21. Twenty-One
TWENTY-ONE
R onan was still asleep when I woke the next morning.
Or he was pretending to be asleep. Which one?
I wasn’t certain. The steady rhythm of his breathing suggested he was down and out.
I took advantage of the situation to study him up close.
The man didn’t seem to have a single pore on his face.
It was ridiculous. Even after a long night of sex, he was a beautiful specimen.
It wasn’t fair. I knew my hair looked like birds had been nesting in it, and I tended to wake up with blotchy skin.
“Stop doing whatever weird thing you’re doing,” he ordered in a sleepy voice, catching me off guard.
I frowned. “How do you know I’m doing something weird?” I was honestly curious.
“Because you’re you.”
An insult was buried somewhere in there. I just knew it. “I wasn’t doing anything weird.”
Slowly, he opened his eyes. The only thing he could see was my face as I loomed over him. “You don’t consider this weird?”
I shrugged. “Do you know you don’t have any pores?”
“And good morning to you.” He shifted slightly, his lips curving. “I’m fairly certain that, no matter what you think, I have pores. They’re just small.”
“It’s not fair. Women pay exorbitant amounts of money to shrink their pores, and here you are. Do you even wash your face?”
“Most nights, yes. Last night, I had other things on my mind.” He gave me a wolfish smile and poked my side. Then he sobered. “How are you feeling?”
Did he think he’d screwed me into a hip injury or something? “You’re good. You’re not that good.”
His brow furrowed, then he caught up. “That’s not what I was asking. Although, to be fair, we both know I was that good last night.”
I liked that he wasn’t being egotistical. He was just telling the truth. Still, I wasn’t going to puff him up. “If you say so.” I poked his cheek. “Seriously, why do you look so good in the morning?”
“That seems like a question I can’t answer.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Well, think about it now.”
He made an exasperated sound deep in his throat. “Perhaps it’s just luck of the draw.”
“That makes it worse. I mean, zero effort—you don’t even care—and yet you look as if you walked off the pages of a fashion magazine.”
Color suffused his cheeks as embarrassment washed over him. “Thank you” was all he managed.
I snorted. “It wasn’t a compliment. I was simply lamenting that the only magazine cover I could be on is Homeless Hussies of the Vegas Strip .”
He burst out laughing, then he caught himself. “You don’t really think that’s true, do you?”
“Yes.” I answered with no hesitation. “I think it’s absolutely true. I look as if I’ve been sleeping in a wind tunnel, and you look as if you’ve never had a better night’s sleep.”
“Maybe that’s because I was sharing a bed with you.” He hadn’t meant to say that, which was written all over his face. Still, he didn’t take it back. “Are you always this energetic first thing in the morning?”
“No.” I turned rueful. “Normally, I’m a slug who never wants to get out of bed.”
“So what’s different this morning?”
“I can only think of one thing.” Slowly, my hand drifted lower on his stomach. “I know we said last night was a mistake?—”
“We’re very mistake prone of late,” he acknowledged.
“Since we already agreed that the morning and night count as the same incident, I was thinking we could make another mistake and then talk about what we’re going to do about all of this over breakfast.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You want to make the mistake first?”
“Don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” He scratched his chin, making me realize the goatee he’d been boasting the day I first saw him was gone. When had that happened? “I’ve always been a proponent of eating my vegetables before dessert.”
“I like how you had vegetables.” I laughed, although it sounded hollow even to my own ears. “Sharon’s idea of vegetables was mashed potatoes at KFC.”
Ronan’s body went rigid, and I immediately felt guilty.
“I shouldn’t have said that.” I dragged a hand through my hair, but it snagged. “I always take it to a creepy and weird place. I can’t seem to help myself.”
“No, it’s okay.” He grabbed my hand and extricated it from my hair. “I don’t want you to censor what you say in front of me.”
“What am I saying that’s worth listening to?”
“You say a lot of things worth listening to.” He was stern. “As for your mother?—”
“Sharon,” I automatically corrected.
“Sharon,” he conceded. “You’re allowed to feel what you feel about her. She was a terrible mother.”
“Most people like her,” I muttered. “Even the people who know she’s a terrible mother like her because she has a charming streak a mile wide. It’s so frustrating.”
He pursed his lips. “I don’t remember the other mothers liking her when we were in high school.”
