Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
R onan
Now would be my chance to talk to Kate. Ava’s convinced her stay and take a swim with her and Sabrina, so it’s perfect.
Except I don’t swim. Not anymore.
I can’t help but think it’s strange that Sabrina didn’t mention she was going to go swimming when she pulled me aside to talk to me. She couldn’t wait to tell me about some dream she had about me and then give me a rundown of everything she planned to do today, but she never said a thing about spending time in the pool this afternoon.
Then again, what does it matter? What she does with her days has nothing to do with me.
“See anything interesting out there?” Matthias asks behind me.
I slowly turn around to see him smiling. I’m not sure what he’s thinking, but he’s way off base.
“No. Why?”
He shrugs as if he meant nothing by his question, but I know what he and his wife are up to. They think having Kate here will make me happy. They aren’t wrong, but it’s not as simple as they think it is. It’s not like I’m the same old Ronan I used to be. That guy would have no problem chatting her up and asking her out on a date. I know Kate as well as I know myself, so old me would be sure to say exactly the right thing.
This version of me isn’t that guy.
“You going swimming? I’d love to, but I have a meeting in fifteen minutes I can’t avoid.”
My brother has no idea how much I wish I could just throw on swimming trunks and dive into the pool. It’s not that easy, though.
“I don’t think so,” I say as I turn back toward the window and see Kate walk onto the pool deck.
“Why not? It’s hot out, and I’m sure you’re sick of sitting in the house doing nothing. Aren’t you?”
Now I shrug, not because I actually like hiding out here like some kind of freak who can’t go out in public, but because no matter what I say to explain what I’m feeling, he won’t understand. I’m not like him. I never was, but now it’s different.
I’m not like anyone else either.
“You should,” he says, continuing to push like he always has. “You and Ava get along, and I know you like Kate. You seem to have formed some kind of friendship with Sabrina too, so why not join them?”
Spinning around, I snap, “Because I don’t want to! Stop bothering me about this. I’m not like you. I’m fine with being alone inside the house here.”
Matthias steps back in surprise at my outburst but doesn’t stop his pushing. “I’m just trying to help, Ronan. I don’t want to see you wither away here when you have your whole life ahead of you.”
I lift my right arm up in front of him. “My whole fucking life? I have nothing ahead of me. Everything there was for me to look forward to is gone. So don’t give me your bullshit about having my whole life ahead of me.”
As usual, pity fills his eyes, something I hate more than anything else. I can handle anything but pity.
But then my oldest brother surprises me with a little anger of his own.
Taking a step toward me, he stops just inches away. “Nobody’s trying to make you do anything. We all just want to help you. You do have your whole life ahead of you, whether you want to believe it or not. Ava and I wanted you to stay here with us because we were afraid you might try to hurt yourself again if you stayed in your apartment. We’re not asking for a medal or anything, but could you try to remember we fucking care?”
He doesn’t give me a chance to reply, even though I’m not sure what I’d say, and spins on his heel to march toward the hallway on his way to his office for that meeting. I get I’m not exactly the best houseguest, but what the fuck? He acts like I want to be stuck inside here watching the only woman I ever loved outside having fun when all I wish I could do is talk to her.
I take one last look at Kate as she dangles her feet in the shallow end of the pool. She always was timid about swimming. Any time she and I would spend the day at the pool here when we were together, it would take her forever to finally get her whole body in the water.
She’s like that with everything, though. Cautious to extremes, she prefers to stand on the sidelines as other people blaze a trail ahead of her. She hates that she’s like that too, and I can see by her tiny frown that hasn’t changed, but I never had a problem with her being so timid. I was brash enough for both of us.
I hold Kate’s hand and feel it getting sweatier by the second. She has no reason to be nervous. I’d never let anything hurt her.
“Ronan, please. It’s okay. We don’t have to do this. We can just go back to the lodge. I actually could really use a hot chocolate right about now,” she says, her teeth chattering with every syllable.
Looking around at the top of the slope, I watch as everyone passes us and eagerly attacks the hill. “You have to get down to the lodge anyway, so why not try to enjoy yourself?” I ask with a smile.
Her blue eyes grow big, and for the fifth time, she looks down the hill with nothing but pure terror in them. Shaking her head, she tightens her hold on my hand.
“I can’t. I told you I didn’t know how to ski. Why couldn’t you just let me be my non-skiing self?”
I hear tears in her voice, so I lean over and kiss her softly. “It’s okay. I promise you’re going to have a good time. Just stick with me, and you’ll be fine.”
“No, I’ll be dead.”
“You won’t be dead. So you fall? No big deal. I promise if I see you fall, I’ll fall too. Then the two of us can slide down the hill on our asses. Come on. Take a deep breath, tell yourself you’re going to be fine, and stay with me, okay?”
