Chapter 12
RONAN
Several days had gone by since I called and warned Nia to lie low. Now, here she was at the grocery store in the produce section, and I wondered if I should walk away and save both of us from an awkward conversation, but it felt right for us to talk now.
Nia was gorgeous, wearing a head wrap and a matching sundress. For a second, I watched her inspect each piece of fruit, the slight furrow in her brow, all that beauty and brilliance focused on something as mundane as grocery shopping, and my heart did a stupid stutter thing.
She hadn’t spotted me yet, too focused on examining an avocado as I headed her way.
I stopped at a respectful distance away. “That one’s not ripe enough; give it at least two more days.”
Nia’s head snapped up, her beautiful brown eyes widening for just a second before something stuttered behind them. “Ronan, ” Nia said my name flat and carefully, with no warmth or surprise.
"Hey, I didn't expect to see you here."
"Yeah, I’m grabbing a few things." She set the avocado down. Her eyes darted past my shoulder, scanning the store behind me.
The conversation stalled, weighed down by everything we weren’t saying.
In the holding cell, we’d shared secrets and fears, parts of ourselves we hid from others.
In my cabin, we’d shared even more of our bodies and a closeness that should have erased this awkward distance.
It hurt that she seemed to care more about picking fruit than about me.
“Been busy?” I asked, trying to find something to say, desperate for any topic that might keep us talking.
She nodded, eyes on the fruit display. “Mmm. Classes, lectures. You know how it is.”
I didn’t know, not really. I didn’t know why she couldn’t look at me directly, why her answers came out clipped and careful, why the woman who’d stood almost naked and unashamed in my living room now seemed desperate to put distance between us.
“Nia—” I said, but a middle-aged woman who appeared at my elbow, her eyes bright with recognition, interrupted me.
“Oh my God, you’re the police chief from the videos! My daughter follows you on Instagram. Chief Pretty Boy!”
Her voice projected through the produce section, drawing inquiring looks from other shoppers. Heat climbed up my neck. Not this shit again. The nickname had gone viral again after the protest, and I couldn’t go anywhere without someone bringing it up.
I offered a polite nod, despite my embarrassment.
Another woman approached. “Can I get a quick selfie? My book club will die!”
She positioned herself beside me, phone held out to snap the photo. I smiled automatically. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Nia’s amused expression, but it vanished quickly.
“Thank you so much! I think what you’re doing is so important.” The woman beamed after taking the photo. She patted my arm, then scurried away before I could say anything.
When I looked back at Nia, her eyes were cold, just like they had been at community forums before the protest and before things changed between us.
“Looks like fame follows you everywhere,” she noted, her tone unreadable.
I rubbed my beard, feeling self-conscious. “Not by choice. It’s embarrassing.”
She checked her watch on purpose. “Listen, I should really—”
“You avoiding me, Nia?”
Something crossed her face, but I couldn’t tell what it was.
“I’m not avoiding you. Remember, things are complicated right now.”
I lowered my voice and leaned in. “Right. The watchlist. I’ve been making calls, trying to find out who put you on it. There are ways I can—”
“Don’t. Please, Ronan. Don’t pull strings for me. That’ll just make things worse.” Nia’s eyes finally met mine directly.
I stepped back like she’d pushed me. “I’m trying to help.”
Her face softened a little, the first sign she was letting her guard down. “This is exactly why we . . .” She motioned between us but didn’t finish.
A heavy-set brother pushing a cart full of kids’ cereal passed us, nodding my way. “Chief Banks. Good work with that school program in the West End.”
“Appreciate that,” I responded automatically, my attention still fixed on Nia, whose eyes had drifted away again, scanning the exit like she was planning her escape route.
When we were alone again, I tried once more. “Can we talk? Away from . . .” I gestured at the grocery store.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. I need to be careful about who I’m seen with, given everything.” She adjusted her purse strap and shifted her basket to her other hand.
