Romeo of the Streets by Taylor Hill

refused to answer his calls for the next few days and we stayed in at the apartment, hitting the books by day and watching movies, drinking cocktails and playing board-games by night, sometimes with Paulie and another girl Cassandra that we knew from class. At some point it must have dawned on Lou that he’d really messed things up because his calls and texts started bombarding us much more frequently and in the end Lisa had to just turn off her phone and leave it off from then on completely. Even though nobody had mentioned it, I was mentally preparing myself for the moment when Lou would pull up outside on his motorcycle and start banging on our door, demanding to enter, and I was already trying to think of what I would say to get him to leave again when that moment came—but thankfully it never happened.
    No, it wasn’t until the next day, at lunch in the cafeteria, when Lou finally turned up to beg Lisa for a second chance…
    Me, Lisa and Paulie were sitting at a table, none of us saying anything and all of us barely picking at our food (we’d had one too many cocktails the night before, again , and I was beginning to realize that we’d have to set some serious ground-rules about the cocktail kit now that me and Lisa were living in the same apartment. Either that or just throw it out the window altogether, before we became full-blown alcoholics), when I looked up to see a forlorn and affronted-looking Lou striding across the cafeteria floor towards us.
    His eyes were wide and puffy as though he’d been up all night and his goatee was bolstered by the approaching fuzz of two days or more’s worth of stubble.
    “Baby!” he called, “I’ve been worried sick about you. Why haven’t you been answering my calls?”
    Lisa said nothing, her gaze firmly fixed on her spaghetti and meatballs.
    “Lou…” Paulie said, standing up and holding out an arm to still him as he approached. (Paulie had been a childhood friend of me and Lou growing up, exactly in between us in age, one year older than me and one year younger than Lou. Even though I’d always kind of known from the moment I was old enough to understand such things, it had taken Lou completely by surprise when Paulie had come out of the closet the previous year and it always made me a little proud of my brother that he hadn’t turned against Paulie like all the other tough guys in the neighborhood did when they heard the news. Coming out as gay on the Orange Grove was probably one of the bravest things I could think of for anybody to do.)
    “Paulie,” Lou said, his frantic eyes still fixed on Lisa, “you were always my friend, but this doesn’t concern you. Now let me speak to my girl.”
    At that moment my temper erupted and I shot to my feet, leveling my finger at my brother. “She doesn’t want to speak to you, ok!” I shouted, “So just leave her alone! And what the hell were you doing, Lou—getting mixed up with Pete Van Diem and those animals like that anyway? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
    The whole cafeteria was staring at us now and I felt my cheeks turn red as my anger dissipated. Great, I thought, everybody already half-suspected me of being some kind of gangster’s moll, coming from the Orange Grove like I did (not to mention what had happened to my father) and now they’d think I had something to do with this Wild Cats affair too—an event which was already becoming the number one gossip on everybody’s lips on campus that week. Excellent, thanks a lot Lou…
    A cold and unfamiliar look came over his face that unnerved me to see on him and Lou smiled. “Get myself killed?” he said, “Sandy, no offense, but you haven’t got a clue…” He looked back to Lisa, who was doing her best not to show her inner-turmoil and embarrassment as she stared down at the table in front of her. “Baby,” he said, his face softening again, “I’m sorry, ok?”
    “Come on buddy,” Paulie said, putting his hand on Lou’s shoulder