“Anyway, my brother won’t do that, and he’s not breaking a pact,” he went on. “I’ll get over it and send them a present for the baby. What do kids like? A pack of smokes? Woodsmen tickets?”
“Tickets would be good. Could your brother come and watch you?”
He considered. “Cormac has never seen me play.”
“Never?”
It turned out that no one in his family had. In the time he’d played football, over years and in locations all over the place, none of them had come. That made me even angrier but I kept it to myself.
“When you get mad, you turn red here and here,” he said, and reached over to gently swipe his fingers across my cheekbones. “Just two little spots but it’s a good clue.”
“It also happens when I get upset about something,” I said. Except I usually hid it better. “It’s not always that I’m angry.” Except now, I was. “You should give that baby cymbals to play.”
He laughed. “That’s a great idea. I knew I needed to talk to you again. I’m glad I was in your neighborhood.”
I was, too. I was glad that he hadn’t been thinking that I was like Kiya—or that I was acting the same way I had with my dad,managing everything and trying to force him into the behavior that I wanted.
Ronan picked up my hand. “I did this before,” he commented.
“You drove by my apartment?”
“Yeah, probably, but I meant that I held your hand before. We hugged a few times. I kissed you.”
I vividly remembered our interlude on the sand dunes. We hadn’t talked about it again, not until this moment. “You did that because you were in shock after hearing that you made the Woodsmen.”
“Right, shock,” he agreed. “But I was thinking more about us. You know, how we’re friends.”
“What?” I felt wary—but I also felt a tremor of excitement in my chest. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t want a girlfriend, you don’t want a boyfriend. Neither of us is seeing anybody,” he pointed out, and then I understood.
“You mean that we could be friends who fooled around. With benefits,” I stated, and he nodded. I thought for a moment. “That’s what Taylor is doing. She gets what she needs but there are no restrictions on her.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Zero restrictions. Zero people calling you ‘baby.’ Zero actual babies, like my brother’s situation.”
Taylor was very happy with her set-up. I considered.
“No pressure from me,” he said. “It was only something I was thinking about.”
And I had been thinking about it, too. Sometimes when I was alone here in my apartment with no one else, just me solo, no roommate and no pet, I had imagined being with Ronan. I’d thought about touching him and him touching me…I thought about it again now and breathed a little faster.
“There’s a possible downside,” he continued. “I’ve seen it go wrong.”
“Like that one of us would get jealous. Or want more. Or meet someone else.”
“Those things,” he agreed. “Or maybe we wouldn’t be compatible.”
That idea didn’t worry me at all, but there was a larger concern. “It could ruin our current relationship. You’re my friend and I wouldn’t want to lose—I would be very—” I didn’t usually have trouble with verbalizing my thoughts, but this wouldn’t come out right.
“Hey, Cate?” He sat up and faced me. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I don’t want to lose you as a friend, either. I would be sad if that happened.”
I nodded because I would have been sad, too. Bereft, heartbroken, those things. “I don’t want that.”
“Yeah, so we’ll forget it. Dumb idea, in the past, over with, kaput. Ok? So, you don’t have to look so upset…come here.” He hugged me. “We’ll do this, instead. I’ll ask you to hold my hand, probably, because I’ll need it this season. I’ll want you to pat my hair.”
“Like this?”
I felt him nod. “Exactly. Like I’m a dog looking for attention.” Ronan tightened his arms a little and I relaxed against his chest. “We won’t do anything that would lead to my brother’s situation.”
