“It’s more a favor to me. I’d prefer my grandmother not think I’m an asshole.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t look at me at all.
“You care if I roll down the window?” he asked after a minute.
“Be my guest.”
He used the hand crank—nothing automatic here—wearing a small smirk.
“Something on your mind?” I inquired, brows arched.
“Sweet ride,” Ronan deadpanned. “What is it? An ’82?”
“It’s an ’84, if you must know, and still going.”
“Pretty sure I was walking faster.”
A shocked laugh burst out of me. It didn’t seem possible that Ronan Wentz had a sense of humor, but there we were.
“Did you just diss my vehicle?”
“Yes.”
I shot him a stern look, trying not to laugh. “You’ll have to take up your complaints with Bibi. This sweet ride is hers, technically, though she’s not allowed to drive it anymore.”
“Because it belongs in a museum?”
“Hilarious. You didn’t have to accept a ride if my boat is so offensive to your automotive sensibilities.”
“Yeah, I did. So Bibi doesn’t think you’re an asshole.”
“So you did it out of pity.”
“There’s nothing pitiful about you.”
Ronan stiffened as if the words had escaped him without thinking. A sudden tenseness filled the car, killing the light mood, even as a warm glow bloomed in my chest against my will.
I quickly put my eyes back on the road, but a maroon slash of dried blood on the top of Ronan’s left forearm caught my eye. The cut was nearly six inches long and curved like a hook. Two Band-Aids were laid clumsily over it, like bridges over a thin red river.
He’s hurt…
I gave myself a mental shake for being so soft. It was probably just the Type A personality in me demanding I take care of him.
It. Take care of it. Not him.
“I heard the party got a little crazy on Saturday,” I said.
“You could say that.”
I nodded at the cut. “Is that a souvenir?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing. And it’s getting red around—”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Forget it.”
I expected my hackles to rise, but the aura of loneliness I’d noticed the first time we met lurked beneath his rough tone. Like he wasn’t used to people giving a shit.