Ronan
ronan
W illow Gray was the bane of my existence. Who did she think she was telling me to keep my trash off her side? She was the one who put her bins on my side of the driveway to begin with. And I still couldn’t believe she thought my trash stunk. It was hers that was awful.
Maybe I’d check inside her bins when I got home, just to make sure she wasn’t disposing of bodies or something.
It was that bad.
Kind of.
I groaned, digging my fingers into my temples. What was wrong with me? I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just stop being an asshole to her—to everyone. Years ago, I thought I might’ve had a crush on her. It was stupid and childish, and once I realized she wasn’t interested in me in the slightest, I backed off. Way off.
When she’d first moved in, I wasn’t in a place to even think about women. After everything that had just happened in my life, they were the furthest thing from my mind. But she was sweet, and she seemed kind.
And then she started with the blaring music, and the dying plants, and the…everything else.
It was enough to make me push away whatever feelings might’ve been growing. We were nothing but bickering neighbors, forced to live in the same tiny duplex. It was a cruel twist of fate—a pretty girl living next door who wasn’t attracted to me the way I was her.
Life wasn’t fair, was it?
“Trin!” I hollered, my voice echoing off the painted cinderblock walls. As expected, there was no reply. Not even a smidge of acknowledgment.
I heaved out a sigh as I glanced back at the computer. I needed to push everything from my mind and focus on work. Thinking about my interaction with Willow wouldn’t change anything. She didn’t like me, and I didn’t like her…right?
No, I didn’t.
Shaking myself, I turned my attention to my computer screen and squinted, feeling my eyes strain as I read Toby’s report for the millionth time this morning.
Daisy Monroe, 33.
$450 cash, a half-burned candle, multiple family cookbooks, a broken digital camera, and a dreamcatcher were all taken from the residence. Monroe was unharmed, but shaken up.
No suspect at this time.
I locked my fingers behind my head as I leaned back in the chair, the leather creaking. There were other valuables in plain sight, but the perp didn’t bother taking them. Why?
A candle? Some cookbooks? A camera that didn’t even work? Why those things?
A few weeks ago, the Tanner family had their home broken into as well. The only things taken were a few coloring books, a dry erase board the family kept their schedule on, and a slow cooker—with a pot roast still cooking inside. If it was the same person, they didn’t seem to want anything worth a dime. They just wanted to cause discomfort, which might’ve been worse.
“Trinity!” I shouted again. I was about to just go get my own damn coffee.
I snatched the pen from the mug at my side and tapped it on the desk. A quick tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap . Seven times. Not six. Not eight. Always seven.
I pulled my phone from my pocket with a sigh and brought up my family group chat.
ME:
Trinity, where are you?
THEO:
Uh-oh! Someone’s in trouble!!
Brynne, did you make my sweet little sister play hookie again?
brYNNE:
Your “sweet little sister” is a psychotic heathen who is a bad influence on ME!
THEO:
All I’m saying is that she didn’t have a tattoo before she met you…
brYNNE:
She was seventeen when she met me. OF COURSE she didn’t have a tattoo, you buffoon.
They continued their conversation, and I sighed, locking my phone. I scanned my office, still tapping my pen on the wood. It wouldn’t be the first time Trin was hiding somewhere in plain sight just to jump out and scare me. But my eyes caught and lingered on my desk, and exhaustion weighed heavily on my shoulders.
The neat stacks of papers seemed to grow by the minute. Why had I agreed to do this job again? It was a never-ending stream of paperwork and townies calling to yell at me.
What was that saying? No good deed went unpunished or some shit?
Not that I thought I was god’s gift to the world, but I liked to believe I made my little corner of it a bit safer. Apart from this string of burglaries, Cedar Ridge was the safest place on the planet. Women didn’t have to worry about walking alone at night, people could usually keep their doors unlocked, and nothing nefarious happened.
Other than calming down the rivalry between Cedar Ridge and Blackrock Bay at The Taphouse, it was a quiet town. Which was what I liked.
Everything was predictable, familiar. I knew exactly what to expect. There were no surprises. It was better this way—safer.
I’d tried to be a cop in the city, but the shit I saw…another breath filled my lungs. There was a reason I came back to my hometown six years ago, and it wasn’t entirely because I missed my family.
I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I didn’t want to be a part of the boys' club with the other cops. Every one of their jokes went against my very nature, against everything I stood for as a man. I bristled. I fought the urge to punch my brothers in blue in the face every time one of them opened their mouth and sexist bullshit fell out.
But I couldn’t do that.
So, I left.
I came back to a place I knew was safe, a place I knew wouldn’t treat its female citizens like that .
I was happy, but it plummeted a year later.
