I did the dishes as Ronan cleared the table. Once everything was done, I tried to garner the courage to ask him to sit with me and watch a movie but I didn’t want to press my luck. “I think I’ll go read,” I said quietly. “Thanks for dinner.”
But Ronan grabbed my arm just as I turned away and my whole body drew up tight with excited anticipation. Shockwaves went up my arm and filtered out to all my limbs but it was my cock that reacted the most violently to his touch. God, I needed him again. I didn’t care what it would cost me in the long run. I just wanted to feel his body pinning mine down, his flesh buried deep inside of me.
“I thought maybe we could hang out a bit,” Ronan said as he released me. I couldn’t help but notice that he didn’t seem to be as strongly affected as I was. Shit, did that mean his attraction to me had already started to wane? Had my weakness today turned him off?
“Um, sure, we could watch a movie,” I said awkwardly. Suddenly I just wanted to get away from him as my self-doubt increased.
“I have something else in mind,” he said and I had no choice but to follow him. We ended up in the TV room but I didn’t realize what Ronan was doing until he picked up the remote for the video game machine and turned it and the big screen TV on.
“This is your favorite, right?” Ronan asked as he motioned to the game that was booting up. I only managed a nod because I hadn’t actually played any video games after my parents and Trace had died, because it was another link to them that I couldn’t bear to deal with.
I dropped down onto the couch next to Ronan as the game started up. It was a racing game that Trace and I had spent countless hours playing whenever he was home and on a few occasions, Ronan and I had played as well, though being in Ronan’s presence had always made me too nervous to really focus on the game.
I was beyond rusty but luckily, so was Ronan. And while I was still nervous around him, I still managed to kick his ass on the first game. He returned the favor on the second and by the third, we were in an all-out death race to the finish line. We played for more than an hour before switching to Tetris, another one of my favorites.
“Trace loved this game,” Ronan suddenly announced as we started up a new round. It was so strange to have Ronan initiate a conversation about Trace that I actually held my breath in hopes that he would continue. He didn’t.
“He used to let me win,” I ventured.
“Yeah, early on. But then you got good.” Ronan glanced at me and smiled. “He used to practice as much as he could on his downtime so he could beat you. It drove him crazy that his kid brother kept kicking his ass.”
I chuckled. “He did like to win at everything.”
“He did,” Ronan mused.
“What about you?” I asked.
“What? Did I like to win?” Ronan asked.
I nodded.
Ronan thought about it for a moment. “I liked being the best at things like school and work. But I liked not having to worry about it with him. He liked to win but he knew how to have fun doing it. I needed that in my life.”
I knew we were treading on dangerous ground so I considered my next words carefully. “You didn’t get enough of that growing up? Fun, I mean?”
I saw Ronan’s thumb start rubbing the edge of the game controller and I couldn’t help but wonder if he weren’t holding it, would he be tapping his fingers together instead? As his silence went on, I didn’t expect him to answer me and I reached for the button that would start the next game.
“I didn’t have what you guys had, Seth,” Ronan murmured as his eyes fell to the controller in his hand. “I didn’t even know what I was missing until I met him…till he brought me home to meet you guys.”
I forced back the lump of emotion in my throat. “What did you have?”
Another lengthy silence, then, “Hate, anger, guilt.”
I wanted desperately to touch him but I remained perfectly still. “Your parents?”
“My father.”
I swallowed hard at hearing the same two words he’d said to me earlier. “What about your mother?”
“She died giving birth to me,” Ronan said. “The way he talked about her…I knew they were happy. He used to tell me stories about how they met in high school and he asked her to marry him when they were both fifteen. He gave her a promise ring and they got married the day after they graduated.”
The story should have been a happy one but I could tell from his tone that it hadn’t been told that way to him. But I held my tongue.
“He used to say it should have been me instead of her…he said the doctors should have let him decide which one of us to save.”
Anger surged through me but I managed to keep quiet. But I instinctively moved closer to him before I realized what I was doing, but Ronan was too lost in himself to notice. “She wanted to be a doctor,” Ronan whispered.
I stilled. “Your mom?” I asked gently.
