Chapter 10 #2
I tried to think of other things that might have been making him upset. “Do you think that your brother will stop watching out for your parents now that he has other responsibilities, so it will all fall on you?”
“I didn’t consider that.” He did now, but only for a second. “No. He wouldn’t forget them, because he’s extremely responsible. I know for a fact that he pays his taxes a few months early. He texts to say ‘happy birthday’ in March, and I was born at the end of April.”
That was all I had, then, so I waited.
“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to have a heart and to help others,” he stated. “I do that, too.”
I nodded and waited more.
“I don’t know what I’m so upset about,” he admitted.
“Maybe I’m afraid that Cormac will act that way…
what did you call it? Foolishly generous.
But his girlfriend is another lawyer, so she could probably take care of herself.
She could take care of a kid, too.” He paused.
“Yeah, maybe I’m afraid that he’ll stop helping me with our parents… no, I could handle them on my own.”
“Or I could help.” I had been in charge of myself for as long as I could remember. “I have plenty of free time, especially on weekends.”
“I know you would,” he said. He seemed to relax a little. “It sounds stupid now that I’m saying it all out loud. What do I care if he ruins his life, anyway?”
I thought about that. “Would he ruin it? If he really loves this woman and he really wants a baby, would that be a terrible life?”
“You’re the one who wants to live alone,” he reminded me. “You’re the one who doesn’t want a cat, not even one brought back from the dead.”
“Especially not that kind of cat. I don’t want a roommate or a previously deceased pet, but other people have different goals.” Like Kiya, for example. She was very clear about what she wanted, as was I. “It’s not a bad thing if it works for them.”
“Yeah.” He stood and brought his plate, half-full, up to the sink. “I’ll think I’ll go to bed.”
“Oh, ok.” It was seven-thirty. “You could just say, ‘I want you to leave.’ I’ll understand.”
“I don’t think I’m going to be very good company,” he told me. “This is why it’s better for me to live alone.”
He was exactly right about that and I felt the same way.
Now, I got to go back to my own apartment, where no one had run up the electric bill because she went to visit her parents in the Upper Peninsula for a long weekend and left on every single light in the condo and also left the AC set way too low (that was Taylor, and Kiya had been off visiting her own family downstate).
They had been arguing this week at lunch and I had privately mentioned to Victoria that we were lucky to live on our own.
She had shrugged, but I was correct. Her brother couldn’t take her new lunch cooler and lose it now, could he? No, because she had her own place.
But he could visit. She talked about him coming over and how they watched crime shows together. Her parents visited, too, and her mom had helped her with a plumbing problem. Victoria lived alone, but she had people.
Was that what was wrong with me, why I was acting so mopey and stupid about my wonderful apartment?
When I’d been a kid, I’d wanted a family.
I’d wanted a mom who wasn’t in Brazil, or wherever she’d actually gone, and I’d wanted a dad who went to work at the same place every day and then came home for dinner.
But I had grown out of that. I’d realized that wishing for something different was a waste of valuable time that you should have spent improving yourself and striving for better grades, better jobs, better everything.
Now I had what I wanted, so I was going to stop acting mopey and stupid.
I piled the pillows on the floor and curled up on my couch, glad that there was no animal to make a mess and smell up the place.
I didn’t need mice the size of Affenpinschers or some undead cat, and I didn’t need a brother who stole my lunch bag.
I didn’t need a mom to come over to fix my leaky sink—I could do that on my own.
I could do everything on my own. I started to mentally catalogue my achievements to remind myself of that fact.
I was busy cataloging when someone knocked and when I looked through the peephole, I only saw the Woodsmen logo on a broad chest instead of a person’s face. That meant it was Ronan, because other people weren’t so tall. I immediately opened the door.
“I came by to say hello,” he said. “I was in your neighborhood.”
“Why were you in my neighborhood?”
“So I could come by and say hello. Also, I wanted to apologize for being a dick.”
“You weren’t. I think I was acting like a bi—”
“Nope, don’t say that,” he told me. “Can I come in? It’s cold out here.”
It wasn’t, and I’d never actually seen him get cold anyway.
