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“If you want to shower, there’s shower gel for you, a toothbrush, and a shower cap. And I got a bottle of conditioner, like the kind you have in your bathroom.”
My jaw fell open. “When…?”
“I might’ve peeked when I was at your place the morning after all that Dowd shit went down.” He bent swiftly over the bed and kissed me. “I gotta go. Be right back.”
He left me staring after him, dumbfounded. I wrapped myself in the comforter and dragged it to the bathroom to pee. Sure enough, he’d stocked up on everything I needed to spend the night. He even bought the same flowery shower gel I used.
“Ronan Wentz…”
Last night came back. All of it. The enormity of what he’d done for me was overwhelming. Hard to believe it was all for me.
I fished around in his drawers for a T-shirt. It came down to my thighs and smelled like him, like having him next to my skin all over again.
In his simple but tidy kitchen, I hit the button on the coffee maker, then drank a cup with a jelly doughnut from the same place I’d taken him to in downtown Santa Cruz. My body felt pleasantly heavy and lazy. I climbed back into bed and tied up my braids in the scarf, then settled in to wait for him.
I must’ve dozed off. Some hours later, when the clock said it was midmorning, Ronan returned, a dark expression on his face. I came fully awake, instantly, and scanned him for injury.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “We did it. Chet won’t be bothering Miller’s mom ever again.”
“Then why do you look…almost sad?”
Ronan was quiet for a minute, thoughts swam behind his eyes that looked like the gray before a storm.
“I hate that I sort of love it,” he said finally. “The fight. The adrenaline rush. The violence. Even the pain. It’s everything I want to keep away from you.”
I reached for his hand; his knuckles were swollen and red. “But Ronan, you only ever fight when it’s to help. Miller and his mom. Kimberly…”
“The part of me that loves it is him.”
“Your dad?”
He nodded and tapped his chest where the Milton quote was inked into his skin. “That’s what this means. We were in hell, my mom and me. A hell that Dad made. But the devil is me. I was cast out of a good life and I worry sometimes it’s turned me into something bad. Something like him.”
“You’re not anything like him.”
“I wanted to fight this morning. I wanted to make Chet suffer for hurting Miller and his mom. It reminded me of my family. Like I was being given another chance to save her.” He flexed his knuckles; his voice was low and stony. “I wanted to hurt him.”
“But you didn’t, right? Not badly?”
“Scared him more than anything.”
“And that’s the difference between you and your dad,” I said. “You stopped. He didn’t.”
He said nothing and I could see he was still struggling with it. I didn’t know what else to say. My phone on his nightstand rang into the quiet.
“It’s Bibi.” I hit the green answer button. “You okay?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt you and Ronan on what is surely a morning of sheer bliss…”
I clapped my hand to my eyes and shook my head. Ronan raised an eyebrow.
“An envelope has arrived from a bank,” Bibi said. “The one where you applied for a start-up loan. It feels thick.”
“Holy shit.” My chest tightened, my heart clanging. “Bank application came back,” I said to Ronan’s alarmed stare. “My loan…”
“Esther is here,” Bibi said in my ear. “She can read it for me if that’s okay with you.”
