“Ronan, I think you're smothering me.” She cracked a smile. “Such a charmer. Now I remember what it was like on our first date at the movies. My father should have locked me up in the house and not let you take me out.”
“He had more to worry about with Shaun over here. Phoebe and he were trouble together.”
“True.” Luna’s nose nuzzled Olive, and they were friends after that.
Glancing over at Shaun and Emma, Ronan smiled at their raised eyebrows.
“Where’s Jonah? He needs a picture of this. His mother on her first actual date in twenty years.” Shaun came back over and snapped a picture.
“Cut it out, guys. Come on, Ronan, as much as I like your dog, I have work to do.” Annoyance in her eyes, Luna looked ready to snap.
Ronan saw something else in her eyes: fear, pain, and love. He couldn’t make it out. Rather than push her completely away, he sighed. “Fine, we’ll just have to do this later. We need to talk and catch up. Did you ever find Phoebe?”
Two
His last words were the icing on the cake for a most terribly unsettling moment. Giving him a hard shove, she maneuvered past him and Shaun as he snapped another picture. “You keep that up, and I’m going to post old photos from your childhood on social media.”
Emma snickered. “That would be most amusing. I say do it anyway. He ain’t gonna stop and you know he doesn't give one whit about that stuff.”
Luna needed a break, even though she’d already had one. After a few minutes in the bathroom, she came out to find Ronan had left.
“See that, Luna? You chased Ronan out. I almost had a traveling musician for Saturday night and now I’m gonna have to pay him.” Shaun smiled.
“You're gonna have to pay him anyway, Dad,” Bonnie said.
“Shh, we can’t go sharing that with everyone. Then that guitarist I didn't pay two months ago will circle back from wherever he went.”
Luna busied herself the rest of the day, with Ronan constantly popping up in her mind. Her reaction to himinfuriated her more than his behavior. It was so annoying she came home to clean more and ignore her fatigue.
“Mom, where are you?”
“Down here, son. Where have you been?”
“At the gym. Donnie showed me how to use some of the equipment. I saw that guy Ronan. He showed up before I left and got in the ring with some big guy. So what happened at the restaurant?”
“Nothing.” About ready to erupt, Luna dumped all her frustrations from the day on Jonah in two minutes. “Just reunited with an old flame, met his dog, and had our picture taken, and now all I want to do is go back to the Caribbean.”
“It can’t be that bad. Donnie introduced us. Ronan seemed friendly and hilarious. He doesn't seem like your type at all.”
“And what would you know about my type?” Luna stopped her cleaning, irritation flaring again at the memory of Ronan’s behavior.
Jonah smiled. “Nothing, just saying he seemed like a nice guy. I approve of him, Mom.”
“Well, good, you can approve, and then you can get to work on helping me clean things up. Shaun and his friends are going to be here any moment.”
“Geez, Mom, Ok, I’ll start cleaning up.”
The door burst open and Shaun walked in, and he wasn’t alone. “We're here, well, Ronan and I, anyway. Let's get this party going. We’ve got a lot of work to do, Luna. I also brought the food. It’s late, but I don’t sleep.”
His wife Emma stormed in after with Nicky behind, and before Luna blinked, they were all working on her family's home and boat house.
It was hard to concentrate with Ronan around. Every time she glanced in his direction, he was smiling at her. Every timeshe moved, she bumped into him, or he reminded her to watch out for something.
After a few hours, while the rest of the crew stopped working, she and Ronan were still hard at work cleaning up. “This place is going to be just like new when we're done,” Ronan said.
“If it ever gets done. For all the cleaning we're doing, it seems like there are still more things to do,” Luna said.
He smiled, the warmth of his breath fanned across Luna’s face as they worked side by side. “It's all perception.”
