"Are you ready for this?" Lynelle asked.
Roman looked at his girlfriend with a smile on his face. Her soft brown eyes were glistening in the sun. He moved a hand over to tuck her long, straight, black hair behind her ear, and leaned down to give her a kiss.
"I'm ready, pretty woman," he said.
"Good," she said. "They're gonna love you."
He was about to meet her friends for the first time. They were going to a garden barbeque party so not everyone there would be part of her circle of friends, but everyone who mattered to her would be there.
She opened the door and they stepped inside the house. Music and voices reached them from the garden. They walked through the house and were greeted by a lot of happy faces. She introduced him to several people and he did his best trying to remember all their names.
"Roman?" A woman asked.
Roman turned his head and his smile dropped. There was a face he hadn't seen in many years. Becky Lynch. He remembered her as the annoying friend of the adopted sister to his ex girlfriend Renee Young. A dark time in his life that he had tried to forget about.
"Becky," Roman sighed.
"And who's this?" Becky asked.
"I'm his girlfriend," Lynelle said.
At least that made Roman feel a bit at ease that Becky wasn't one of Lynelle's friends.
"You know he has a record, right?" Becky asked.
Lynelle moved her eyes to Roman and saw all color had drained from his face.
"He's a registered sex offender," Becky said.
"Roman?" Lynelle asked.
"I'm sorry," Roman mumbled.
Roman bolted back inside the house. Lynelle ran after him but he was too fast for her. He stormed through the house and down the street. He needed to get far away from that house and everyone inside it. Becky had spilled his darkest secret to Lynelle and there was no coming back from it. He had tried to forget about his past but his past clearly hadn't forgotten about him. It was best to just run and hide no matter how much it broke his heart.