With a groan, I got to my feet and pushed those memories away. It was getting close to the anniversary, but I couldn’t stand to think about it, to remember it. And with every day closer, my OCD got worse, my PTSD reared its ugly head more than usual, and my insomnia was the worst it had ever been.
I hadn’t slept in days. At all. Not even the pretend sleep where I was awake, but my eyes were closed. They were pried open, like that horrific scene in A Clockwork Orange . No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t close them, couldn’t shut off my memories. Images flashed through my mind, reminding me of everything I’d almost lost.
My footsteps echoed as I trudged down the hallway. Another deep breath filled my lungs, and I slowly released it. Before I could take another step, a smaller body barreled into mine. I jolted backward, mostly from surprise, and let my hands instinctively shoot out to grab the person before they fell.
“Gotta go, big bro! Someone was shouting for me!” Trinity wiggled from my grip and blazed past me, her words registering a moment later. Spinning, I grabbed her arm before she could get too far. She bounced on her toes, antsy to get away. “Ro, man. I gotta go!”
“ I was shouting for you,” I said, exasperated, pressing my hand to my chest. “It was me, Trin. Me . I’m the only person with an office back here. You know that?—”
“Oh, it was you?” She tilted her head to the side, her wild blonde hair spilling over her shoulder. Had she even brushed it this morning? I gave myself another moment to take her in, making sure she was whole and alright, then sighed when I realized she wasn’t wearing her uniform. Instead, she had on a yellow cardigan, blue jeans, and a black tank top. “Weird. It didn’t sound like your voice.” Her blue eyes, a mirror of my own, widened. She glanced around as she took a step closer, dropping her voice to a conspiratory level. “Do you think it's a wendigo? Or a shapeshifter?”
“Trin—”
“Wait! Don’t tell me!” She slapped her hand over my mouth, and I blinked at her. Thankfully, my OCD didn’t manifest in fear of germs, but right then, it took all I had not to rip her hand away.
The tip of my middle finger tapped against my thumb.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
“You would tell me if you were one of those pesky creatures, now wouldn’t you?” She eyed me, scrutinizing every detail. I hadn’t finished tapping. I had to start over. “You look like my brother.” Leaning forward, she gave me a deep sniff. “You smell like him, too. Which reminds me, you need a shower?—”
“I took a shower this morning,” I grumbled, finally pulling away from her touch.
“Oh, well…maybe wash better next time.”
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
A relieved breath left me as I tapped my fingers for the seventh time.
She flashed a grin, letting me know she was only teasing. But it didn’t matter, the self-doubt had already crept in. I turned my head, subtly sniffing at my armpit to see if I’d forgotten deodorant this morning.
But I hadn’t. I never do. I wouldn’t.
The movement only made my sister throw herself against the opposite wall and cackle, her laugh nothing but a wheeze. She sounded like a damn kettle whistling.
“Are you done?” I huffed out. Without waiting for her to answer, I whirled around and headed for the kitchen. I needed coffee and some chocolate to get through the rest of my morning.
“Wait up!” She rushed after me, falling into step at my side. “Where are you going? What are you doing? Can I come? I’m soo bored.”
“You shouldn’t be bored,” I countered. “You should be working.”
“I’ve done everything I need to do already.”
“Like what?”
We paused in the kitchen, the fluorescent lights blinding. She held up her hand as she began checking things off with her fingers. “I cleaned out Toby’s desk, which was a total wreck, by the way. And, before you ask, it was not because of me.”
“You emptied six bottles of shaving cream in it.” Her lips tipped up in a wistful smile, and I rolled my eyes. I had to admit Toby kind of deserved it. But I was everyone’s boss, and I couldn’t play favorites.
So I had to make her clean it up and apologize—the latter seemed to be harder for her than the former, which wasn’t surprising.
“Yeah, but he stole my last brownie. It was warranted.”
I grunted as I turned toward the coffeemaker, snatching a mug from the rack on my way. “I also cleaned the kitchen—if you notice the shiny appliances and fresh smelling air.” She wafted her hand in front of her nose, and I glanced around.
It was…not all that cleaner, to be honest.
“I also helped Jess bedazzle her phone,” she continued. “You know, a cute work environment makes for better employees. Just saying. Maybe I should be the boss instead. I’d give everyone bedazzled phones.” She pointed at imaginary people around her, likely about to do her terrible Oprah impression. “You get a bedazzled phone! And you get a?—”
“Dispatch does not need bedazzled phones,” I said, pouring in a generous helping of sugar and cream into my coffee.
“Well, you better get used to it.” She laughed. “Because Tracy wants one, too.”
I dropped my head back with a groan. Of course she did. Because everything Jess did, Tracy had to copy. And then Jess will get mad that the other woman was copying her, and I’d have to hear about it.
