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Ronan’s gaze was relentless. I started to make up a lie, but my vodka-soaked brain wasn’t cooperating.
“Running interference for Miller,” I said with a sigh. “I thought it would help. I guess not.”
Ronan’s eyebrows rose slightly—the equivalent of massive shock in anyone else. “Whitmore?”
I nodded. “I’d rather not talk about it. Except Amber’s night and mine have some surprising similarities.”
Ronan snorted a laugh and then was quiet for a minute, his eyes as gray as the ocean. “I was thinking about bringing someone here.”
I frowned. “Who do you know besides us? And Vice Principal Chouder doesn’t count.”
Chouder was in charge of student discipline. Ronan spent more time in his office than in an actual classroom.
“Shiloh Barrera.”
“Don’t know her. Or him.”
“Her.”
It was one syllable and yet the hairs on my arms stood up the way his low, rumbling voice infused it with something close to reverence.
“It’s fine by me, but do you need majority approval?”
“I haven’t asked Miller yet,” Ronan said. “I will.”
The fact he asked me first was enough to have me reaching for my flask, but I’d emptied it before the end of the school day.
Ronan turned his head to me slowly. “If you ever want to bring—”
“No,” I said flatly. “Not going to happen. His baggage plus my baggage exceeds maximum limits.”
Ronan nodded. “If anything changes—”
“It won’t.”
“If it does,” he said, his tone hard, “bring him.”
Night’s shadows creeped across the floor of the guesthouse. It wasn’t hot enough for a fire, but I had the fireplace going anyway while I sat at my desk, scribbling in my journal. My hand moved across the page in a blur.
River hadn’t been in class for the last two days.
His empty chair conjured all kinds of terrible metaphors. Absence. Solitude. Isolation. In the immortal words of Miss Britney, my loneliness was killing me, but at least seeing River in class once a day—even if nothing could ever happen between us—was something. Now there wasn’t even that.
A little after one a.m., I stretched my fingers as my phoned chimed a text from an unfamiliar number.
Hey, it’s River. Another text came while I panicked like a dope. Can I call you?
You don’t feel like a stranger anymore.
I jabbed, Yes.
My phone lit up and I played hard-to-get—I let it ring twice before answering.
“It’s late,” I said coldly.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
His voice sounded haggard, as if it’d been dragged through the mud, crumbling my defenses instantly.