“Oh, the mothers hated her,” I agreed. “They assumed because she was from a lower wealth class that she was out to steal their husbands. The problem is, they were right. She would’ve gladly stolen any or all of their husbands.”
“Still, that couldn’t have been easy for you,” he persisted.
“She didn’t care about that.”
He shook his head, frustration exploding out of him. “I care! I do. It’s okay to have feelings about all of this. Stop trying to stuff it all down. That’s your freaking problem. You never talk about anything and instead let it build up until you turn into Chernobyl.”
His vehemence took me by surprise. “I … um…” What was I supposed to say here? The full breadth of his words hit me. “Did you just equate me to Chernobyl?”
He laughed, relieving the bulk of the tension strangling the oxygen out of the room. He was serious as he regarded me. “You’re a good person, Tallulah. You have a bad temper. Nobody who understands your history blames you for it.”
“But?” I dreaded hearing whatever caveat he was going to tack on to that statement.
“But you have to want to move past this, and I’m not sure you do.” He seemed as if he was talking to himself more than me.
“Meaning what?” I demanded, gearing up to be offended enough to kick him out of my apartment.
“Meaning that you choose to live in the fallout rather than put it behind you.” He was rueful. “It’s your only negative trait.”
I wanted to argue with him—so very much—but I couldn’t. Too much sincerity was in his eyes. “I don’t know how to be any different” was all I could manage.
He cupped the back of my head and drew me close, causing my breath to clog in my lungs. “You do know how to be different, baby. You’re just afraid to let go of your anger because it’s all you had for the longest time.”
There was that shrink speak again. Sadly, it resonated with me. “Maybe I’m better off holding on to that anger. That way nobody, including my mother, will ever be able to use me again.”
“You don’t need to hold on to your anger to remember who your mother is. You have some coping mechanisms. You need more, though.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I grumbled. “I get why you’re angry with your father—I really do—but on his worst day, Norbert Hawthorne looks like an angel compared to Sharon.”
“He does,” Ronan agreed, not missing a beat. “In some ways, he’s worse, though. You don’t feel the same pressure I do.”
“Because Sharon never expected me to amount to anything.”
“Well, you’ve already proven her wrong on that front. You need to believe that to let go.”
He made it sound so simple. “Where did we land on the sex?” I demanded, desperate to change the subject.
He smirked, seemingly amused by my frustration. “We’re going to have our vegetables first this morning. We’ll head out to breakfast and talk. Depending on how the conversation goes, we’ll decide on the sex later.”
That sounded like zero fun. “I always hated vegetables.”
He laughed as if I’d said the funniest thing in the world. “Everybody has to grow up sometime, baby.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
He leaned over and kissed my forehead, catching me by surprise with the tender action. “You’ll feel better after breakfast.”
I had my doubts, but he was determined, so I merely nodded. “Breakfast it is.”
WE WENT TO ALEXXA’S, ONE OF MY FAVORITE breakfast spots. It was on the Strip, so tourists were an issue, but I wasn’t worried about tourists seeing us. Even if they did and managed to place us, they wouldn’t care that we were together.
“So, what’s the deal?” I asked as I sipped my coffee. We’d already ordered. Now, we had nothing to do but stare at one another and contemplate the stupid things we kept doing.
Ronan’s smile was soft when he directed it at me. “Do you want me to ask which deal you’re referring to?”
“Let’s not play that game, huh?”
“Fine. We won’t play that game.” He licked his lips. “I don’t think I can stay away from you.”
The way he just blurted it out like that threw me. “You don’t?”
“I don’t,” he confirmed. “We’ve tried that, right from the start, and it’s not going well for either of us.”
“Yeah, it’s really not.” I sipped more coffee. “I’m still not in a place where I can be in a relationship.” I meant that. My head was all over the place these days. Sharon’s appearance meant that wouldn’t change. I had to get it together. It would take more than a wish to make that happen, though.
“I’m not in a place where I can be in a relationship either,” he confirmed.
“So what does that mean?”
“It means maybe we should try something new.”
My eyebrows moved toward one another. “Like what?”
“Like … maybe we should keep having sex.”
I blinked, unable to understand what he was getting at. “And then what?”
He smirked at my confusion. “And nothing. I’m not looking for a relationship. Neither are you. We’re obviously attracted to one another. What if we keep doing what we’re doing but without strings attached?”
