Chapter 11 Ronan
Eleven
Ronan
The sky darkened with rain as I walked home from Central on the Monday after Thanksgiving. I wasn’t far from the school when the first droplets fell, and all I had was my denim jacket.
“Shit.”
I walked faster, and then I heard it. The groaning, creaking sounds of a car that had a huge engine but no horsepower. I bit back a smile as Shiloh’s pale-green boat pulled up alongside me, the passenger side window already cranked down.
Shiloh gave me a look, eyebrows raised. “In about ten seconds, it’s going to get bad.”
The sky rumbled as if to prove her right.
She rolled her eyes at my hesitation. “Will you get in already? Otherwise, this time, it’ll be Bibi thinking I’m an asshole for letting you get pneumonia.”
I ignored the warm feeling in my chest and climbed in.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Shiloh asked, shooting me a dry look. “You can even make fun of the Buick if it makes you feel better.”
“No need,” I said. “It speaks for itself.”
“Oh my God…” She socked me on the shoulder with an incredulous laugh.
I chuckled too. I couldn’t help it; it felt too good to be in this girl’s space, inhaling the same air. She smelled like flowers and rain and was so damn beautiful…
I shouldn’t be here, and I can’t fucking say no.
“So…” Shiloh wasn’t driving yet. We sat in the quiet car, watching the rain come down on the other side of the windshield. “It’s been a while. How was your Thanksgiving?”
“Good,” I said. “Yours?”
“Good.”
A silence fell.
She huffed a sigh. “Well, that was riveting.”
“Shiloh—”
“You want to go somewhere with me?” she blurted suddenly.
Christ, no one took me off guard like Shiloh. Fucking no one. “Where?”
“I don’t know. I feel restless. Unsettled. Craving…something.” Her gaze darted to me and then quickly turned away. “I want a doughnut.”
“A doughnut.”
“Yes. Suddenly, I’m in desperate need of a doughnut. I know a great place. The best in Santa Cruz.”
Say no. Say no. Say fucking no.
“Sure.”
Shiloh drove us to a street filled with coffee shops, a burger joint that kids from school liked to hang out in, and Bob’s Doughnuts. The rain had become a drizzle as she found street parking a block away in a space big enough to dock the Buick.
She shot me a warning look.
I held up my hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
She narrowed her eyes, and I chuckled again.
“You’re like this kid I knew in kindergarten,” I said. “He used to tattle on me for ‘thinking bad thoughts about him.’”
“I’m going to tattle on you to Bibi for all your Buick slander, spoken or otherwise.”
She gave me a last knowing smirk and climbed out of the car. We hurried along sidewalks slick with new rain. Clean.
The doughnut shop consisted of one giant display, a coffee station, and a handful of grimy little booths, all of which were empty.
“There’s no Bob,” Shiloh said, leaning in to me as we waited in line behind the only other customer.
She pointed to the squat, dark-haired guy behind the counter.
“That’s Francisco, the owner. He’s always in a bad mood and will disappear in the back if you take too long deciding what you want. I love him ever so much.”
“Next,” Francisco barked.
“Powdered jelly, please,” Shiloh said.
Francisco jerked his chin at me. “You?”
“Chocolate bar,” I said and glanced down at Shiloh. “Coffee?”
She reached for her bag. “Sure, but let me—”
“I got this,” I said, my tone final.
A small smile spread over her lips. “So this is next time.”
“Yeah, it is,” I said, glancing down at her. She was small and slender; I towered over her, sheltering her. And now I was paying for her food. Taking care of her. It wasn’t much, but the moment felt big. And maybe she felt it too. The way she was gazing up at me…
Something’s happening.
Except that wasn’t true. Something had been happening since that first afternoon in her backyard.
“You want coffee or not?” Francisco demanded, inching toward the back room.
“Two coffees,” I said.
I paid cash, and Francisco handed us the doughnuts in a paper bag and two coffee cups and nodded in the direction of the coffee station.
Shiloh and I sat in a booth as the rain picked up. I watched her take a bite of her jelly doughnut, powdering her lips with sugar. She started to take another one but stopped and stared, looking almost angry as I took a bite of my chocolate bar.
“What did I do now?”
“That,” she said, flapping her hand at my doughnut.
“I’m eating.”
“Yes, exactly. You’re eating. With that mouth of yours.”
“What’s wrong with my mouth?”
“Absolutely nothing. That’s the problem. Your lips should be illegal.” She huffed a sigh. “Look, I’m going to be blunt, because being wishy-washy just isn’t my style. I don’t peddle bullshit to anyone, least of all myself.”
“Okay.” I reached for my coffee. “This allowed?”
She made a frustrated sound that was cute as fuck. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
“You’re too damn cheery—your version of cheery—when I’m trying to spill my guts to you.”
