“This situation with Kiya feels wrong and I won’t be able to hold any of these people by their ankles.”
“You could tell her that it’s my fault,” he suggested, but in the end I decided that a simple, informational text was best.
“I just saw Channing. He’s out with a woman,” I wrote, and a few minutes later, Kiya answered.
“So? He can eat me.”
“Ok, I guess they were finished,” I said, showing him my phone. And actually, it wasn’t a bad thing that this had happened—not bad for Ronan, anyway. It served as a distraction from worrying about the news he’d get tomorrow, the release of the Woodsmenroster. We ate dinner and he didn’t look anxious and he didn’t frown at all.
It didn’t seem to distract me in the same way. Now, I felt worried about both of those issues. Channing and his date finished first and he hurried her out of the pizza place, barely waving at our table before skulking away. We finished a little after that and walked out to the car/truck, and this time I sat in the reclined seat and watched the sky. It never got dark in the summer, not until very late, and I saw a few birds fly past. I needed to be like them, like a duck and let everything slide away. I couldn’t really understand why I was so upset about this Channing problem and I didn’t like it.
“Cate, we’re stopped in my driveway,” Ronan told me.
“Oh, right.” I sat up straight. “Ok, thanks for dinner and I’ll talk to you later,” I said.
“It’s early. Come in,” he invited, and I went ahead and did that. He got me another beer from his fridge and opened a few windows, since we’d cleaned up the dinner I’d made but the kitchen still had a certain odor. “Are you this upset about your friend?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I’m sorry that this happened to her and I’m sorry that I seem to be a part of it.”
“Because of me,” he said.
“But she’ll blame me because I’m closer to her. My dad used to do this, too. Every time he had a problem at a job or with a woman, it ended up being my fault. Like when he was late, it was because I hadn’t set the alarm right so he’d overslept,” Iexplained. “That happened a lot and I used to set two or three alarms, but if he was drinking, I couldn’t wake him even if I poured water over his head.”
“Why the hell were you in charge of getting him to work?”
“Somebody had to do it. We needed his salary,” I stated. “But then that became my responsibility, along with everything else. If he argued with his supervisor, it was because he hadn’t wanted that job anyway but he’d taken it for my benefit. If he fought with his latest girlfriend, it was because I had put him in a bad mood or because he had me in the first place. No woman wanted a guy with a kid.”
“I don’t think Kiya will act like that,” he said. “She seemed like a nice woman. A guy who accuses someone else of being the cause of his personal problems isn’t nice. He’s a massive dick who needs a swift kick in the ass and I would be glad to provide that.”
“My dad is dead,” I reminded him.
“When did that happen?”
“A while ago,” I answered. “I texted to tell him that I was graduating from college and that he could come if he wanted, and he said that he was sick and he wasn’t going to make it. The Woodsmen were great about letting me delay my start date.”
“You went to see him?”
“I went to take care of him,” I said. “He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a liar. He was very, very sick and he needed somebody. He complained about me driving away women but he neverreally wanted any of them to stick around, either. In the end, I was the only one left standing.”
“That’s…”He paused.“Shitty.”
“It’s just how life is.” Before my dad had gasped his last few breaths, I’d thought that he was going to say something—maybe something important. I didn’t expect an apology because I knew that he didn’t feel as if he had anything to apologize for, and maybe he hadn’t. Anyway, it didn’t matter now and I wasn’t sure why I was talking about this. I had never told anyone and especially not someone who was waiting to get very important news the next day, news that could have been life-changing or heart-breaking.
“You know what? We should do something happier,” he said. “Do you like baseball?”
“Um…”
“Something else, then,” he offered. He turned on his TV. “Something funny. Do you know this guy?”
It was a comedian I’d never heard of but Ronan seemed to enjoy his act. I finished the beer in my hand and realized that it was my third—it seemed like that was a lot and it had made me sleepy. Besides having nice pillows, his couch was also very comfortable and he didn’t mind if you stretched out on it. It was a lot better than when I’d slept on Kiya’s...
Yes, I fell asleep on another sofa. I woke up early (like I always did), still comfortable but now alone and covered with a blanket. I also woke up to the smell of cumin. I was aware that it was my fault, so I decided to clean the kitchen before I left. I made aknot of my hair at the back of my neck and tried to work quietly because there was no point in anyone else waking up early, just to have more hours to kill before the news about the roster came out. I checked to see if Kiya had written again but she was still silent, and so were my two other lunch friends. It was entirely possible that we wouldn’t be lunch friends anymore, if they all got mad about her Cado.
“Hey.”
I turned in the direction of the deep voice. Ronan was shirtless and I’d seen him that way before, but this time he was also sleepy-looking with his dark hair a little rumpled. It felt kind of intimate to see him like this.
“Hi. Good morning,” I said. I turned my eyes to the sink. “I was trying to get rid of the spice smell.” I picked up my keys.
