She laughed. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“Right now? I want to make you come.”
Her eyes widened and an astonished sound burst out of her. “Jesus…” She cleared her throat. “We’ve already established we’re good at the physical stuff, thanks. But be serious. What do you want long term?”
I leaned back in the chair. “I can’t see that far. Most of my life has been day by day. Just getting through one to the next. Surviving.” I lifted my eyes to her. “And I was being serious. I want you. But I shouldn’t say shit like that. That’s just me being greedy. It’s better for you if we don’t have a long term.”
“You keep saying that and I keep freaking out and yet we both keep ending up here.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She arched a brow, dubious. “You’d hurt me?”
“Never,” I said. “But it might not be up to me.”
“I don’t understand.” Her voice softened. “Does this have to do with what happened to your mom?”
My head whipped up.
“Miller told me.”
I spat a curse. “He shouldn’t have done that.”
“It slipped out. He cares about you.”
“He still should’ve kept his mouth shut.”
“What happened?”
“You don’t want to hear this, Shiloh.”
“I do. If we have a prayer of…anything, we have to be honest with each other. I’ve been pretty open about my baggage, all things considered.”
“I know.”
When I said nothing more, she nodded, the hope falling away. “If you really want me to go, I’ll go. But if I walk out of here, that’s it. No phone calls. No texts. No showing up at my door in the rain…”
Her eyes shone for a moment, but she blinked hard. Christ, it took all I had not to hurl myself out of that chair and grab her and kiss her until the past was someplace distant and couldn’t touch us.
But it always comes back…
Then something worse unfolded in front of me. A future without Shiloh in it.
“I was there,” I said, spitting out the words hard and fast. “Mom threatened to leave him for good, so he took a baseball bat and made sure that could never happen. That she couldn’t go anywhere ever again.”
Shiloh’s hand flew to her mouth. “Jesus…”
“My dad did that,” I said. “His blood is in my veins. I’m his son. Stints in juvie. Fights. The rage of it all… How fucked up he was… That’s in me. And the very last fucking thing I want to do is bring that ugliness to you.”
Her hand dropped, her face soft. “I don’t see anything ugly in you, Ronan. I see someone who protects his friends from bullying assholes, calls out rapists… Someone who walks in the rain to make sure that the dummy who won’t answer her phone is okay.”
Christ, if she knew I walked every night to make sure she was okay…
She cocked her head, still trying for tough while the soft vulnerability in her eyes bled through. “Well?”
I got to my feet, towered over her. “No one can know,” I said. “If we do this, no one can know at school. It may seem fucking stupid, but I need that, Shiloh. At least for a little while. Until after graduation, maybe.”
She smirked but her breath was turning fluttery. “I told you, I’m okay with that. This is like a do-over. We’ll keep things…”