Bulldozer (Hard to Love 3)

“Is he feeling better?” Ronan asks, catching sight of me. The fact that he looks only mildly concerned irks me. I nod and take a seat on the couch between the two of them.

“What happened?” I ask Ronan, forcing myself to keep the accusation out of my voice.

“I don’t know. We got pizza. Then he wanted ice cream so we got ice cream and then we watched a movie with Skye and she put out candy and caramel popcorn and sodas.”

Christ on a cracker. “We eat very healthy. His stomach is not used to all that junk.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I need to explain to you that feeding him fifty pounds of sugar and throwing soda on top of that is probably not a good idea? I apologize. I didn’t realize I had to explain common sense.”

“He’s a little delicate, isn’t he? You’ve probably been babying him too much.”

The man that was slouching like a lazy lion in the armchair to my left a second ago is now sitting upright, staring dead ahead at Ronan.

Uh-oh.

“I haven’t been babying him enough actually. And you’re in no position to be handing out parenting tips.” Ronan leans back in his chair and runs his hands fretfully through his hair. “If this is too much…”

“No. I’ll figure it out. I was much tougher than him at his age…I guess I’ll have to adjust my expectations.”

I swear I hear a growl coming from Grant.

“He’s a great kid. Maybe take the time to get to know him before you adjust your expectations.” The baritone falls like a hammer between us, the lack of force making it sound so much more menacing.

Ronan glares back. I have to give him credit for scraping up the nerve. Ronan is tall and leanly muscled, half the size of Grant. “Who the fuck asked you?”

And that’s maybe too much nerve, and also my cue to jump in.

“I’ll walk you out,” I announce. Getting up, I take Ronan by the arm, guiding him out the front door to the porch. With his hands on his hips, he whips around and I know an argument is coming.

“I want that fucker gone,” he murmurs, aiming an index finger at the front door.

That almost gets a chuckle. Oh the irony. A few weeks ago I would’ve agreed with him. Not now, though. Listening to Grant defend Sam with so much conviction made my heart swell inside my chest to the point of pain. In unexpected moments such as this one, when he lets me peek behind the iron curtain he keeps closed so tightly, the ground beneath my feet feels unstable. It makes me like having him around way too much.

“He’s not going anywhere. He’s my brother’s friend and Calvin wants him here.” A small prevarication. “Listen, if you have doubts about something next time text me and I’ll explain. You don’t have to give Sam everything he asks for to get him to like you.”

Ronan exhales loudly. “This is hard.”

This time I do laugh. “No kidding…are you going to be able to do it for two weeks?”

“Yeah…I’m glad I came out. These weekends are going to be good for me, too.”

“We finally agree on something.”

Chapter Ten

“Let me set you up on a date.”

I can practically feel Camilla’s palpable excitement coming through the phone. She’s been begging to set me up for months. From my beach chair, I watch Sam playing fetch with Roxy near the shoreline.

“I dunno…How am I going to explain it to Sam?”

“Tell him you’re going out to dinner. When he pays your bills, he can make decisions for you. That quote is courtesy of Tom DeSantis.”

Camilla is an only child and very close to her parents, something I always envied. Both my parents are long gone but since they were never around to begin with, there’s nothing to miss.

“If I can find someone, I’m sure you can, too.”

“Not even in my wildest dreams would that happen to me.”

As the words leave my lips, I’m instantly transported back to this morning. I was watering the hydrangeas when Grant’s voice reached me. He was on the phone with honey, again. Truth: it irked me to hear him sound so excited to speak to her and I refuse to examine that too closely.

Hendricks has honey to make him happy and Ronan’s engaged. Don’t I deserve someone that puts a smile on my face and a spark of joy in my voice?

“My life was in shambles when I met your brother and look how that turned out.”

Camilla hit a streak of really bad luck before she met my brother. Her first husband died in a car accident, then it was discovered that he’d been embezzling money from his investors. After the government seized everything, Cam was left not only penniless but also full of debt.

“Fine. But I have a list of non-starters. No investment bankers. No lawyers. Nobody younger than me. Nobody that likes to party. Which rules out musicians, writers, artists, models, actors––oh, and no Coreys, or Tobys.”