumb soccer game, call up his uncle and put in a good word, then take him back to the hotel and never cross paths again.

Instead, Andreas’s face darkened. “And you chose to bully me why? Because I was an easy target, I suppose.”

Bobby grimaced. Okay, all was not forgiven. Andreas was still mad, and if he went home mad, he might call up his uncle and tell him “Barbie” was secretly a meth-head, or something. He searched desperately for a solution, wishing Kimberly was there to guide him. Suddenly, he had a flashback to the first grade: he was on the playground, chasing Lizzy DeVries and yanking on her hair, partly because it was fun, but mostly because…

“No, that wasn’t why,” Bobby murmured. He looked down at the table through his long dark lashes, hardly believing what he was about to say. “It was because, I, um…” He blushed, plucking nervously at the lacy black choker around his neck. “I had a super big crush on you, Andreas.”

Andreas blinked in surprise.

“It’s super embarrassing,” Bobby blurted -- that, at least, was true. “I, um, told everyone you were gay because I couldn’t stand the idea of you being with… Other girls. Because I, I…” He gulped. “I really wanted to be your girl?” he squeaked.

Andreas didn’t speak. Bobby crossed his manicured fingers under the table, hoping against hope that his date would buy it. He could see some kind of conflict was going on inside Andreas’s head. Maybe he was still pissed, or maybe he still suspected that Bobby was trying to get on his good side for the sake of the Blush campaign.

But Bobby realized, in a weird, “seeing the Matrix”-type moment, that his lie had a big advantage over the truth: it was what Andreas wanted to believe. What dude wouldn’t? In this scenario, a gorgeous blonde had flown all the way from another continent to pretty much throw herself at him, and not only that, she’d been secretly in love with him even back before he had a leather jacket and muscles.

Andreas reached across the table -- the soccer game was clearly now the farthest thing from his mind -- and cupped Bobby’s cheek. Bobby swallowed, fighting back the reflexive urge to slap his date’s hand away. His face grew hot as the Italian boy’s fingers softly caressed his skin. Anything to screw Serena, he reminded himself. Anything to screw Serena…

Bobby knew what was coming as Andreas slipped a finger under his choker, tugging at it playfully to make his date lean a little farther across the table, but there was nothing Bobby could do except part his pretty lips and give him full access. Andreas kissed him deeply, a little clumsy compared to Josh, mashing their lips together and slipping his tongue into his mouth. Bobby let his eyes flutter shut and tried not to think too hard about it.

When Andreas ended the kiss and pulled back, the Italian boy was grinning widely. Bobby, for his part, felt partly disgusted with himself, partly proud of himself for pulling it off, and partly -- just a very, very small part, mind you -- warm. And flushed. And tingly.

“I’ll get you another drink,” Andreas said. “Just promise not to spill it, yes?”

“Okay,” Bobby said, in a small voice. “Promise.”

Andreas got up a little awkwardly, adjusting his jeans, then sauntered off towards the bar. Bobby hunched his shoulders, feeling the renewed interest from the Italian guys who had just witnessed him sucking face. To avoid making any accidental eye contact, he fished his iPhone out of his purse and tapped out a message to Kimberly.

Think I did it. Come get me, you can pretend there’s an emergency or something.

He hit send and waited for a reply -- Kimmy was usually quick to respond. But the minutes ticked by with no answer, and Bobby realized, with a twist of jealousy, that his ex’s date was probably going well. He reluctantly put his phone away as Andreas returned, holding a new glass of white wine and a second beer for himself.

“For the lady,” he said, handing Bobby his drink and looking him in the eyes with a smoldering intensity. “Here is to fresh starts. Saluti!”

Bobby smiled weakly. “Um, yeah. Saluti.”

#

A ray of sunlight hit Kimberly full in the face and she woke up with a ready-made headache. For a second she had no idea where she was, then the night came back to her: pizza on the bridge, wine on the bridge, no dessert at Vincenzo’s pad but plenty of sloppy, though still very enjoyable, drunk sex. She disentangled herself from the sleeping Italian, who shifted slightly and smiled at whatever he was dreaming about -- probably his next conquest.

It wasn’t until she turned on her nearly-dead iPhone, finding a deluge of messages and missed calls from “Barbie,” that she realized how badly she’d screwed up. It was half past one in the afternoon, and the second day of the fashion show had been set to start at noon. She momentarily considered just crawling back under the covers and shutting her eyes again.

Instead, she put one hand to her pounding temple and read her missed texts. Amid all the where TF are you??? types from Bobby, there was a single message from Mrs. Vickerson nestled in the middle. With a feeling of dread, she opened it to read the whole thing.

Hi sweetie, I noticed you forgot to update Barbie’s Instagram with photos from the show, and I also noticed that she hasn’t Tweeted in almost 24 hours, so she and I agreed that I’m going to handle her socials for the rest of the trip… I’m guessing you were too busy having fun last night. She’s a little panicky about why you aren’t replying, so please call her ASAP. Thanks! :) :) :)

“Fuck!” Kimberly practically screamed, startling her sleeping companion awake.

