princesscupcake | you're a bad-hearted boy-trap, babydoll, but you're so damn hot.

"Are you ever going to invite me or do I just have to show up?" Whatever the answer may be. He is going to show up. It's expected.

An exhale and he blows smoke upward. He'll even make a show of tapping ash as close to the direction of the water as he can.

"Do you even use it for anything?" Besides all the gear to go out on the boats? Just bullshit of course. He comes closer. "Arson is kids stuff."

"Why do I need to bother?" she counters with a grin. "I know you'll show up if your family's in town."

She holds out her hand, but then turns it into a beckoning gesture. "Arson is purposeful. I half expect you to flick some ash over your shoulder and poof!" Her hands go up around her.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you didn't care if I was here." And that makes any spoiled son of a bitch rather indignant.

Roman comes closer. One more inhale and he artfully flicks the oh so problematic cig into the water. "At least it would be a memorable highlight of the evening. And you'd have zero proof I was here. He reaches out to her one hip for each hand.

"Zero proof that you were here if the boathouse burns down?" she reiterates dryly, and allows the hands that rest on her hips to pull her toward him, creating a press of their bodies between.

"Will it make you stop pouting if I invite you?" she teases, tilting her head back so she can look up at him.

He shakes his head no but his smile says yes. Body to body warmth combats the cooler temperature from off of the water. Roman cranes his neck to keep eye contact.

"It's a start." He's always liked her. She gets what it's like to be perceived as one thing and exist as something else entirely. It always seems like some sort of game of cat and mouse.

"Did you bring a boyfriend this time?"

"Roman, will you come to all the parties I throw until your mother decides it's time to pack your bags and run back to Hemlock Grove?" she purrs in invitation, and ends it with a soft, wry laugh.

"No. But if I did, that wouldn't stop you."

"Lydia, I'd love to come to all of your parties until I am forced back to Hemlock Grove." As though it's some formal vow. He leans enough to nose her hair. She always smells good.

"Uh huh. Always a smart girl." Body to body, hip to hip. They're very familiar with one another for not being much of friends. "The party won't miss it's hostess. I've got time. Want to take a walk in the dark?"

She hasn't told him what all these parties have been for. That she's been encouraged by her mother to re-connect with her friends in the wake of Allison's death. After the fact it's not so much that she doesn't care whether Roman shows up, it's that these parties are less important to her than one may expect. Even if they're awesome parties as a point of pride.

So basically she's perfectly happy to let them run without her for a while.

"Sure." One of her hands trails to one of his hands on her hips and laces her fingers into his.

Oh but to make him feel a little important to think so is it so much a crime? They might be on a similar wavelength for just wanting company. Roman is going to be a senior this year. He still feels as empty and alone as ever. Who knows what the hell the year will hold? There is that gypsy kid that's his friend. A real one. So out of the norm.

Parties mean people, people mean distraction. Lydia is beautiful and distracting. If only he'd care to try a little harder to do more than simply amuse her in return. Hand in hand, he takes the lead in a lazy, leisurely stroll. Her hands are warm and soft. His own firm but cool.

"How do you get away with all of that?" he nods in the direction of the noise.

"Grief." she says, in a tone that may have some simmering of resentment. Her fingers briefly tighten against his.

"My mom wants me to 'get back into the world'. Connect with people."

She has yet to mention Allison to him.

He's quiet, ears open to her words and the soft sounds of crickets. Maybe a frog now and then. Grief, huh? "Sounds like some heavy shit." To put lightly.

"Have you told her what you want?" The pace of their walk is unhurried.

"A friend of mine - my best friend in the entire world? She died. Violently." Lydia explains, her eyes shifting to stare straight ahead. For a moment she has the surreal feeling that it all happened to someone else.

"I knew something was going to happen." Don't ask her how. "I did everything I could to stop it and it still wasn't enough. My mom loves me, and she doesn't know how bad it actually got. She doesn't need to know. She'd freak out, and I don't want to put that kind of stress on her shoulders."

