Ronan glanced around and rubbed the back of his neck like he was nervous. It was a strange look on him…and sweet.
“So listen, I was thinking. There’s this place…”
I held perfectly still, my pulse counting down the seconds until his next words.
“It’s on the beach. Out of the way, right where the cliffs come down. Miller, Holden, and I hang out there a lot after school and on weekends. Make bonfires, shoot the shit, drink beer.”
“Okay…”
“So maybe…if you wanted to come and hang out with us sometime, you could. If you wanted.”
“You want me to…?” My stomach and heart both felt like foreign objects, fluttering with butterflies and beating faster in ways they’d never done with a guy. I struggled to keep my tone casual. “You’re inviting me to the secret hideout of the infamous Lost Boys?”
“Basically.” He looked to the ground, then back to me. “So…you want to?”
YES.
The thought was so loud, he must’ve heard it. But it was drowned in the sirens and alarms going off, the ones that blared I was already getting too close. And how hurt Violet would be.
“Miller would be there?”
“Of course.”
“Then I can’t. Violet’s my best friend.”
Ronan frowned. “So?”
“So, she and Miller are barely speaking.” I shook my head, disappointment biting hard. “The girl he hooked up with the night of the dance is a friend too. It’s all a big mess and I… I can’t go. I can’t do that to Violet.”
“I get that.” He rubbed his chin; his boot scraped the ground. “Yeah, maybe it’s better anyway…Okay. See you around.”
“Oh, wow…okay,” I said as he walked away without another word. “I guess that’s that.” The sudden end of our weird acquaintance, or friendship, or whatever it was between us.
Nothing. There is nothing between us.
I watched Ronan blend into the students at school and disappear.
“I’m better off,” I said out loud, ignoring the pang in my heart that told me that was a lie.
Chapter Ten
Thanksgiving Day, there was a knock on my door. I opened it to Maryann and the twins. The girls pushed past their mom’s legs and hugged me.
“Ronan!”
“Hi, Ronan!”
“Look what we made!”
Lily and Cami hustled me away from the door, excitedly holding up Thanksgiving turkeys made out of brown construction paper, traced from their own little hands. Each finger was a colorful feather, with googly eyes glued to the thumb.
“We made these in class,” Cami said proudly.
Lily nodded. “We got to do arts and crafts and eat popcorn instead of do math.”
I smiled. Over the past few weeks, I’d learned to see the difference in the twins after spending more time with them. Like when I went down to replace the batteries in their smoke detector or when they came up to visit me for no reason at all. Separately, it was difficult to tell them apart, but together, it was easy to see the differences in the girls’ faces. Their mom, of course, knew who was who without a glance.
Maryann gave me a small smile and a shrug as she shut the door behind her. “I hope we’re not bothering you. They’ve been talking all morning about when they could come over.”
“They never bother me,” I said. Just the opposite. I’d babysit if Maryann ever needed me but never offered. Didn’t want to come across as a perv. I just liked having them around.
The girls pressed their paper turkeys at me.
“They’re for you!” Lily said, and Cami nodded vigorously.
“For me?” My damn throat felt tight. The papers felt small and light in my big hands.
“Because today is Thanksgiving,” Cami said. “We’re going to Auntie Colleen’s house for a big dinner.”
“You can come with us,” Lily said. “If you want.”
I went to the kitchen and rummaged in a drawer for a roll of Scotch tape. “That’s nice of you, Lil, but I’m going somewhere already.”
“You are?” Maryann asked sharply. “Where? If you don’t mind me asking.”
I smirked. If Maryann was going to ask a question, she asked it.
“I’m going to Nelson’s,” I said, taping the turkeys to my refrigerator door. “He’s my uncle,” I told the girls.
Cami made a face. “We know.”
Lily wore the same sour expression. “Mommy says he’s a sonofabitch.”
“Lillian Angela Greer!” Maryann cried. She shook her head at me, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry. I never…”
I chuckled. “It’s all right.” I sat on my heels in front of the girls. “Your mom’s right but don’t say that word in front of him.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not polite,” Maryann interjected.
“And a bad word,” Cami added.
“Right. And a magic word,” I said. “If you say it to his face, he might turn into an ogre.”
The girls’ eyes were wide. “Really?”
I nodded. “That’s why grown-ups never want kids to say bad words in front of other grown-ups. You never know if it’ll turn them into a monster.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Cami asked, the skeptic of the two. “Have you seen a monster?”
“I sure have.” I felt Maryann’s eyes on me and gestured at the turkeys on my fridge. “What do you think? Do they look good there?”
“Your fridge needed them,” Cami said seriously. “There’s nothing on it.”
Lily agreed. “Our fridge is covered in our artwork and when we do good on a project.”
“Do well,” Maryann corrected gently. She stood between the girls, stroking their hair. “So you’re having dinner with your uncle?”
I stood up. “Heading over at two.”
That, at least, wasn’t a lie. It was true I was going to visit Nelson but only because he needed me to drop off some invoices from a plumber we’d hired last week.
“That’s great,” Maryann said. “Hold on a sec.”
She hurried out, leaving the girls with me. It wasn’t too cold of a day; I was wearing a T-shirt, showing my tattoos—their favorite subject. They never got tired of looking at them.
“That looks ouchy,” Lily said of the dagger tattoo on my left arm.
“The clock says 10:05,” Cami said, inspecting the sleeve on my right. “We’re learning about time in class.”
“What happened at 10:05?” Lily asked.
She was pronounced dead. Right there in the kitchen. Because I couldn’t stop the monster…
“When I was a kid in school, we had recess at 10:05,” I said. “That was my favorite time of day.”
“Then you could go out and play with your friends?” Cami asked.
“Yep. Exactly.”
“That’s my favorite time too,” Lily said.
Maryann returned holding a box from a local bakery I passed on my walk to Central every day when I wasn’t suspended or working odd jobs.