I sat back and quickly returned the peas to my face to cool the strange rush of warmth that flooded me.
“You’ve never thought of yourself that way?”
“No.”
“You have a lot to offer, Ronan. More than you think.” Maryann got up from the table and came around to me. “Get back to school as quick as you can.” She pecked the top of my head. “And for God’s sake, take care of yourself. We need you.” She touched the pendant that lay against my shirt. “I’ll bet she does too.”
After Maryann left, I lay stretched out on my couch and called Shiloh.
“How are things?” she asked.
“Good, I guess. Maryann thinks Dowd’s going to jail.”
“Maryann is right. Bibi talked to her detective friend. Someone sent in a video that clearly shows Dowd attacking an unknown victim. He’s been arrested and will most likely face jail time. And he’s been kicked off the force, effective immediately.”
“Even without my testimony or pressing charges or whatever?”
“I asked about that too. Apparently, the victim is basically just a witness. They don’t have to press charges if there’s another witness. Like a video.”
“What about Frankie?”
“No word. Bibi says Mitch isn’t talking, which is weird. He seems like the kind of guy who’d rat out his own son.”
“He hates snitches,” I said. “Told me personally. But…he’s in custody now?”
“He is. So you can rest easy, okay? Everyone you want to keep safe is safe.”
I let out a breath and sagged deeper into the couch.
Safe. They’re all safe.
I wondered if my mom knew that too.
“You know there is an upside to all this madness,” Shiloh said in my ear.
“What’s that?”
“We don’t have to hide at school anymore.”
My eyes widened. “I thought you hated people being up in your business.”
“I do, but no sense in pretending if we don’t have to. Right? I haven’t been a…girlfriend to anyone. Ever. But I want to try.”
Girlfriend. Holy shit.
I felt her holding her breath, waiting for my reply. I knew it took a lot to show this side of her—the side that was unsure and unguarded.
“I’ve never been anyone’s boyfriend,” I said.
A small sigh came over the line and I heard her smile. “What do you think? Want to give it a go?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
Days later, Shiloh met me coming out of the parking lot at Central. She wore a white sundress that highlighted the deep black of her hair and made her skin glow in the bright May light. Her smile when she saw me was fucking stunning.
“Hey, you.” She fell in step beside me and took my hand. “It feels weird, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I muttered. It felt really fucking weird to have a girl like Shiloh beside me—my girlfriend—willing to show the world she was mine. As if I’d gone to sleep in my old shitty life and woke up in a brand new one.
“Maybe we should do something about it,” she said. “Get it over with. Like tearing off a Band-Aid.”
We were crossing the quad and Shiloh pulled me to a stop right in the middle and kissed me. In front of the whole school.
“I have to admit,” she said when she pulled away. “PDA is much less annoying when I’m the one doing it.”
I chuckled and spied Frankie Dowd watching us. He looked like hell—skinnier, his face pale—as if he hadn’t slept or eaten in days. He sneered and flipped me the bird but without any real fight. I sort of felt sorry for him.
I put my arm around Shiloh and steered her in another direction, shooting him a glare that warned of pain if he fucked with her. He slunk away quickly, but part of me wondered if I couldn’t drop my vigilance just yet.
“Prom is in the air,” Shiloh said, nodding at a huge poster strung between two poles. The Pogonip Country Club is proud to host this year’s senior Prom— A Night Under the Stars! Get your tix now!
“Word on the street is that my very own Violet will be crowned Queen.”
I looked down at her. “You want to go?”
She stared. “Are you asking me to Prom?”
I thought of the two hundred dollars Maryann had given me. I hated taking it but if I spent it on Shiloh, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
“If you want to go…then yes. I’m asking.”
“I told you, dances aren’t my thing. And I didn’t think they were yours either. Are they?”
“Fuck no. But I want to do what you want.”
She slipped her arms around my waist. “Maybe we could do our own thing instead.”
“Like what?” I asked and then it hit me all at once, like a fucking vision from the future. “Never mind. I have it.”
Her brows rose. “Care to share?”
“No.”
“I don’t get a say?”
“No. Leave it to me.”
“He says to the Type A personality,” Shiloh said laughing. “I’ve planned all of my own birthday parties since I was six.”
“You’re going to have to sit this one out.” I bent and kissed her. “It’s what boyfriends do for their girlfriends.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The sun was still high in the sky at four o’clock on Prom night when Ronan knocked on our door. Bibi answered while I gave myself a last once-over in the bathroom mirror.
My dress was an off-the-shoulder in muted yellow, covered in outlines of flowers in black—like sketches—every few colored in bursts of white or red. The loose layers flowed to my shins in the front, my ankles in the back, and gathered at the waist. I’d tied half of my braids away from my face, the rest flowing between my shoulder blades. I slipped a few silver rings on my fingers and bangles on my arms, but Ronan had told me not to get too fancy. Maybe because he wasn’t exactly rolling in cash. Not that I cared. We could eat at McDonald’s and then go bowling, so long as I was with him.
You are so gone, girl.
My heart skipped a beat as I heard Ronan’s low voice and Bibi’s higher one as she crowed over him. I blew air through puffed cheeks and headed out. I got as far as the dining table and stopped.
Oh. My. God.
Ronan was in all black. Black T-shirt, black jeans, black boots, and a black bomber jacket that I’d never seen before. His hair was darker too, slicked back from his face from a shower, and his eyes were as silver as the necklace around his neck. He wore it against his shirt now, instead of tucked under. His injuries had healed, returning his face to its usual beautiful perfection—sharp angles and full lips. High cheek bones and thick brows.
“And he’s mine…” I murmured, the words falling out of my mouth before I could stop them.
“There she is,” Bibi said, her throat thick. “Oh my, aren’t you the most beautiful girl and most handsome man in all of Santa Cruz?”
“You have to say that because you’re my grandma,” I said, crossing to them. I smoothed the lapels on Ronan’s jacket. He smelled like shower soap and the burned wood from a bonfire at the Shack, as if he carried the fire with him. “There should be a law that requires you to wear all black, every day, for the rest of your life.”