“What does that mean, exactly?”
“Tenant eviction,” Ronan said with a wry smile, drawing on his boots. “I won’t be gone long. Stay here. The coffee maker is ready to go if you want coffee. There are doughnuts on the counter and fruit in the fridge… I wasn’t sure what you might want.”
“You have all that waiting for me? Did you plan on me coming here?”
“I hoped that you would.” He smiled a little and went to the top drawer of his dresser. “I would have given this to you sooner, but we didn’t do much sleeping.” He turned, and my heart swelled to see a silky headscarf in red and orange. He handed it to me. “If you want to sleep more.”
“Ronan…”
“If you want to shower, there’s shower gel for you, a toothbrush, and a shower cap. And I got a bottle of conditioner, like the kind you have in your bathroom.”
My jaw fell open. “When…?”
“I might’ve peeked when I was at your place the morning after all that Dowd shit went down.” He bent swiftly over the bed and kissed me. “I gotta go. Be right back.”
He left me staring after him, dumbfounded. I wrapped myself in the comforter and dragged it to the bathroom to pee. Sure enough, he’d stocked up on everything I needed to spend the night. He even bought the same flowery shower gel I used.
“Ronan Wentz…”
Last night came back. All of it. The enormity of what he’d done for me was overwhelming. Hard to believe it was all for me.
I fished around in his drawers for a T-shirt. It came down to my thighs and smelled like him, like having him next to my skin all over again.
In his simple but tidy kitchen, I hit the button on the coffee maker, then drank a cup with a jelly doughnut from the same place I’d taken him to in downtown Santa Cruz. My body felt pleasantly heavy and lazy. I climbed back into bed and tied up my braids in the scarf, then settled in to wait for him.
I must’ve dozed off. Some hours later, when the clock said it was midmorning, Ronan returned, a dark expression on his face. I came fully awake, instantly, and scanned him for injury.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “We did it. Chet won’t be bothering Miller’s mom ever again.”
“Then why do you look…almost sad?”
Ronan was quiet for a minute, thoughts swam behind his eyes that looked like the gray before a storm.
“I hate that I sort of love it,” he said finally. “The fight. The adrenaline rush. The violence. Even the pain. It’s everything I want to keep away from you.”
I reached for his hand; his knuckles were swollen and red. “But Ronan, you only ever fight when it’s to help. Miller and his mom. Kimberly…”
“The part of me that loves it is him.”
“Your dad?”
He nodded and tapped his chest where the Milton quote was inked into his skin. “That’s what this means. We were in hell, my mom and me. A hell that Dad made. But the devil is me. I was cast out of a good life and I worry sometimes it’s turned me into something bad. Something like him.”
“You’re not anything like him.”
“I wanted to fight this morning. I wanted to make Chet suffer for hurting Miller and his mom. It reminded me of my family. Like I was being given another chance to save her.” He flexed his knuckles; his voice was low and stony. “I wanted to hurt him.”
“But you didn’t, right? Not badly?”
“Scared him more than anything.”
“And that’s the difference between you and your dad,” I said. “You stopped. He didn’t.”
He said nothing and I could see he was still struggling with it. I didn’t know what else to say. My phone on his nightstand rang into the quiet.
“It’s Bibi.” I hit the green answer button. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you and Ronan on what is surely a morning of sheer bliss…”
I clapped my hand to my eyes and shook my head. Ronan raised an eyebrow.
“An envelope has arrived from a bank,” Bibi said. “The one where you applied for a start-up loan. It feels thick.”
“Holy shit.” My chest tightened, my heart clanging. “Bank application came back,” I said to Ronan’s alarmed stare. “My loan…”
“Esther is here,” Bibi said in my ear. “She can read it for me if that’s okay with you.”
I wasn’t exactly excited about sharing potentially bad news with Esther Morris from up the street, but I couldn’t wait either.
“Okay. Open it.”
I gripped Ronan’s hand and waited an eternity as the ladies chatted and mumbled and rustled the phone in my ear. Then I heard Esther say, “It looks like she got it. Oooh, fifty thousand dollars. That’s nothing to sneeze at.”
My mouth fell open and I stared at Ronan, shaking my head. “I got it. Fifty thousand…”
“Baby!” Bibi cried in my ear. “Did you hear?”
“I heard.” Tears threatened. “Oh my God. Oh my God,” I said over and over, disbelieving as my future unrolled in front of me. My own business. The responsibility of it… The potential of it…
“Wait.” I held still. “Bibi, you didn’t put up the house, did you?”
“No, honey, I promise,” she answered. “This is based on the strength of your Etsy shop and your business plan. Your hard work.”
“Holy shit.”
Ronan stood at the end of the bed and began tugging the blanket off of me. “Tell her you’ll call her back.” His voice was low and gruff.
“Um…Bibi, I have to go.” I smothered a yelp as Ronan took hold of my ankles and pulled me down the length of the bed. “I…I’ll call you back.”
I hung up as Ronan spread my legs and knelt between them.
“What are you doing?” I breathed.
“You got the loan,” he said, matter-of-fact. “Good job.”
Then he lowered his head, and I don’t remember much after that.
We celebrated in the shower, where we took turns wringing pleasure from each other until I was sure I couldn’t have another orgasm for at least a month. But Ronan was shirtless as we sat at his kitchen table, eating fruit and doughnuts. The look in his eyes when I licked powdered sugar off my lip had me doubting if that were true.
The man is a walking orgasm machine.
“What do you want to do today?” he asked.
“I have to get home at some point to celebrate the bank loan with Bibi. I still can’t believe it.”
“Fifty K is fucking amazing, Shiloh.”
“It’s not bad,” I said. “I’ve done the math a thousand times in my head. The space is seven hundred and seventy-five square feet. At forty-two dollars per square foot, that’s about thirty-three thousand dollars per year. Divided by twelve months means fifty grand will cover eighteen months of rent. That’s just to lease the property. Doesn’t include insurance, interior design—”
“I’ll help,” Ronan said. “Whatever I can do. I’ll build whatever you need.”