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Ronan and I both share a laugh as we bid Carlos farewell and head out on our walk.
The weather outside is warm and soft. A gentle breeze washes over me as I stroll beside the hulking man.
“So, where are we going?” I ask.
Ronan shrugs playfully. “Wherever we want.”
“You’re not worried about running into anyone?” As peaceful as the city’s been for the past few days, I know from experience that being with Ronan can never be completely trouble-free.
Still, he doesn’t seem worried. “I’ve been working out my business-man muscles for the past few days, in-between trying to call you. It looks like my little stand has garnered me some leverage among the remaining remnants of the underworld. Right now, I’m the man at the head of the table. I’ve got the Barone coffers under my control, as well as all the crooked cops that money can buy—and with that power under my belt, the remaining Russians are quickly realizing that they’d better pay me some respect or else risk getting run out of town.”
I only half-listen. The summer weather is so nice that all the pain and darkness and violence of the past months seem like a distant nightmare.
We turn a corner and keep walking down a street that’s a stark reminder of what we’ve just been through. Skeletons of burnt-out shops with shattered windows and empty insides litter the road. It’s sad, but there’s also hope that things can finally get better now.
It’s so nice to be able to walk around without the worry of being caught by a stray bullet or an overeager goon.
I let myself lean a little closer to Ronan’s shoulder as we stroll through the debris. “... I didn’t think you were coming back,” I whisper, almost more to myself to him.
His shoulder brushes against mine and I sigh. It feels so right to be so close to him.
“And yet, you still decided to soldier on,” his eyes wander down to my little baby bump. “That’s part of the reason I like you so much. You’re even tougher than me, and it was obvious from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
I chuckle. “I wonder what’s more painful,” I ponder. “A bullet through the arm, or a baby out the—” We both break down into laughter before I can finish.
“Let’s just say I’d rather you give birth than me take another bullet any time soon,” he says, wiping his cheek with one hand and straddling the back of my hand with his other.
“Duh,” I tease.
Ronan playfully shoulder-checks me. I lean right back into him.
“I have to say, though,” he smiles. “It’s nice to finally see the opportunity for life come from pain. I’m so used to it being attached to the threat of death that it feels like I’m entering a whole new world all of a sudden.”
I gently rub my belly. “Well, we will be welcoming a whole new life into this world.”
I look over to Ronan and see that he’s raised a lively eyebrow.
“What!?” I giggle, hardly able to contain myself. It’s weird, suddenly feeling so full of hope after spen
ding so much time in such a deep pit of despair. I still don’t know exactly how things between Ronan and I are going to go, but I do know how I want them to go.
“You said ‘we’,” Ronan smirks.
“What do you mean?”
“You said, ‘we’ will be welcoming a whole new life into this world... does that mean you want me to stick around?”
I bite the inside of my lip. Obviously, I do, and obviously he knows that, but I realize I haven’t actually said it yet. “As long as you don’t go running off to any more gunfights,” I say, swaying back and forth against his shoulder.
“I promise—on the life of my child.”
“On the life of our child,” I remind him.
“Of course,” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his head. “So, I guess we’ve got about six months to really get to know each other before we’re thrown completely in the deep end.”
I can only laugh at that. “I feel like we’ve already been thrown in the deep end. Wherever we’re at now seems so much calmer than what we’ve been going through for the past three months. I think, if we can survive that, we can survive anything.”
Ronan’s big strong arm reaches out and falls around my shoulder. His weight is heavy, but warm, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world right now. “I’m still going to spoil you rotten,” he smiles. “There are plenty of big dates on your horizon!”
