“But I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment, and I don’t really have the headspace to sift through the past.”
“Oh.” His mother had the audacity to sound surprised. “I thought you wanted to hear from me.”
“When I called…six years ago.” He let out a rush of air. This was a bad idea; he should never have picked up the phone. “Look, I’m sorry, but I’m too busy now. I’ll call when things have calmed down.”
He jabbed at the end button, missing several times before he made a connection. Growling, he raked a hand through his hair. No wonder he couldn’t seem to set down roots—he’d been untethered since he was a child. Settling down didn’t come naturally to him.
Commitment didn’t come naturally to him.
Maybe that’s why he studied human behavior. It had always been a mystery. Why did people behave the way they did? What motivated them to hurt or love others? Studying data was much easier than trying to engage in an actual relationship.
But the second that thought popped into his mind, something inside him disagreed. Being with Audrey didn’t feel difficult or fraught or dangerous—at least not anymore. The two of them clicked, and their connection was natural and easy.
He turned his phone over and over in his hand. Audrey was the only person who’d ever made him feel like maybe being with someone was worth risking all the things he avoided in life—vulnerability, connection. Trust.
She made him feel…safe.
He unlocked his phone and brought up the chain of texts between them. They were innocent—definitely nothing that would hint at a night of sweat-drenched sheets and the deepest, most lingering kiss against the side of her car as he’d seen her off in the dead of early morning.
As if she knew he was thinking about her all the way across Kissing Creek, three little dots appeared to show she was typing a message. If that wasn’t a weird twist of kismet, then he didn’t know what was.
AUDREY: I need to see you.
RONAN: It’s like you’re reading my mind.
AUDREY: Your place okay?
RONAN: Get here as fast as you can.
Chapter Eighteen
A group of lemurs is called a conspiracy of lemurs.
Audrey did something she had never done before—left the house in complete disarray. She’d followed Oliver home so he could return Mrs. March’s car and promise that he’d clean her gutters as payment. Then she’d forced him, Georgie, and Deanna to pack up their things so she could drop them off at various places to spend the night. Georgie went to a girlfriend’s house, and Oliver and Deanna went to stay with Aunt Harriet.
The house itself was a disaster—pizza boxes open, dishes in the sink, laundry needing to be hung up. Audrey left all of it. It was tough luck if her father came home and found them all gone. Maybe he needed to see the consequences of his actions.
There’d be hell to pay tomorrow; she knew that. But for once in her life, Audrey couldn’t find it in herself to care. She’d tossed a change of clothes into her backpack, including a fresh polo shirt for her shift at Kisspresso in the morning, and had messaged Ronan. Maybe it was a bit presumptuous to assume he’d be okay with her staying the night.
But she had nowhere else to go.
That wasn’t true. She could have shared the pull-out couch at Harriet’s. Or crashed at Nicole’s. So it would be more accurate to say there was nowhere else she wanted to go.
One night, and he’s already your safe harbor?
Audrey parked her car and hurried across the grass to Ronan’s apartment. It was getting dark outside now, and the sky had a serene purplish tinge to it. Her heart thumped with each quick step, and the anticipation of being in Ronan’s arms drowned the stress of her day. It was like the closer she got to him, the more faded her worries became. Tonight, she wanted nothing more than to forget—to forget that she still had grief over her mother’s death, to forget that her family was falling apart, to forget that some days she had nothing but the fake smile plastered to her lips.
All of it.
By the time she got to the door, she needed his touch more than she needed air to breathe and blood in her veins. She needed him more than anything.
When Ronan pulled the door open, she walked straight into his arms. Not caring if she should play it safe, not caring if maybe there was