Chapter 17 Shiloh
Seventeen
Shiloh
Male voices sounded from outside, rescuing me from a moment that was growing too soft. Miller and Holden had arrived, and I was suddenly nervous, as if I were about to go in for an important job interview.
“It’s cool,” Ronan said. “They knew you’d be here.”
I nodded, smoothing down my skirt and watching as Ronan tucked the compass pendant under his T-shirt. A twinge nipped at me until I reminded myself we’d agreed not to show each other off.
Ronan’s just following the rules.
Except he read my expression and explained, “It’s fucking perfect, but I don’t like people in my business.”
Or not.
I turned away before he could see the flush in my cheeks.
Outside, Miller and Holden stood near their beach chairs, talking. They both looked up, and Holden beamed like a proud parent. He approached me, hand outstretched.
“You must be Shiloh Barrera,” he said cheerfully. “Ronan has told me almost nothing about you.”
I laughed. “Sounds about right.”
Up close, Holden was devastatingly handsome in a completely different way from Ronan.
Elegant, refined, with dyed silver hair and piercing green eyes that glinted with intelligence.
Ronan had street smarts; Holden looked as if he had a hundred libraries behind his eyes and smelled of expensive cologne, clove cigarettes, and vodka.
Like what I imagined a Parisian department store might smell like.
“Make yourself at home,” he said with a bow. “And might I add, it’s about damn time. Now if we can get Miss Violet here…”
“I’m on the job,” I said and joined Miller where he sat tuning his guitar.
He gave me a dry look. “That must’ve been some birthday present.”
“Oh hush. Are you cool with this? I don’t want you to feel like your private space is being invaded.”
“It’s fine, Shi. I’m really glad you’re here. With him.”
My cheeks flushed all over again. “Right, well…will Amber be coming tonight?”
“No,” he said, his expression darkening. “Please don’t tell her about it either, okay?”
“I won’t,” I said slowly, my brows furrowed. “I just thought since you’ve been together for months…”
“She’s never been here. This place isn’t for just anyone.”
The implications smacked me in the face. Ronan had asked me to come here months ago. After homecoming.
Miller was watching. I cleared my throat. “What about Violet? Is this place for her?”
He stiffened and looked about to protest. Then he nodded, his voice thick. “Yeah, it is.”
***
I’d hung out at the shack a few more times that week, telling myself it was to pave the way for Violet more than it was to be with Ronan as much as humanly possible.
But mostly, it was just nice being there.
I’d lived in Santa Cruz for fourteen years and hadn’t appreciated the ocean in this way before.
Just sitting with it, listening to the waves crash while a bonfire warmed my face.
I understood implicitly why the guys loved this place.
Holden regaled us with crazy, hilarious stories from when he’d spent a year in a Swiss sanatorium. He wouldn’t say for what, and I wasn’t about to pry. Sometimes Miller played his guitar and sang for us. I’d catch him watching Ronan and me, a wistful look on his face.
Finally, Violet agreed to come with me. Miller was still technically with Amber, but all three were miserable, and something had to change. The friendship between Miller and Violet was worth salvaging, if nothing else.
That night, after a rocky start, they took a walk and came back looking more at ease, and I felt hopeful that they’d each found their way back to the other.
The guys ragged on each other, Miller played for us, and the hour grew late, the fire burning low. From the other side of it, Violet and Miller were a bundle on the sand under blankets, sleeping.
Holden, alone and drunk, staggered to his feet. With a finger to his lips, he warned us not to wake them, then stumbled away.
“Will he be okay?” I whispered.
Ronan shrugged, his mouth grim. “I don’t know. He’s drunk a lot. I don’t know what to do for him.”
“You’re here,” I said. “He knows that. You have his back.”
“Always,” Ronan said, then nodded at Miller. “Him too.” He looked down at me. You too.
He didn’t need to say the words for me to hear them, and I immediately felt like crap for working so hard to prove that Ronan and I weren’t an item.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said. “When I was short with you.”
“Which time?” Ronan asked and smiled into his beer. “I started to lose count.”
I nudged his arm. “Every time. When you offered to open my soda. Violet was watching us, and I hate that feeling.”
“What feeling?” Ronan asked with a dry smirk. “Being helped?”
“Yes, smart-ass. It’s like you said, I hate people being in my business. Even if that person is my best friend.”
“It’s better if she doesn’t know about us,” Ronan said. “She’s friends with Evelyn Gonzalez, right?” He drained his last beer of the night. “If Evelyn finds out, the whole damn town will know.”