Reality hit me in the face. “Oh.” I thought about it. “Friends with benefits, essentially.”
“Yes, but I would throw in a few rules.” Ronan was deadly serious. “The first is, to not turn this into a jealousy thing, I suggest we only see each other. The second somebody wants a real relationship with someone else, we end this arrangement and part as friends.”
The server picked that moment to arrive with our food, which I was grateful for. She filled our coffee mugs, checked to see that we didn’t need anything else, and then headed out.
“So we’d be faithful to each other?” I asked as soon as she was gone.
“I don’t want to worry about STDs. I’m a little old for that.”
I was right there with him. “So we’re monogamous but only until it gets to be too much for one or both parties.”
“That’s it in a nutshell,” he agreed. “Do you think you’re up for that?”
I dipped my toast in my egg yolk and took time to really consider it. “I haven’t dated anybody in a long time. This wouldn’t really be like dating, though.”
“It kind of would,” he hedged. “I don’t see any reason we can’t go to dinner and a movie. It’s just… I don’t want too many emotions getting involved. That’s where we’ll find trouble.”
“Do you think you can have sex without feelings?”
“I can try. Maybe that should be a consideration too. If somebody thinks they’re catching feelings, we’ll end things immediately. That way, nobody will be hurt.”
“Catching feelings?” I was amused despite myself. “That is a hilarious way to put it.”
“I thought you might like it.” His smile was warm and friendly, and it did funny things to my insides.
I pursed my lips, considering. “You do realize that fraternization in the same department is a no-no, right? Kyla has brought that up more than once.”
“Kyla.” He made a growling sound deep in his throat. “I’m not too worried about her. She’s proven to be problematic on more than one front. All we have to do to keep her out of our business is not let her know what we’re doing. It’s not as if we flirt at work.”
We bantered. Occasionally, we insulted one another. That wasn’t flirting, though. Well, mostly. “I don’t dislike the idea. We both need to be careful at work. When we’re on shift, we’re just two people who used to go to high school together.”
“I agree.” He forked up some of his omelet. “We should also keep this arrangement to ourselves because … well, you know why.”
“You’re worried that I’ll tell Livvie,” I guessed.
“I like Olivia,” he said hurriedly. “I like Zach and Rex too. If they find out, though, it could backfire on us.”
“It shouldn’t be hard to keep it from Livvie. Her entire life is her pregnancy right now. Plus, she thinks I hate you because of the whole standing me up for prom thing.”
Ronan’s expression went stony. “I don’t like you reminding me of that. It makes me feel guilty.”
“Why should you feel guilty? It was stupid Becky Carpenter. She’s the one who did it. She’s the one who should feel guilty.”
“Yes, well, I still don’t like it.” He used his napkin to wipe the corners of his mouth. “Do you know what happened to her?”
I was suddenly suspicious. “No. You’re not going to track her down and give her a piece of your mind, are you?”
“That wasn’t the plan. I was hoping karma got her.”
“Oh, it did.” I didn’t have to see my reflection to know that my smile was evil. “Last I heard, she married Rodney Buchanan.”
Ronan looked genuinely confused. “Why is that funny?”
“Because Rodney hits on every showgirl he crosses paths with. He takes a blanket approach. For every hundred showgirls he approaches, he’s turned down by ninety-nine of them.”
“What does he do with the one he actually catches?”
“I believe he gives her a raging case of crabs. That’s the rumor I heard anyway.”
“Well, I don’t condone cheating,” Ronan sniffed. “Since it’s happening to Becky, though, it’s okay with me.”
“That’s my philosophy.”
He sipped his juice. “So, we’re agreed? About the arrangement between the two of us, I mean.”
“I agree to your terms.” I jutted out my hand for him to shake.
Amusement lit his eyes as he took it.
“Friends with benefits until whatever this thing is burns out,” I said. “I can’t imagine it will last for long. Then, when it’s over, we’ll go back to being loose friends.”
“We were never really friends,” he reminded me.
“Maybe not, but that was because I thought you stood me up at prom. Now that I know you didn’t purposely do that, I’m okay being your friend.”
“Yeah?” He smiled. “Well, then to our new friendship.” He gripped my hand tightly. “I think it’s going to be a bumpy but fun ride.”
That was exactly what I predicted as well.