Now her eyes narrowed. “Why are you asking that?”
“I’m just thinking of other men I’ve known and how their past was a good indicator of their future behavior. Like my dad,” I offered. “He dated the same kind of woman all the time. No matter where we were, what she looked like, or what her name was, she was exactly like all the others. She took his money and either cheated or got him in trouble somehow.” There were so many stories.
“He had bad taste,” Kiya said, and that was such an understatement. “Do you think that’s how Ronan is?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I didn’t want to tell you this, but Channing said that he never commits to anyone,” she told me. “I was thinking that maybe he never met the right person. Until now,” she added.
“I don’t believe in that ‘right person’ stuff and neither does he. He hasn’t been serious about anyone because he likes his life the way it is,” I said. “He probably dated plenty of great women but he doesn’t want to do a relationship progression thing.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She looked pained.
“No, don’t be. We’re not together,” I reminded her. “And I didn’t want to tell you something either, but I should have. Ronan mentioned before that he never knew Channing to stay with someone for very long.”
She shrugged. “It wasn’t a secret from me. I asked him about his history and that was what he said, too, but I thought that I was different.”
“Maybe you are,” I suggested, but she had moved to another emotion: anger.
“He can’t treat me like this,” she announced. “He wants to screw around? Fine!”
“I don’t know that he’s screwing—”
“Let’s dance,” she said. “We’ll both find people who are better.”
A few hours later, I drove her home, and it was late enough that I didn’t want to drive any further and go back to my apartment where I’d be alone. I crashed on her couch instead and scared Taylor to death when she got home even later. It was a bad night for sleep and it hadn’t been fun at the bar, where Kiya had beenaggressively on the hunt for new guys for both of us. She’d done the same thing at our second location, and the third, and then I had said that I was done when we’d left there.
“I’m not looking for someone,” I had explained to her for at least the tenth time.
“Why not?” she had demanded, but then rolled her eyes and agreed that yes, she was done, too. She’d cried a little more and then had fallen asleep in my passenger seat.
Ronan and I had plans to work out the next day, Saturday, so I got up early and cranky and drove to my apartment. Taylor and Kiya had a serious mess going at their condo and I was glad to get back home where everything was neat, clean, and mine. There was no one else here to leave dirty dishes in the kitchen (their sink had been full) or piles of clothes on the floor (their living room had contained actual mountains of those, and I had pushed one off the couch to give myself a place to sleep). I wondered if they resented each other for creating that havoc, like I had resented my dad.
At the moment, I resented life in general. I was tired and still cranky but I did put on my gym clothes and I went outside to wait in the parking lot until Ronan showed up. He had texted me the night before, making sure that I got in safely, but we hadn’t shared any information about the people we’d left with.
“Good morning,” he called out of his window as he pulled to a stop. “Why are you sitting on the curb?”
Somehow, my apartment had felt too constraining. No, it had just felt strange. “I wanted to be in the sun,” I said gruffly.
“You ok? What happened to your voice?” He yanked open the car door.
I had been screaming at several bars the night before, mostly informing different guys that I wasn’t interested no matter what my friend had told them. “Nothing. What happened with Channing?” I asked as we started off.
“I think he’d been drinking before we met up with them,” he told me. “A minute after I forced him into his house, he threw up on his floor. Then he told me that he was an asshole and I agreed, and I said that he needs to apologize to Kiya. But he fell asleep before that happened. I stuck around to make sure he was ok and now I’m tired.” He yawned.
“Me too,” I admitted. “I slept on Kiya’s couch.”
“Did she drink herself sick, too?”
“No, I just didn’t want to go home for some reason,” I heard myself admit. “I don’t know why. My apartment is so nice.”
“Yeah, you have all those good pillows now.” He had helped me choose a few new ones for my couch. “Is that why you were sitting outside?”
“Maybe. Yes,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“You sound grumpy,” he pointed out.
“I am not!” I huffed. “I am. Let’s just do an easy workout.”