Once again she turns to look at the hill we need to ski down and shakes her head. “What if I break my leg? Are you going to take care of me day and night if I can’t walk? See, that’s what I’m afraid of. I’ll break my leg, and then I’ll be stuck at home until spring comes.”
I love every part of her, including her wild imagination. “I promise that if you break your leg, which you won’t, but if you do, I’ll wait on you hand and foot the entire time you can’t walk.”
Kate levels her suspicious gaze on me. “You know, if I get hurt, we won’t have sex for God only knows how long. Ever think of that?”
I’m an eighteen-year-old guy. All I think of is sex. I can barely be near Kate without wanting to get her alone.
“You have no idea what even being around you makes me want to do, so yes, I think of sex with you. You’re not going to get hurt.”
She still isn’t convinced, and we’re never going to get down this hill at this rate. Time for me to break out the big guns.
I set my hands on her shoulders and stare into her eyes. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course, I do,” she answers with an eyeroll.
“No, I mean really trust me. Like you believe in your heart I’d never let anything hurt you level of trust.”
“Ronan, I do trust you. I would never have come on this skiing trip if I didn’t.”
“Then I’m going to let go of you, and you’re going to ski down this hill. It’s just a medium size hill. You made it down the baby slope fine. You can do this.”
That gets me a pretty pout I secretly love. “The baby slope was for babies, Ronan. This is for people who know how to ski, which isn’t me.”
We’ve been standing here for ten minutes already. If we keep talking about skiing instead of actually skiing, she’ll never conquer her fears.
The time has come for us to get down this hill.
I slip my gloves back on and set my poles in the snow. “We need to get to that lodge for some hot chocolate. Get ready.”
She tries to fight me even more, but as soon as she gets her gloves on, I know we can go. I give her a tiny push, and she screams like I just set her on fire.
“Ronan! Nooooooo!”
There’s no turning back now, so I follow her, catching up pretty quickly. Side-by-side, we ski down the mountain slower than I’ve ever moved on skis in my life. She doesn’t fall, surprisingly, and even though she looks completely petrified every time I look over at her, she makes it down like a champ.
We reach the bottom, and now that we’ve conquered what I imagine will be the only adult hill we’ll tackle today, I stop next to her and give her a kiss. “You did great! You didn’t fall once, and you made it down in one piece. You want to go again?”
Instantly, I see by the look of horror on her face that I’m pushing my luck, so I smile and say, “Then hot chocolate it is.”
“If you want to go again or hang out with your brothers, I’ll be fine. I just can’t do this.”
I kiss her again. “You already did, but it’s okay. I don’t want to be with them today. I’m fine curling up with you and some hot chocolate in the hotel room.”
She gives me a knowing look and starts removing her skis. “You just want to get to the room to have sex. I’ll be lucky if I get a sip of hot chocolate before you make a move. I know you, Ronan King.”
There’s no doubt if I’m not skiing that I’d like to be in bed with her. I’m a red-blooded American male with the only girl I want in the entire world.
“I promise you can drink a whole hot chocolate before I make any moves. Deal?”
Kate looks at me with her typical sweetness and kisses me, her cold nose touching mine. “Deal.”
I lie back on my bed as the memory of our one and only ski trip together slowly fades away. We did get hot chocolate, but Theo sidetracked us with whatever girl he was with that weekend so we didn’t get back to our hotel room for a couple hours.
And just as Kate suspected, I couldn’t wait to be with her as soon as we were alone.
More than once, Kellen and Marius asked me why I didn’t want to find girls who were more like me. They thought I needed someone more adventurous who would be a good time, but I told them the same thing every time they said that.
I don’t need someone like me. All I need is Kate.
Never once did I regret that choice. When I was with her, I felt like I was in the only place in the world I belonged. She accepted me for who I was, and I loved her for who she was.
When I was with Kate, I was home in every sense of the word.
Regret fills me for what I did to ruin what we had. Why did I go with that girl who meant nothing to me when I had the one for me already? Every time I’ve asked myself that question, I’ve lied and told myself I was lonely and it wasn’t a big deal. So I went with someone else one time? We could have gotten past that if she just realized I’d never do it again.
That answer worked for a long time, but now it rings hollow. It was wrong to think cheating on her wasn’t important. She trusted me, and I blew it. I took that trust and threw it away for one lousy night with someone who was available and meant nothing to me.
God, I was stupid.
When I had my whole life to look forward to, as Matthias likes to say, I could lie to myself and think I didn’t miss Kate and all we had together. She went on with her life, and I went on with mine.
Even though I never really moved on.
But now that I have nothing to look forward to, I understand. I had everything once. I had someone who loved me not for what I could do or how much money I had but for me.
And I threw it all away for nothing.