Didn’t matter. Frankie’s knowing sneer reminded me who I was. What I could bring right to her doorstep.
I threw on a cheap rain jacket and went to the locked shed out back. I found a few decent pieces of plywood among the rough materials Uncle Nelson salvaged from other jobs. I grabbed nails and a hammer and set the tall ladder against the side of the building.
The rain was relentless and showing no signs of stopping. I climbed up one-handed and hurled the plywood onto the roof ahead of me.
In one of the better foster homes I stayed at when I was a kid, we watched movies on Friday night. Forrest Gump was Janet—the mom’s—favorite. I trudged across the roof, stepping over broken or missing shingles, the wind and rain buffeting me, and thought of Lieutenant Dan in that movie. How he’d dared God to finish him off during the storm that battered Forrest’s shrimp boat. Because he’d lost everything.
“Go ahead,” I muttered under my breath as I struggled over the slick shingles beneath my boots. “I fucking dare you.”
I found the hole over Louis’s apartment. I knelt on the roof that was mostly flat and sealed the opening. It looked like shit and probably wouldn’t do the trick if the rain kept going. The entire roof needed replacing. The tenants paid their rent—they deserved better than cheap plywood and some nails.
I climbed down to find Maryann Greer in a raincoat, arms crossed, glaring at me from under her hood.
“Just what the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
“What’s it look like I’m doing? Fixing the roof.”
“Don’t get smart with me. Are you aware that it’s raining cats and dogs? That you could have slipped and broken your damn neck?”
I was very aware of that.
Maryann flapped a hand. “Never mind.” She turned on her heal and stomped back around the building, presumably back to her apartment.
I returned the tools to the shed and went back to my place. I was shaking out the useless rain slicker when a knock came at the door.
Maryann opened it before I could, a mug of something hot in her hand. “Hot cocoa,” she said in a slightly softer tone than earlier. Slightly. “The girls are bundled up watching a movie. We had extra.”
“Maryann…”
“Look at you. You’re drenched.” She shook her head and set the cocoa on the table. Too tired to argue, I shut the door and joined her, slouching heavily into the chair.
“Why did you do that? Did you stop to think for a second how dangerous that was?”
“Louis had a leak that needed fixing.”
“So he puts a bucket under it until tomorrow,” she said. “Wouldn’t be the first time. We’re used to waiting for your uncle to fix anything.”
“It’s done.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Who else was going to do it?” I snapped, that old pain burning a hole in my stomach. “There’s no one else. So I did it. I did something.”
Maryann’s worried frown deepened. “Ronan…”
“If you call for help and there’s no fucking answer…or they finally show up and it’s too late, what’re you supposed to do?”
I ran a hand through my damp hair and looked up to see her watching me, her lips a thin line.
“I don’t know what—or who—you’re actually talking about, Ronan, but I know it’s not about a hole in the damn roof. I’m not going to push it, though I’d like to have a word with whoever failed you so badly.”
“What for? Done is done.”
“True. But that doesn’t mean it was okay. And I think you need to hear that.”
Her words punched me in the chest. The smell of warm chocolate and her concerned expression—her kindness—dragged me back years, to when I still had a mother. A feeling of disorientation, like déjà vu, came over me. The past and present mixed in that dingy apartment, awakening feelings I’d buried with Mom—the day I’d known I was on my own.
“I don’t need to hear anything,” I said gruffly. “I don’t need your lectures or your fucking cocoa… I don’t need a damn thing.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah. That’s fucking right.” I heard my tone grow low and stony. “What are you doing here anyway? Always up in my business. You’re just a tenant.”
I made the word sound like an insult and half-expected Maryann would slap me across the face for being a dick and then walk away.
She did neither.
“Are you done?” Maryann smiled gently. “It’s okay. I get it. I’m something of an expert at being let down, myself. You get to the point where you’ve been alone for so long, you don’t trust anyone. Not even yourself. It gets so bad that it’s almost scary when someone offers to help. Right?”
The fight drained out of me. I nodded.
“I can take being let down,” she continued. “But my girls…” She slid her thumbnail along the card table, her eyes shining. “My ex, their dad…he left us in the middle of the night. Never said goodbye. So I promised the girls they will never not have me. Because that’s what they needed to hear. To know that someone would always be on their side.”
“I get that.”
“I know you do. You’re on everyone’s side but your own.” She cocked her head. “Did something happen today?”
I kissed Shiloh. And it was the best and worst fucking thing I could’ve done.
But I was done talking. “No.”
“Hmm. I don’t believe you, but I’ve meddled enough for one day.” She got up and went to the door, shooting me a final stern look with a smile behind it. “Don’t go up on that roof again in the middle of a storm. Not ever again. Promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Ronan?”
“I promise.”
“Not sure I believe that either, but…” She sighed. “Get some sleep.”
If only.
When she was gone, the only sound was the rain smattering against the windows and the water dripping off my clothes onto the kitchen floor. The cocoa was cold. The past faded away and there was only now, bleak and empty.
I took a hot shower to burn the cold out…and to wash the scent and feel of Shiloh off of me. But going up on the roof hadn’t done it; don’t know why I thought the shower would be any different. She had seeped into my skin, my bones, and wouldn’t leave. I didn’t want her to.
But she has to.
I remembered Frankie and Mikey’s knowing sneers. The malicious fucking glee in their eyes at seeing us together, like eager dogs who’d found a new toy. I had nothing to offer a girl like Shiloh. I’d already given her everything she needed, building her that shed. Kissing her was a stolen minute—something good and fucking perfect but not mine to keep.
At school the next day, I crossed the quad, heading toward the long, low wall that separated the upper and lower sections of the campus and where Holden, Miller, and I hung out between classes. Shiloh was coming from the opposite direction, wearing a long skirt that brushed the ground, a tight-fitting top, and earbuds in her ears. The sun after yesterday’s rain made everything seem brighter, including the glint of copper, silver, and gold on her arms, her neck—her skin where I’d touched her. She looked sexy as fuck—even more because I’d touched her.