“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.”