“You think I’m part of the problem?”
Her eyes met mine briefly before looking away. “I think you’re part of a system that’s currently targeting me. And being seen with Birmingham’s chief of police right now won’t help my situation.”
Damn, that hurt.
“I understand. I’ll let you get back to shopping,” I replied, though I didn’t really mean it. Not after everything we’d been through.
She nodded, relief flashing across her face. “Take care, Ronan.”
Nia was scared, or at least concerned. She clearly believed I couldn’t or wouldn’t protect her from whatever was coming.
I stood there connecting dots in my head.
The watchlist. The way she’d avoided discussing anything substantial.
It all pointed to one thing: She knew something about the federal investigation she wasn’t sharing with me.
Something that made her pull back. Whatever it was, she didn’t trust me enough to let me in on it.
I left my cart by the coffee aisle and walked out, suddenly not hungry anymore.
In the car, I tried to tell myself that with Nia on the federal watchlist, she was being smart and protecting herself. Being seen with the police chief right after being called a ‘potential disruptor’ wouldn’t look good to her colleagues or the activist community that respected her.
She was playing it safe. Smart. Strategic. Exactly what I’d expect from Dr. Price, who calculated every move in the ongoing chess game of systemic change.
Except the woman in my cabin hadn’t calculated anything.
She’d been real, raw, uninhibited. The way she’d looked at me all the way through to parts of me no one else bothered to notice, that hadn’t been a strategy.
The way she’d touched me, whispered my name, and fallen asleep against me with complete trust, . . . none of that was political.
I had to be overthinking this, but was I? The pieces tried to click together in my mind. Her careful distance. The way she’d reacted when I mentioned making calls about the watchlist. My jaw clenched. What if she were already cooperating with the Feds?
I understood self-preservation. What fucked with me was being left out of the loop.
That was what hurt. Not that she might protect herself, any rational person would, but that she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me.
After everything we’d shared, she’d cut me out assuming I was part of the system coming for her rather than someone who’d stand between her and it.
The Nia who’d lain beside me afterward, while we talked about everything and nothing. The woman who’d called me beautiful, who’d looked at me like I was more than my position, more than the roles we’d been assigned in this fucked-up system.
That woman wouldn’t shut me out without reason. Something happened in the few days since I’d seen her. Something scared her enough to put up walls I thought we’d dismantled together.
I rubbed my palm over my face. Another possibility crept in. The chief of police fraternizing with a known “disruptor” would damage her credibility in activist circles, my standing with the department, and city leadership.
Why hadn’t we realized that our private moments would eventually clash with our public roles?
It was still early enough. I put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space. This spiral of speculation wouldn’t help. I needed perspective, needed to talk to someone who’d understand. My usual confidant, Todd, would be another factor I needed to keep out of the equation.
There was only one person I could think of who might help me see through this mess. Someone I visited too rarely, spoke to even less, but who’d always cut through my bullshit with the clarity I desperately needed now.
I pulled onto the main road, heading east toward the outskirts of town, toward Oak Ridge Cemetery. Toward my father’s grave.
The irony wasn’t lost on me, seeking guidance from a man who’d been dead for years.
Reverend James Banks always saw straight to the heart of any problem and always knew when I was lying to myself.
And right now, with my heart and head at war, and Nia’s distance tearing at something I hadn’t even realized was vulnerable, I needed that clarity more than ever.
Traffic thinned as I got on the highway, pressing the gas harder than I needed to. The cemetery would close at sunset. I had maybe two hours to figure out what I was doing, what I would risk, and if the fragile connection I had with Nia was worth fighting for, even if she’d already let it go.
Oak Ridge Cemetery hadn’t changed since the last time I’d been here, eight months ago on Dad’s birthday.
The perfectly trimmed grass between the plots made you lower your voice automatically, as if you were in church.
I followed the path to the southeast corner, my polished shoes crunching on the gravel, hands shoved deep in my pockets like a guilty teenager instead of the grown-ass police chief I claimed to be.