But I also wanted him to come inside. “I was thinking that I acted just like Kiya and her Ca—” I broke off again, not because he’d interrupted but because he shot me a look and I remembered how he felt about cute couple nicknames like cado, babe, and killer.
“I was thinking that I acted like Kiya trying to pry information out of Channing,” I concluded, using the correct nomenclature. “You don’t have to talk to me.”
“I like talking to you.” He moved a few more pillows and made himself at home on my couch, so I joined him.
“I don’t like what my brother is doing, though.
I thought we had a pact. Not formally, like we pinkie-swore,” he explained, “but that we both understood that we weren’t going to replicate what we grew up with. We both saw how that was stupid.”
I nodded.
“Go ahead and talk,” Ronan invited. “Please.”
“How do you know he’s going to replicate it?” I asked.
“He won’t. Cormac’s a smart guy and he won’t let his family go hungry.
He’ll have a plan for retirement, something other than ‘we’ll figure it out.
’ He’ll pick a woman who understands that you shouldn’t spend all your money on lottery tickets because this week feels lucky, like my mom, and he won’t give away his car to someone he meets on the street like my dad did. ”
“Your dad didn’t really do that,” I said doubtfully, but he was nodding.
“He sure did. We lived out in the boondocks so we couldn’t go to school for a while because of it. I was already playing every sport there was and I couldn’t get to practice, and I just about went crazy. But my brother wouldn’t behave that way.”
“Your parents were very selfish,” I said, shaking my head.
“Really? Everyone said the opposite.”
“No, they were. Everyone was wrong,” I informed him.
“They did those things to make themselves feel good, like to prove that they were wonderful people. They were selfishly seeking accolades and gratification, and they weren’t noticing that they were hurting their own children.
It would have been better if they’d been honest about their motives.
At least with my dad, there was no pretense around his self-interest.”
His eyebrows had gone up and he shrugged. “You might be partially right, but they actually didn’t get a lot of accolades,” he said.
I bet they probably praised each other and they were probably hurting their arms as they patted their own backs. People could seek approval from themselves, right? And this was making me very angry all over again.
“Anyway, my brother won’t do that, and he’s not breaking a pact,” he went on. “I’ll get over it and send them a present for the baby. What do kids like? A pack of smokes? Woodsmen tickets?”
“Tickets would be good. Could your brother come and watch you?”
He considered. “Cormac has never seen me play.”
“Never?”
It turned out that no one in his family had. In the time he’d played football, over years and in locations all over the place, none of them had come. That made me even angrier but I kept it to myself.
“When you get mad, you turn red here and here,” he said, and reached over to gently swipe his fingers across my cheekbones. “Just two little spots but it’s a good clue.”
“It also happens when I get upset about something,” I said. Except I usually hid it better. “It’s not always that I’m angry.” Except now, I was. “You should give that baby cymbals to play.”
He laughed. “That’s a great idea. I knew I needed to talk to you again. I’m glad I was in your neighborhood.”
I was, too. I was glad that he hadn’t been thinking that I was like Kiya—or that I was acting the same way I had with my dad, managing everything and trying to force him into the behavior that I wanted.
Ronan picked up my hand. “I did this before,” he commented.
“You drove by my apartment?”
“Yeah, probably, but I meant that I held your hand before. We hugged a few times. I kissed you.”
I vividly remembered our interlude on the sand dunes. We hadn’t talked about it again, not until this moment. “You did that because you were in shock after hearing that you made the Woodsmen.”
“Right, shock,” he agreed. “But I was thinking more about us. You know, how we’re friends.”
“What?” I felt wary—but I also felt a tremor of excitement in my chest. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want a girlfriend, you don’t want a boyfriend. Neither of us is seeing anybody,” he pointed out, and then I understood.
“You mean that we could be friends who fooled around. With benefits,” I stated, and he nodded. I thought for a moment. “That’s what Taylor is doing. She gets what she needs but there are no restrictions on her.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Zero restrictions. Zero people calling you ‘baby.’ Zero actual babies, like my brother’s situation.”
Taylor was very happy with her set-up. I considered.
“No pressure from me,” he said. “It was only something I was thinking about.”