Romeo of the Streets Read Online Free PDF Page A

ambulance—a fact which only dawned on me later). The car was a sleek, silver Lexus and exceptionally clean and spotless on the inside. I would have been impressed if I hadn’t been so shaken up. He squeezed my arm softly as I settled down into the luxurious leather passenger seat beside him, a comforting gesture that was at odds with the still-stony, almost frozen, expression on his face. He turned the ignition and pulled out into the street without even waiting to see if anyone else was coming behind us. From there to the hospital he stayed close behind the ambulance, bobbing in and around the traffic as it did, and looking at him, I had to wonder if he’d had a lot of experience chasing ambulances in moments of disaster and tragedy.
     
     
    At the hospital, they wouldn’t let us in to see Gino (even though Romeo lied and said I was family—and ok, it was an almost truth, Gino kind of was family) until after the doctors and nurses had operated and we sat down to wait on the uncomfortable seats outside the room, two refuges stranded in a world of uneasy yet vibrant activity.
    Romeo went to get us some coffees from the machine at the end of the corridor and I sat and waited for him, stuck to my chair like I was tied down by an impossible weight, completely lost and helpless in the bustling and unfamiliar hospital hallway. Doctors and nurses rushed past me from either side, talking as fast as they walked and disappearing almost as soon as they appeared. I felt dizzy, faint, and was almost certain I was about to have a full blown panic attack when Romeo returned to my side and softly touched my arm.
    “Hey,” he said. He was holding a cardboard tray with two Styrofoam cups in his other hand, effortlessly balancing the uneven weight of the thing in his casual thumb and finger grip.
    “Hi,” I said, looking up at him. I wanted to say more, like how grateful I was that he’d been there for us in our hour of need, but I was too shocked and exhausted from the experience to even know where to begin.
    But Romeo nodded like I’d gone ahead and said it anyway and then he slid down with a sigh into the chair beside me. “Here,” he said, passing me the coffee.
    “Thanks,” I said and gratefully sipped.
    Halfway through the cup I started to get my strength back and felt confident that I could talk like a halfway’s normal human being again and maybe thank him at last for saving both me and Gino from who knows what kind of tragedy.
    Instead though, for some reason all I said was: “So what were you doing reading my brother’s texts?”
    For the first time since I’d met him I noticed a slight flush go into his cheeks, even though his face remained completely rigid and unreadable. Then to my surprise he smiled a little, a kind of wry grin that could have meant anything in the world and would, over the coming days and weeks, grow to cause me many moments of frustrated curiosity and personal conjecture each time it appeared.
    “I think he’s with Lisa,” Romeo said, “he left his phone at my place.”
    I narrowed my eyes slightly. I knew I had no right to press him after all he’d done for me but the words were already out before I had a chance to stop them, propelled forward by the growing caffeine rush and the still-surging anxiety of the circumstances. “You didn’t answer my question.”
    Romeo considered me levelly with those big deep bottomless pools that he somehow got away with calling his “eyes” and then he said: “You don’t approve of Lou’s work much, do you?”
    “No,” I answered, “as a matter of fact I don’t. And like you said, it’s your work too, right?”
    “Right,” Romeo nodded, “that’s right. So you shouldn’t ask about it or even want to get mixed up in it at all. Stick to your studies and make something proper of your life and just forget about whatever else goes on. But I will say this: the kind of work we do doesn’t wait around until we’re ready—when it calls, it