She turns her head to look at him, smirking a little, though it doesn't meet her eyes. "I'm very good at making people think I'm whatever I want them to think I am."

Walking doesn't stop but it sure slows down. Roman's brow furrows and he lets her keep talking. Surreal is a very appropriate word for that. Violent deaths, deaths alone at this age when you believe you've got your whole damn life ahead of you. That's fucked up to start with.

"You should do what makes you happy." As happy as a person can be with a deceased best friend in the entire world. He's never been too good at personal connections or comfort but Roman is certainly trying. He gives Lydia's hand a squeeze. "That's what your mom would want if she actually got it. I mean, your friend would too... right?"

A soft laugh that isn't so merry, but it's not sarcastic, either. "I'm still figuring out what makes me happy." she replies, casting a sidelong glance at him. "I mean, aren't you?"

Her laugh makes his heart hurt more than he thought it would. Roman thought he would be the one on the defensive but Lydia is a very skilled at getting right to the place where it will bleed the most. Cad and general womanizer, he doesn't like to hurt people or see people hurt. Especially girls.

Instead of looking at her he looks to the moonlight on the water. It's not full. Not that it matters. It's still big and bright.

Roman Godfrey is trying to figure out what makes him happy. Sometimes that is like trying to find a black cat at midnight. "Yeah. I am." He looks back again to her face.

"For what it's worth. I'm sorry. And sorry you gotta deal." He swallows and continues. "I can be someone to talk to if you want. Or just. Whatever." In that well-meant teenage Shakespearean tongue. "Try and make you happy for a little bit."

Her smile becomes a little more genuine as she tilts her head back to look at him.

She knows, she knows, that Roman Godfrey is not a nice person. On some level he's not a particularly good person, either.

But he wants to be. She knows that too.

"How would you make me happy, Roman?"

They're talking about sad things, but a moment of levity helps ease the momentary pain.

Terrible people with good intentions is the stuff of all tragedies and monsters. Lydia has a good head on her shoulders. Why she chooses to trust him is unknown.

"That depends on the lady's favor. I happen to have a modest pharmaceutical collection. I know where we can get hot fudge with toasted nuts at any hour. I know how to get into my mother's walk in." Pretty list that he's trying to keep out of the I can buy almost anything territory. "I'm a great lay." To finish with. The best she could do is laugh it all off. Would that be a happy thing.

"The first aren't the best idea for me." Not that she's disapproving of what anyone else wants to smoke or swallow or snort, but she receives plenty of somewhat hallucinatory stimuli due to her bansheeness as it is that she doesn't want to open those horizons.

"Hot fudge is tempting, though to clarify, her walk-in closet, or her walk-in fridge?" She's not even gonna lie, Olivia Godfrey's fashion sense is pretty sharp.

As to the last, slyly, "Really?"

"No drugs." Eaaasily dismissed. He nods and keeps his ear open for the rest, sure that something will work.

"Closet for shoes and clothes." Who wouldn't want that?

Ah. There we are. Green eyes gleam."I wouldn't offer if I didn't want to try."

"You wanted chocolate sauce and chopped peanuts and sex? All at the same time?" She's teasing him now. "Kinky."

Roman shrugs. "Life's short. Get what you want." His delivery is sincere and oh so aware that it is like he's reciting a bumper sticker.

"I wouldn't cover you in chocolate. Not at first." He's just mature enough to leave out a nuts joke. With his fingers laced in hers they're still putting her temporary home at a distance. "I think it's safe to say you're sweet enough."

"Are you sure about that?" she asks playfully. "If you're willing to find out," Her fingers laced in his, she swings their hands back and forth, the gesture for a moment is almost childlike, "Lay on, MacDuff."

"Willing and able." But more importantly: "The Lady Godfrey is not at home. So." He shrugs. Their hands still swing and there is now a direction to head to. Another house on the lake. In fact close enough to see Lydia's own vacation home. The lights aren't all on. Only a few. It's more of a beacon.

you're a bad-hearted boy-trap, babydoll, but you're so damn hot.

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