“Why?”
His fingers tightened on the keys in his hand. “I’m sure Luna is fine, and you have nothing to worry about. But it’s a different world out there, and it’s not something I want for you.”
AT THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY,I called Luna and set up a time to meet after class. Lucian told me he’d be working late all week, and I didn’t feel like sitting around the house by myself.
Luna was excited that I’d followed through, and before I knew it, we’d set up a lunch date on the Strip. We met at the Shake Shack across from the MGM, and she was ten minutes late. When she showed up with her wild red hair in a mess, she explained her blunder by pointing at the broken flip-flop that hung loose from her foot.
“I swear I go through a pair of these a week in this heat.” She blew the hair from her face, exposing eyes that were lighter than what I expected of the typical Roma. But her skin was coppery like mine, and something was hypnotic about her features.
She was a living, breathing piece of art that left you emptier if you dared to look away. In another lifetime, she would have made a great con artist because I doubted many men could resist the mysterious bombshell. But the longer I took in her features, the more I realized she was better suited to a different life altogether. With the symbolic tattoos on her fingers and the bangles dangling off her delicate wrist, I could just as easily imagine her in a field picking flowers or casting spells in the dark of night.
In a way, her free spirit reminded me of Birdie, and it made me miss my sister. But I tried not to dwell on it when Luna sat down across from me and let me indulge my craving for a bacon cheeseburger while she nibbled on some fries.
“God, this is delicious,” I moaned. “Lucian never eats stuff like this.”
Luna dunked a fry in some ketchup and popped it in her mouth. “He’s missing out. How long have you two been together?”
It took me a while to formulate the correct answer to that question. This friendship thing was a foreign concept for me, and I didn’t know how much to tell her. I could give her a million different scenarios at the drop of a hat, and I’d done it plenty of times. But I didn’t really want to.
I also didn’t want to betray Lucian by revealing too much about our relationship when I wasn’t even sure what was happening myself. So, I settled somewhere on a happy middle ground. “It hasn’t been long. It was somewhat of a shotgun wedding type scenario.”
“The gypsy blood runs strong in you then.” Luna laughed.
“Not really.” I smirked. “I don’t know much about the culture. My mom spoke very little of it because I think it hurt her to remember. She was shunned, so she had to leave it behind.”
“Ugh, that sucks.” Luna pushed away her empty fry boat and wiped her hands. “Some of the communities can be very hardcore traditional, and if you don’t conform, they’ll give you the boot really quick.”
“Sounds like you know from experience,” I said carefully.
Her pretty features shadowed with sorrow as she gave a tiny nod. “Unfortunately, I do. But this community here is different. They are very open. It didn’t take long for them to embrace me.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I said.
“You should come over with me,” she chirped. “It would be cool to show you around.”
I wiped my hand with a napkin, Lucian’s words still ringing in my head. He didn’t want me to go there. He specifically told me not to. But had I really just started obeying his every command as though I didn’t have my own mind?
No. That was definitely not the case. It wouldn’t ever be the case. And just because things were evolving between us didn’t mean I was going to be his stay-at-home pet who waited at the door for him to come home every night.
“I think that would be fun,” I told Luna. “I’d like to come check it out.”
She picked up the tray and headed for the trash. “Awesome! You’re going to love it.”
When Luna said she was taking me to the community, I assumed it was somewhere in the city. But she started driving and didn’t slow down until we reached the desert, and even then, she kept going for miles before the commune appeared.
Her eyes lit up as she gestured to the flock of camp trailers parked in the middle of the desert. “Voila!”
“This is it?”
Luna parked the car in front of a small blue camper, and we both got out. “Yep. It’s quiet here now, but give it another hour or so, and it’ll get wild.”
I offered her a weak smile as my fingers grazed the links of the watch Lucian gave me. Stupidly, I thought I’d be back before he even noticed I was gone. But at this rate, it didn’t seem like that would be the case.
I followed Luna through the maze of trailers into the heart of the camp where a bunch of chairs and a fire pit were set up. Along the way, she introduced me to a few of the community members who had taken notice of me. There were a variety of people, young and old, and I could see what Luna meant when she said they weren’t all gypsies. She’d called them societies outcasts, and that net spanned far and wide. I didn’t know what I was expecting when I came out here, but the reality was completely different.
Everyone was clean and well fed and happy… and most notably, social. It seemed as if every person we passed stopped to say hello along the way, and they all knew Luna by name.
“People just live out here in the middle of the desert all year?” I asked.