Chapter 36
CHAPTER 36
ATTICUS
We’d just arrived in Minnesota, and the guys and I were chilling on the bus while Nicole and Emily took the rental car to get lunch for everyone.
Ronan had left his phone behind while he went to the bathroom. When it lit up with a text, I thought I was seeing things.
Kenzie: Just wanted to tell you that I love you.
That doesn’t say Kenzie, does it? I blinked to even out my vision.
It did say Kenzie.
What? Love?
My niece loves Ronan?
What the fuck is going on?
I willed myself to calm down. Maybe it was a different Kenzie.
What were the chances of that, though? My hand shook as I grabbed the phone and turned the screen toward Tristan. “What the hell is this?”
Based on his stoic expression, whatever fuckery this was didn’t come as a surprise to him.
“What the fuck is going on with Kenzie and Ronan?” I demanded.
“Take a breath.”
Not even a denial. “You knew about this?” I seethed.
“He had to tell someone who wouldn’t kill him.”
Adrenaline coursed through my veins. “How could you keep this from me?”
“You’re proving how well you would’ve taken it. You really wanted to get news like this in the middle of a tour?” He shook his head. “But honestly, I have no guilt about it because they’re not doing anything wrong.”
Ronan emerged from the bathroom.
“What the fuck are you doing with my niece?” I roared.
His face turned white. He held his hands out. “Okay…calm down.”
“I won’t calm down.” I felt like I was about to hyperventilate. “You can have any woman in the world—why my niece, you prick?”
“Why not her? Do you have any idea how special she is?”
“Does she know how many women you’ve fucked around with?”
“If that was relevant, then Nicole shouldn’t be with you , should she? None of us would be worthy of a good woman if we were judged by our past actions.”
I rose and began to pace. “I knew there was something weird going on. You’ve been acting strange for a while now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve messed around with zero groupies this entire tour. And even before that, you weren’t as talkative as you normally are. I knew you were keeping something from me.”
“So not sleeping around makes me suspect? Think about what you’re saying. I haven’t been with any groupies because I’ve been loyal to Kenzie.” He paused. “I love her.”
“Love?”
He nodded. “It’s been going on for a while. It’s not new.”
I drew in my brows. “Since when?”
“Since Tristan’s wedding.”
Spit flew out of my mouth as I shouted, “You’ve been seeing my niece for months behind my back?”
“I get that you’re not happy with this. No one is ever gonna be good enough for her in your eyes. But I’m your best friend. Do you really think I’d do this to you intentionally? Out of malice? Are you crazy?”
“He’s got a point,” Tristan chimed in.
I ignored him, waving my index finger at Ronan. “You kept it from me. Friends don’t do that.”
“Really? Just like you told Mimi the truth about you and Nicole getting divorced? Sometimes we keep things from the people we love to protect them.”
I opened my mouth, but then snapped it shut. His last point left me without a comeback. “I need some air,” I said as I left the bus.
Thankfully, the guys let me be. About five minutes passed before I saw my niece approaching across the parking lot.
“Uncle Atticus…”
“Yeah,” I muttered.
“We need to talk.”
“I’d say so…”
She placed her hands on her hips. “You need to listen to me.”
I nodded once, letting her continue.
You’re way too quick to blame Ronan for us being together when in fact it’s my doing.”
Rolling my eyes, I huffed. “I highly doubt that.”
“I need you to hear me out.”
“Alright.” I crossed my arms.
“I pursued him. I’ve had a crush on Ronan basically since you started performing with him. For years now. Obviously, I was way too young back then to be dating him, but the crush never waned.”
“A crush is fine, but—”
“You said you were gonna let me talk.” She glared.
“Okay…” I murmured.
“After Tristan’s wedding, almost everyone had gone back to their rooms. I’d just finished breaking down all of my equipment when I noticed Ronan hanging out by the water. So I went to join him.” She looked away. “We had a long talk that night—about his abusive upbringing, his parents’ alcoholism, my pain over losing my dad, my career aspirations. We stayed up all night . And I realized my physical attraction to him all these years was just the tip of the iceberg.” She paused for a moment. “I asked him out that night. And you know what?” She chuckled. “He turned me down.”
“He did?”
“Yes. He said as much as he’d enjoyed talking to me that night—more than anyone he’d ever opened up to before—he couldn’t do that to you. I was devastated because I really liked him.”
“But clearly the story didn’t end there,” I said.
“I thought that was the end of it, but then the following morning, we walked out of the hotel at the same time. I told him I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. And he confessed to having thought about me all night, too. I didn’t want to leave him. I knew in my heart that he felt the same way about me, but he was scared to hurt you. I took another chance. I dared him to come to the airport with me and travel to the East Coast for a couple of days.”
I sighed. “Ronan has never been one to turn down a dare.”
“Right. He told me that even if he followed me back east, it wouldn’t change anything. He still couldn’t pursue me. Yet he accepted the dare, and when we landed in New York, we spent a few days exploring the city together. He put me up in a hotel near Times Square—separate rooms. I was supposed to go back to Monksville at the end of it, but yet again, didn’t want to leave him.”
