Free When In Rome...Find Yourself: A Sweet New Adult Romance by Lena Mae Hill Page B

listen. I have this revolutionary idea.”
    “Well? What is it?” Rory asked after a minute, when Quinn didn’t go on.
    “It’s called you’re twenty-one and Mom can’t tell you what to do anymore.”
    “Oh, come on,” Rory said. “You know that’s not true. Mom will tell us what to do until we’re at least eighty.”
    “But you don’t have to do it,” Quinn said. “Unlike me, who Mom says needs to stop hiding in my room and go to the beach.”
    “Tell her that with our complexion, that qualifies as child abuse.”
    “Yeah, that might work if she wasn’t the one who cursed us with this complexion. Or lack of one.”
    Though Quinn wasn’t cursed with freckles, she was as fair-skinned as Rory, with the kind of lily whiteness that could get sunburned through a beach umbrella dripping sunscreen. But for some unfathomable reason, Winnie loved the beach. In truth, Rory sort of loved it, too.
    She remembered that Rome had some beaches, and made a mental note to go see them, for photos if nothing else. When she finished her conversation with Quinn, she spent the evening sorting through her photos, cropping and editing until she had her best images. Before going to bed, she posted them online, then listened for Ned’s footsteps. He’d been intermittently walking around his room every now and then for most of the evening.
    Rory checked to make sure the hallway was empty and Ned’s door was closed before darting into the bathroom. She wondered what Ned was doing in there. Was he pacing because he felt bad about what had happened? She should probably apologize. He must think she was a total schizo to have rushed off like that over nothing. How could she possibly tell him not to feel guilty, that she’d run away not because she hadn’t liked what he’d done, but because she had?
    Of course, she couldn’t tell him something like that. First, because then he’d know that she liked it, and second, because saying something like that might literally kill her. And she couldn’t do that to her parents after what had happened to her brother.
    When she’d gotten ready for bed, she turned the knob to the bathroom door and peeked out. She slammed shut the bathroom door again, her heart racing. Oh, crap. Ned was in the hall. What now? He’d been standing there, obviously waiting for the bathroom. And she’d slammed the door in his face. If he didn’t think she was certifiable before, he would now.
    She fumbled her phone from her pocket and texted Quinn. “Help! I’m stuck in the bathroom and Ned is outside the door. What should I do?”
    “Did you just stink up the bathroom?” Quinn texted back a minute later. She completed her adorable message by adding a poop emoji.
    Rory dropped her forehead against the door. Oh, no. What if he thought she’d been in there so long because she was pooping, and that’s why she’d slammed the door, because she was embarrassed for him to use the bathroom after her? This was even worse than she’d thought. How had she imagined that living with a guy might be a good thing?
    She texted back. “Ew, no! But how do I get out without having to talk to him? He’s in the hall!”
    “Upstairs or down? Is there a window?”
    “Upstairs. I’m going to die.”
    “He’s not a serial killer. Just pretend he’s not there.”
    Rory didn’t really have much choice, unless she was going to sleep in the bathtub. And although it was an ancient claw foot, adorable really, it didn’t look particularly comfy. She dried her clammy hands with a towel, then squeezed them into fists and took a breath. She could do this. Like Quinn had said, she’d just waltz on by like he wasn’t even there.
    With a giant heave, she yanked open the door. She threw it open so forcefully that it rebounded off the wall with a thud. Ned wasn’t there. She raced to her room, yanked open the door, rushed inside, and slammed the door as she dove onto her bed like a defender recovering a loose football. The headboard