“True.” I studied Ronan’s profile. In the firelight, his eyes looked silvery, his jaw cut to sharper angles by the shadows that danced over his face. “You’re really serious about that, aren’t you? Keeping me safe from Dowd or—”
“Yes.” Ronan turned to look at me then, his voice low and intense. “Yes. I’m really fucking serious about that.”
I sat back, a flare of heat sweeping through me at the dangerous glint in his eyes. Not for me but for whoever he thought might want to hurt me. Heat pooled between my legs, wanting him, while my heart was craving something else entirely. Something it shouldn’t.
We’ve already come so far beyond casual, it’s not even funny.
I jumped to my feet and brushed sand off my pants. “I have to get back. Bibi’s starting to wonder if I still live there.”
Ronan nodded and packed up his stuff.
“What about them? Think they’ll be okay?” I whispered with a nod at Miller and Violet, sleeping tangled up in each other. She was tucked under his chin. His arms held her close.
“Yes,” Ronan said. “They’re finally okay. Thanks to you.”
“I just gave them a push.”
I wish someone would do the same to me.
Half of me wanted to throw my precautions and protections to the wind and let myself fall for Ronan. It would be so easy.
The other, stronger half wondered if I’d survive the crash if he decided I wasn’t worth catching.
The night was dark and the moon hidden behind silvery clouds, yet Ronan led me back along the coast safely, as if he could do it with his eyes closed. We arrived at the parking lot just as the sky was showing the first hints of dawn.
Even before climbing in the Buick, Ronan reached for me, but I stiffened.
He pulled back. “You okay?”
“Fine. Just tired.”
A weak excuse. I hadn’t been tired all the other mornings we welcomed the dawn from the back seat of my car, practically attacking each other.
Fogging the windows in heated, grasping embraces, clothing askew but never removed.
Ronan was holding back, slowing things down for my sake.
We were supposed to be keeping things on the surface.
Friends with benefits. No grand gestures or declarations of feelings required. Or wanted.
But even without sex, Ronan was unraveling me, stripping me naked with each passing day, until one day, I’d be exposed. He’d see all of me, and then what?
Then he’ll leave.
I fumbled in my bag for my keys and managed to get the car door open. Ronan held it open for me instead of going around to the passenger side.
“You don’t want a ride?”
“No,” he said. “I’ll walk.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
I crossed my arms. “Well…are you mad? I’m just tired. That’s allowed, right?”
Dawn had only just begun to climb from behind the mountains in the east. Ronan’s expression was unreadable.
“I just feel like walking, Shiloh,” he said, his voice low, and I immediately felt like shit.
“Okay. Good night.”
“Yep.”
I climbed behind the wheel. Ronan shut the door for me and then waited, watching to make sure I left safely. He grew small in my rearview, then I turned a corner, and he was gone.
***
Bibi was awake and bustling in the kitchen when I came in.
“Sorry, Bibi. I fell asleep at the beach.”
She smiled to herself as she reached into the fridge for a glass pitcher of orange juice. “You smell like campfire. And Ronan.”
“Bibi!”
“I am merely stating the obvious.” Her grin turned sly. “I was eighteen once too, you know.”
“Oh my God.”
“And anyway, I’m glad. I love him for you.”
“Don’t…say things like that. We’re keeping it casual.”
She pursed her lips and poured me a glass of orange juice. “So you keep saying. Yet you’ve been out with him most nights this week. Late.”
“It’s not just us. We’re hanging out with friends,” I said. “Violet too. I managed to get her to come tonight to reconnect with Miller.”
“Good for you! Little cupid, aren’t we? Now if only you could aim that bow and arrow at yourself…”
She swatted me on the butt and cackled a laugh.
“You are in too good a mood for this early in the morning. Any mail come for me yesterday?” I asked, desperate for a change of subject.
“Not yet, honey.”
“Damn.”
I had turned in my applications for business operation and seller’s licenses and was now waiting to hear back from the city. If approved, I’d be one step closer to my own shop.
“It’d be nice to know if I got my permits before someone rents that old laundromat space.”
“It’s been available this long, so it must be destined for you,” Bibi said. “But that old place is so run-down. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone who could help you make it beautiful?”
I tensed and then eased a breath. “I don’t need Ronan—or anyone else—to help me. I’m doing this on my own. I’ve come this far.” I smiled to take the harshness out of my words. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Shiloh—”
A knock came at the front door.
Bibi squinted at the clock in the kitchen. “Who could that be? At this hour?”
She watched from the dining room table as I went to find out.
I opened the door to my mother.