In retrospect, I remembered Ronan disappearing for a few days... “Well, he came back to California, because I remember seeing him a few days after the wedding.”
She nodded. “He did, and that trip was totally platonic. He didn’t try anything. We just had fun.” Kenzie paused. “In the weeks after, though, we stayed in touch every day, talked on the phone late into the night. We just fell for each other more and more. I flew out to L.A. for a few days about a month later, and that’s when things changed. I promise we weren’t gonna keep it from you forever. We just didn’t want to ruin your tour.” She raised her chin. “But Uncle Atticus, this is not something you can change. We love each other.”
As I stood there in silence, I knew she was right. There was nothing I could do.
“He’s not perfect, but you love him, right?” she added. “You trust him. Why shouldn’t I?”
“I don’t have a good answer for that.” I breathed in and out. “I just need to let this sink in for a while.”
“That’s fine…but please don’t let this ruin the tour, or more importantly, your friendship.”
“I’ve never let anything stop me from performing. This won’t be any different.”
“Okay…” she mumbled. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but then she didn’t.
Nicole and Emily approached with the takeout just as Kenzie was leaving. While Emily entered the bus with the food, Nicole got a look at my face and turned to watch Kenzie walking away. She looked back over at me. “You know…”
What the fuck? Was I the only one who didn’t know? “ You know?”
Nicole blushed. “I accidentally found out a couple of days ago when I came back to the bus to take a nap instead of going to sound check. They didn’t know I was there, but I saw them together briefly.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “Jesus.”
“It wasn’t my place to tell you. And I didn’t want to ruin the tour…”
“Why does everyone think I’m so damn weak? I performed after losing you . If I could do that , I can get through anything.”
She placed her hand on my chest. “We’ve never been happier, right? You and Tristan are with the loves of your lives. Ronan deserves the same.”
Rubbing my temples, I tried to calm myself. “He’s never even had a girlfriend for as long as I’ve known him.”
“Well, maybe that’s all the more reason to believe this is the real thing. He’s picky, and he has amazing taste, because he’s chosen the best girl I know.”
As much as I wanted to be enraged, it was impossible to stop two adults from being together if they really wanted to. I had to figure out a way to accept it. “Make no mistake, I will absolutely kill him if he hurts her. I don’t care how close he and I are.”
“I think he knows you well enough to understand that.” She reached up on her tippy toes to kiss me on the cheek. “Remember once we had a conversation about people we trusted with our lives who weren’t family? You asked me if there was anyone else besides you I trusted. There wasn’t, but do you remember who you said was your one person?”
I nodded. “Ronan.”
“Think about that. If you could trust him with your life, why can’t you trust him with Kenzie’s?”
Ronan suddenly emerged from the bus. “Can I interrupt?”
“Of course.” Nicole pinched Ronan’s cheek as she went into the bus.
A staredown ensued before Ronan broke the ice. “Should I have worn a helmet?”
“You’re lucky I’m surrounded by people who care about you. They’ve managed to talk me down.”
His eyes were sincere. “I’m sorry I kept this from you.”
“It’s not a good feeling when people you love and trust are hiding things from you.” I paused. “But I understand why you didn’t say anything right away.”
“I love you, Atticus. You know that. But nothing you can say or do will stop me from loving Kenzie, too. She told me she tried to explain to you how things happened. This wasn’t an overnight thing. I knew from the very beginning that I was taking a huge risk. But you should know better than anyone that when you love someone, circumstances don’t change how you feel. I could’ve tried harder to stay away to make you comfortable, but I’d still love her, and she’d feel the same about me. I don’t think you want either one of us to be miserable for your sake.”
I stared up at the sky. “You’re right. I don’t. But as that girl’s only father figure, it’s my job to protect her. That means scrutinizing you, even if it hurts me.”
He opened his arms. “Scrutinize away. I can take it.”
“Look, I know you wear your heart on your sleeve. I know you’re a good person. But that doesn’t mean you’re ready for a serious relationship, the kind I know my niece has always wanted. She’s a romantic. Having lost the man who meant everything at a very young age, she can’t afford to have her heart broken.”
“I have no plans to break her heart,” he assured me.
I eyed him a moment. “Do you think you’re ready for a relationship when you haven’t ever been in one?”
He raised his voice. “Did you not hear me say earlier that I’m in love with her? It doesn’t matter if I was ready or not when we met, it happened. I fell in love with someone who appreciates my flaws and loves me for me, not who I am to the rest of the world. Kenzie is the one, Atticus. I know it sounds strange to hear me say it because she’s your niece. But she’s also my love. I promise never to hurt her. I give you full permission to annihilate me if I do.”
“You can bet on that.”
He let out a long breath that showed me just how much this had been weighing on him. “Where do we stand now?”
“I’m cautiously watching.”
“So you won’t make things difficult for us?”
“I don’t plan to.”
He shook my shoulders as he beamed. “I appreciate that, man.”
“I want to be happy for you, but it’s gonna take some getting used to.”
“I understand. Just the fact that you haven’t kicked my ass yet is a huge win. I’ll take it.”
“Don’t jinx yourself.”
“Okay, Uncle Atticus.” He flashed a wicked grin.
“If you appreciate your teeth, you won’t repeat that.”