The groundskeeper nodded, recognition in his eyes but respect in his silence. I’d come here long enough that most of the staff knew me—knew to let me be with my thoughts and my father. Today, I was especially grateful for that courtesy.
My father’s headstone stood beneath the shade of a massive oak, simple black granite with gold lettering: “Speak Truth To Power.” Mama had insisted on that inscription.
Said it was what he’d lived by. Some days, I wondered if he’d be disappointed by how much I’d compromised that principle in the name of working within the system.
I stood awkwardly for a moment, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. Hadn’t planned what to say, hadn’t really planned to come here at all until the grocery store encounter sent me spiraling. Now that I was here, the silence stretched uncomfortably.
“Hey, Dad, I know it’s been a minute.”
I always felt foolish at first, talking to a slab of stone, but Mama swore Dad could hear me. Said Black folks knew better than most that the veil between living and dead was thin as gossamer.
I crouched down, my knees protesting the movement, and traced the carved letters of his name with my fingertip. James Ronan Banks. The original Ronan Banks. I was just the sequel, and not always a worthy one.
“I met someone, not just anyone. Dr. Nia Price. You’d have liked her, I think. Smart. Fearless. Calls out injustice without flinching. Reminds me a little of Mama that way.” A smile tugged at my mouth despite everything.
A breeze rustled through the oak leaves above me like a nod.
My voice dropped lower; the confession was easier when directed at stone rather than flesh. “Thing is, I think I messed it up before it really started. Leading from fear, not conviction. Just like you warned me not to.”
I stood up, legs stiff, and paced a small circle in front of the grave. I’d left my uniform jacket in the car. It was too formal for this conversation, but I was still every inch the chief, in pressed slacks and a button-down shirt.
“You told me a man who leads from fear will always compromise at the wrong moment. I thought I understood, but I didn’t. I’ve been so busy trying to change things from within that I forgot to stand firm on what matters.”
I turned back toward the headstone. “Nia’s on a federal watchlist now labeled a ‘potential disruptor.’ Same kind of bullshit they tried on you. And instead of standing beside her, letting them see exactly where I stand, I’ve been making quiet phone calls. Working channels. Playing politics.”
A tear slipped down my cheek, surprising me. I wiped it away quickly, grateful for the cemetery’s emptiness.
“Now she’s pulling away. I can’t blame her. What good is a man who’ll love you in private but won’t stand with you in public?”
The word “love” hung in the air between me and the stone. I hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t even allowed myself to think it, but there it spilled out at my father’s feet like an offering.
I looked at my feet, at the rough ground under my polished shoes. “I’m repeating your pattern. You did it from the pulpit, I do it from behind a badge. Different uniforms, same fear.”
My father, a great man, was brave when it counted and principled to his core.
He also kept his family separate from his work, thinking he was protecting us from the dangers of his activism.
It had created a distance I still felt, even years after his death, a gap between public purpose and private connection that I was now replicating with Nia.
“Avoiding risk isn’t the same as integrity, is it? I told myself I’m playing the long game, but maybe I’m just playing it safe.”
My father had died suddenly, an aneurysm, no warning, leaving so many conversations unfinished between us.
I’d spent years wondering what else he might have taught me if he’d had more time.
I couldn’t help but think the lesson I needed most was already here, in the space between what he preached and how he lived.
In the gap between his public courage and private caution.
Choosing Nia meant standing publicly with a woman the government had labeled dangerous. The path forward wasn’t clear, and the consequences weren’t fully known.
Dusk settled as I stood at my father’s grave. The decision ahead was hard. The groundskeeper appeared in the distance, reminding me the cemetery would close soon. I nodded, took one last look at the headstone, and walked to my car.
The churning in my gut quieted. I knew what kind of man I wanted to be, what kind of man my father had raised me to be, even if I hadn’t yet found the courage to fully become him.