“Che cazzo?” Vincenzo yelped, jerking upright. He caught sight of her and glared, rubbing his eyes. “Why are you loud, Kimberly? It is not time for being loud. I need to sleep.” He dove back under the covers and pulled the pillow over his head.

Kimberly drummed her nails against her phone. She’d been so focused on the big job, getting Bobby the Blush campaign, that she’d failed to do her basic, easy-as-shit duties as social media coordinator. And now she was missing his second show, because she’d gotten drunk and gone home with a Roman centurion.

Her only hope now was that Bobby’s date had gone really, really well. As in, well enough to give them leverage with Nino Romano. She thumbed Bobby’s profile icon in her phone and called him. To her relief, he answered almost immediately.

“Kimmy, what the fuck?” he screeched. “I thought you got, like, kidnapped and organ-harvested, or something. That would not be a good look for me.”

“I’m fine, thanks,” Kimberly said, wincing at the volume of her ex’s voice. “I had my phone off.”

“You turned your phone off?” Bobby echoed, incredulous. “You’re still allowed to check your phone while you’re fucking someone, Kimmy. Bad excuse. Where are you?”

“I’m on my way…” Kimberly couldn’t find her thong, but she spotted her bra and grabbed it off the bedpost. “To the show. Same venue, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, same place,” Bobby said. “Did you, like, turn your brain off, too?”

“Are you done being a bitch?” Kimberly demanded, switching the call to speaker phone so she could put her bra back on.

“Don’t try to turn this shit around on me, Kimmy,” Bobby said. “You left me stranded with Andreas, you’re missing the show, and you didn’t even update my Insta. Mom was freaking pissed this morning, and she took it out on me when she brushed my hair.”

“I got that,” Kimberly muttered, grabbing her scrunched-up dress. “Somehow it transmitted through the triple smiley faces. What happened with Andreas?”

Bobby was silent for a moment, and a dozen worst-case scenarios ran through Kimberly’s mind: she pictured her ex calling Andreas “Andrietta” all night, or insulting his mom’s pesto again, or maybe even doing his best but blowing it anyways, possibly by getting so drunk he untucked himself to take a piss in the urinal. She could already imagine Andreas dropping by his Uncle Nino’s to mention that the new model from America was a total psycho.

“I already messaged you about it,” Bobby said sourly. “It was fine. We got some drinks, I said sorry, and he dropped me back at the hotel around midnight. We’re, like, back to neutral. He definitely isn’t going to badmouth me to Uncle Nino.”

Kimberly breathed a sigh of relief. Bobby had done exactly what she’d told him to do. She was the one who’d gotten drunk and been completely irresponsible. But “back to neutral” wasn’t going to guarantee them the Blush campaign, either.

“Okay, cool, so you guys made nice,” she said, pulling her dress on over her head. “Just nice? Nothing else?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bobby asked sharply. Kimberly wasn’t quite sure, but she thought she detected a note of defensiveness.

“It sounds like you did good, Barbie,” she said. “I’m proud. Really. I’m glad he’s not going to badmouth you.” She hunted for her shoes on Vincenzo’s messy floor. “But to make you Nino’s new favorite for the campaign, we need Andreas to, uh, good mouth you.” She winced -- the hangover was not helping her vocabulary. “As in, we need him to tell Uncle Nino you’re perfect for Blush. Did you set up another date?”

She could practically hear her ex rankle at the word. “No,” he said stonily. “I don’t date guys.” There was a long pause. “Okay, he invited me to a party today. I said I would probably be busy with, you know, modeling stuff.”

“You’re going to that party,” Kimberly said, sliding her shoes on. “When is it?”

“Later this afternoon,” Bobby said, and she could hear some pain in his voice. “Kimmy, it’s a pool party.”

“Even better,” Kimberly said staunchly. “I know your mom packed you some bikinis. Barbie, this is important, remember? We need to get the Blush campaign.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Her ex’s voice was sulky, but resigned. “I know. I’m the one who’s, like, doing my job, Kimmy. How about you do yours?”

Kimberly winced, but tried to brush it off. “Really got the bitchy model attitude this morning,” she said dryly. “Use that on the catwalk. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“It’s afternoon,” Bobby shot back. “And I’m not -- ”

Kimberly ended the call. While she was busy ordering an Uber, Vincenzo emerged from the covers with a wide grin on his face.

“Wow, Kimberly,” he said. “You are a little mafiosa, huh? Very, how do you say, cut-throat. It’s sexy.” He held up her thong between two fingers.

“It’s nothing personal,” Kimberly said wryly, snatching it away. “It’s business.”

“I have the day off,” Vincenzo said. “Do your Barbie things, then come back. I will show you the best view in Rome.”

“Your dick?” Kimberly guessed, sliding her underwear on before checking her phone. The Uber driver was just arriving.

“No!” Vincenzo exclaimed, looking slightly affronted. “My dick is second best view, and we will look at it after.”

“This was fun,” Kimberly said. “But definitely a one-time thing. I think that’s the whole point.” She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, then headed for the door. “Ciao, Vincenzo,” she said.

Vincenzo gave a rueful shrug. “Ciao, Kimberly.”

#