Sometimes it was like dealing with toddlers.
Trinity pushed herself onto the counter at my side and swung her feet back and forth. The heels of her Converse hit the cabinets, but she didn’t care. She just grinned away at me.
“So, big bro. How’s life?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
“Can’t a sister ask how her brother is?” She batted her lashes innocently as I took a sip of my coffee, testing the sweetness. “Any potential girlfriends on the horizon?”
I nearly choked, the hot liquid dripping from my mouth and soaking the front of my uniform. Of all the things I thought were about to come from her mouth, that was most certainly not one of them.
“What the fuck, Trin?” I wheezed. “What are you talking about?” She shrugged, but she had a gleam in her eye I didn’t trust.
“I heard Eden is newly single,” she drawled, wiggling her eyebrows. I shook my head as she spoke, turning to grab a fistful of napkins to clean up.
“I’m not interested.”
Eden owned the apothecary in town. She was cute, and incredibly kind, but I meant what I said—I wasn’t interested.
In anyone .
Trinity hummed, but I didn’t look at her. I knew if I did, her expression would only piss me off. Not because she wanted me to start dating again—that was an old, tired conversation—but because she knew how much I hated when she pried into my life.
“Willow is single, too.”
The napkins fell from my hands, and my eyes bugged out of my head—I felt them do it. I stared at her for a beat, the look on her face borderline infuriating.
“I’m definitely not interested,” I repeated, though my voice was a barely-there rasp. “She’s—” Insufferable. Cute. Too loud. Adorably annoying. “I’m not interested.”
Trinity rested her head against the cabinets, letting out a low laugh. “You’re very convincing,” she teased, and I rolled my eyes, dipping to grab the fallen napkins from the floor. “She seems fun, like she could show you a good time.”
“Oh my god,” I muttered, raising my eyes to the ceiling. “Please, fucking kill me.” If there was a god, I needed them to smite me right that second, because that would be preferable to talking to my baby sister about a woman showing me a good time .
“I’ve talked to Gracie?—”
“Wait, what? Adam’s going to kill you.” I tossed the napkins in the bin, then leaned my hip against the counter. “You know he doesn’t want us talking to her.”
She rolled her eyes. “She makes the best cinnamon rolls in the world. Does he really want to deprive me of that?”
“If it means talking to her, then I’d say yeah, he wants to deprive you of that.”
She huffed out a breath as she slid off the counter, her sneaker-clad feet thudding against the old tiles. “Anyway, I talked to Gracie the other day, and she said Willow is very single.”
My throat went impossibly dry, like a giant cotton ball was wedged there. I didn’t need to know about my neighbor’s love life—I didn’t want to know about it. Trin was right about Willow being single, though. In all the years we’d lived next to each other, I’d never seen her bring a guy home.
Not that I paid much attention to her comings and goings, but it would be hard to miss a man coming into her house. I would’ve known.
Unless she went to his place.
I shoved that thought away. I didn’t want to think about her—about anyone —getting laid when the only intimate partner I’d had in the last decade was my fist.
I tapped my fingertips against the linoleum countertop. My gaze met my sister’s, and she grinned. “You should ask her out,” she said, and I shook my head, pushing off the counter.
“I’m not?—”
“Interested,” she finished. “So you said.”
She followed behind me like an eager puppy as I stomped through the building toward my office in the back, her shorter legs struggling to keep up with my long strides. I should’ve slowed down, but I wanted to get away from her and this conversation as quickly as possible.
“I need to go over reports, and?—”
“Just think about it.” She leaned against the doorframe, her eyes burning a hole into my back as I rounded my desk and sank into my chair. Our eyes met from across the room, and she gave me one of her famous smug smiles. “Emma and Lola are?—”
“I don’t care,” I ground out. “I don’t want a girlfriend. I don’t want to date anyone. I don’t—” I let out a harsh breath through my nose. “I just want to work and go home and be left alone.”
She stared at me, her smile slowly falling, the light in her eyes dimming. “That’s a very lonely existence, big bro.” The words were soft, almost reverent, and it made my heart tighten.
“How can I be lonely when you’re always up my ass?” I muttered, needing to lighten the mood. It worked, because she shoved off the doorframe, and flipped me off before disappearing down the hall.
When she was gone, I sank deeper into my chair. My fingers pierced through my hair as I sighed. I knew she was right—I was lonely. It wasn’t news to me, or to anyone else, but dating seemed like a damn nightmare.
The small talk, the endless games of meaningless twenty-questions, the dates, the first times, and…everything else. It was exhausting. It was time consuming, and when I had so little of it to spare, it wasn’t something I wanted to waste my energy on.
I was content with how things were.
But as I settled into work, my eyes skimming report after report, I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that maybe there was something missing.