I held my breath, waiting.
“Better,” she said finally. “Being around you makes me feel better, Ronan. And, since we’re being honest, turned on.” She smiled weakly, then shook her head. “But it also brings up all the fears and self-doubts I’ve been trying to bury for years. It’s enough to make a gal seasick, Wentz.”
“What do you want to do about it, Barrera?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“Right now? I want to make you come.”
Her eyes widened, and an astonished sound burst out of her. “Jesus…” She cleared her throat. “We’ve already established we’re good at the physical stuff, thanks. But be serious. What do you want long-term?”
I leaned back in the chair. “I can’t see that far. Most of my life has been day by day. Just getting through one to the next. Surviving.” I lifted my eyes to her. “And Iwasbeing serious. I want you. But I shouldn’t say shit like that. That’s just me being greedy. It’s better for you if we don’t have a long term.”
“You keep saying that, and I keep freaking out, yet we both keep ending up here.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She arched a brow, dubious. “You’d hurt me?”
“Never,” I said. “But it might not be up to me.”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice softened. “Does this have to do with what happened to your mom?”
My head whipped up.
“Miller told me.”
I spat a curse. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
“It slipped out. He cares about you.”
“He still should’ve kept his mouth shut.”
“What happened?”
“You don’t want to hear this, Shiloh.”
“I do. If we have a prayer of…anything, we have to be honest with each other. I’ve been pretty open about my baggage, all things considered.”
“I know.”
When I said nothing more, she nodded, the hope falling away. “If you really want me to go, I’ll go. But if I walk out of here, that’s it. No phone calls. No texts. No showing up at my door in the rain…”
Her eyes shone for a moment, but she blinked hard. Christ, it took all I had not to hurl myself out of that chair and grab her and kiss her until the past was someplace distant and couldn’t touch us.
But it always comes back.
Then something worse unfolded in front of me. A future without Shiloh in it.
“I was there,” I said, spitting out the words hard and fast. “Mom threatened to leave him for good, so he took a baseball bat and made sure that could never happen. That she couldn’t go anywhere ever again.”
Shiloh’s hand flew to her mouth. “Jesus…”
“My dad did that,” I said. “His blood is in my veins. I’m his son. Stints in juvie. Fights. The rage of it all… How fucked up he was… That’sinme. And the very last fucking thing I want to do is bring that ugliness to you.”
Her hand dropped, her face soft. “I don’t see anything ugly in you, Ronan. I see someone who protects his friends from bullying assholes, calls out rapists… Someone who walks in the rain to make sure that the dummy who won’t answer her phone is okay.”
Christ, if she knew I walked every night to make sure she was okay…