My smile fell, and the levity between us collapsed. “Don’t, Shiloh.”
“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”
“I know but…” I muttered into my coffee, “This was a mistake.”
“Yes, exactly!” she said. “It’s one hundred percent a mistake, yet it keeps happening. And for weeks, nothing happened, and that was even worse. Not…seeing you. Or talking to you.”
I nodded. “I know.”
She inhaled, then let it out. “I miss you.”
The words hit me hard, then sank in, because they were the last thing I’d expected a girl like Shiloh to say to someone like me.
“I mean…I miss hanging out with you,” she added quickly.
“Even though you’re stubborn and surly and frustrating as hell.
For some crazy reason, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.
And maybe it’s simple hormones because you look like…
how you look. I’m honest enough to admit that there could be some plain, old-fashioned sexual attraction going on here. ”
I sat back in the seat, my blood heating. I took a sip of coffee, not tasting it.
“I feel like I’m playing Ping-Pong with myself,” Shiloh continued.
“I go back and forth, wanting to keep my distance, focus on my work, because I don’t do drama or messy relationships or feelings.
But then something happens, and suddenly I’m asking you over to dinner or out for doughnuts. Do you see where I’m coming from?”
I nodded.
She glanced down at her food, toyed with her napkin. “So…am I alone in this? Am I crazy?”
“No,” I said quietly. “You’re not crazy.”
Her head whipped up, and that feeling came back—of something deep passing between us.
“Well,” she said, swallowing hard. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know, Shiloh.”
She leaned in, her deep brown eyes intent on me. “I’m going to need more than that, Ronan.”
“I don’t have more than that. Nothing to offer.” She started to protest, and I talked over her. “I’m not like everyone else, Shiloh.”
I’m not normal.
“I know,” she said softly. “That’s why I’m here, sitting across from you, instead of at my beautiful workspace—that you built—working on my future.”
“No, you don’t get it,” I said. “Shit happened in Wisconsin, and it fucked me up pretty bad. It’s just better for you…to not have to deal with it. The repercussions.”
“What repercussions?”
Nightmares, fights, the anger that’s the same as his…
When I didn’t answer, Shiloh looked unsure of herself, uncharacteristically vulnerable. She tore little pieces off her napkin, not meeting my eyes.
“I kind of put myself out there just now,” she said. “I never do that.”
“I know.”
“You asked me to hang out with you at the shack.”
“I shouldn’t have. Sometimes I forget who I am.” She raised her eyes to mine. I shook my head slowly. “You don’t want to know. Believe me.”
“But I do, and that’s entirely my problem,” she said. “I pride myself on being levelheaded, and instead I’m…”
Perfect. You’re fucking perfect.
But I couldn’t say that to her. She didn’t need to hear it from me but someone better. Someone who could give her everything she deserved. And my silence sealed the deal.
“Fine.” She took a last bite of her doughnut and a swig of coffee. “Let’s go.”
Frustration and longing—that hunger—roared.
I wanted to grab her, haul her to me, and kiss her.
Drown in her. Pretend for a second I was in another life.
One where I wasn’t fucked up. Where my mom was still alive because my dad hadn’t fucking murdered her, staining my every waking thought with blood.
Where I didn’t see it happen every time I closed my eyes.
Where I didn’t feel the heat of his rage burning in me and the fear whispering I was just like him.
Where I didn’t walk all over town in the middle of the night to make sure the people I cared about were safe.
A pitiful penance that would never be enough. Never bring her back.
Shiloh would think I was a psycho if I told her all that.
Better to let her go. Keep her safe.
I followed Shiloh out of the shop, but the rain was coming down hard now. She ducked under the shallow awning.
“Shit.”
I slipped off my jacket and held it over her, keeping her dry while the rain pelted me.
Shiloh’s expression softened, and then her eyes darkened, her gaze moving over my face, watching the trails of water.
“Here we are,” she said. “Again.”
I nodded absently, not hearing her, because her lower lip was dusted with powdered sugar. “You have something…”
“Yes?” She inclined her head, defiant of her own protections she kept up at all times. Except with me.
I leaned in, entering the shelter of the jacket. Shiloh made fists in my T-shirt, drawing me against her, her eyes locked on mine, daring me. Our mouths inches apart, our noses bumping, I angled my head left, then right, savoring the moment before I took what I shouldn’t have.
“Ronan,” she breathed and then whimpered as my tongue swiped the sugar from her lip.
Oh fuck.
One small taste, and I was already fucking gone. A short inhale, a heartbeat, was all that stood between right and wrong. And suddenly, I didn’t give a shit. There was only her.
My hand snaked up into her hair and grabbed a fistful of braids as I crashed my mouth to hers.