“Please don’t hit me again,” he jokes before lowering his barricade.
“Very funny,” I say. “Glad to see your nipples are completely out of view.”
He shoves the rest of the money into the register and comes around the side of the counter.
“What’s up? Hungry?”
“Oh no, I don’t even have any money. I was just wandering and was kind of hoping to cool off before heading home.”
Ronan looks me up and down and takes in my sweaty…everything. “Take a seat,” he says.
I find the nearest table, the one that Jay and I happened to sit at the first time we ate together and push my phone and headphones off to the side. Minutes later, Ronan comes over with a large cup of ice water and a slice of Hawaiian pizza and places it in front of me before sitting in the other chair.
“Jay told me it’s your favorite.” He gestures to the pizza, and I play with the edge of the paper plate.
“Have you talked to him yet?” I ask. He turns his head away, staring at the floor, thinking.
“Now that you mention it, no I haven’t. Not since the cookout the other day.” I nod my head and continue playing with the plate. “What happened?” he asks.
I shake my head, keeping it down, trying to hide the fact that I feel tears forming behind my eyes. When I don’t speak, Ronan repeats himself. “Claire. What happened?”
I look up and the concern on Ronan's face breaks the dam. Tears fall and he reaches for napkins, giving me time to get myself together. My heart breaks for Jay, and for myself, as I tell him about everything from his brother buying Dad’s car, to him asking me to be with him, to his radio silence.
Ronan drags a hand down his face before speaking. “This has nothing to do with you, Claire.”
“It sure feels like it does.Mydad’s car,ournight together, ignoringme.”
“I get that,” he says. “But Jay has been through some shit that not even I can understand.”
I nod, looking back down at my untouched food.
“Did he ever tell you how we met?” he asks, and I look up to meet his sorrowful gaze.
“Mhmm.”
“Did he tell you how I came into the system?”
I shake my head, no.
“My birth parents died. Car accident. A drunk driver hit them head on and they both died on impact.”
My hand shoots to my mouth, my eyes watering for a second time.
“I didn’t have any living relatives,” he continues. “Both of my parents were only children, and my grandparents were all gone before I was even born.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“It's okay,” he says. “Yeah, there was some shitty stuff that happened there for a few years. I got dealt a bad hand and was in a dark place for a while, but after I met Mikey and my adoptive parents, things started falling back into place. At the end of the day, I get to leave this world knowing I had two sets of parents who loved me. Which is a whole set more than most people.” He smiles but it’s fleeting. “But that’s twice as much as Jay.”
I look at him and see a man who once had his life ripped apart and sewn back together. Who was once thrown in the thick of tragedy, but is now so loved and so successful. He’s an absolute anomaly. But he’s also absolutely right.
“Did he ever tell you his story?” he asks.
I sniffle. “Just pieces. I know about his mom being an alcoholic and the men who were abusive. I know his brother left when he was young and that he was in the system for a really long time.”
He bobs his head, but his eyes wander like he’s looking for something. “Did he tell you how?”
“How what?” I ask.
