“It’s on the beach. Out of the way, right where the cliffs come down. Miller, Holden, and I hang out there a lot after school and on weekends. Make bonfires, shoot the shit, drink beer.”
“Okay…”
“So maybe…if you wanted to come and hang out with us sometime, you could. If you wanted.”
“You want me to…?” My stomach and heart both felt like foreign objects, fluttering with butterflies and beating faster in ways they’d never done with a guy. I struggled to keep my tone casual. “You’re inviting me to the secret hideout of the infamous Lost Boys?”
“Basically.” He looked to the ground, then back to me. “So…you want to?”
YES.
The thought was so loud, he must’ve heard it. But it was drowned in the sirens and alarms going off, the ones that blared I was already getting too close. And how hurt Violet would be.
“Miller would be there?”
“Of course.”
“Then I can’t. Violet’s my best friend.”
Ronan frowned. “So?”
“So, she and Miller are barely speaking.” I shook my head, disappointment biting hard. “The girl he hooked up with the night of the dance is a friend too. It’s all a big mess and I… I can’t go. I can’t do that to Violet.”
“I get that.” He rubbed his chin; his boot scraped the ground. “Yeah, maybe it’s better anyway…Okay. See you around.”
“Oh, wow…okay,” I said as he walked away without another word. “I guess that’s that.” The sudden end of our weird acquaintance, or friendship, or whatever it was between us.
Nothing. There is nothing between us.
I watched Ronan blend into the students at school and disappear.
“I’m better off,” I said out loud, ignoring the pang in my heart that told me that was a lie.
Chapter Ten
Thanksgiving Day, there was a knock on my door. I opened it to Maryann and the twins. The girls pushed past their mom’s legs and hugged me.
“Ronan!”
“Hi, Ronan!”
“Look what we made!”
Lily and Cami hustled me away from the door, excitedly holding up Thanksgiving turkeys made out of brown construction paper, traced from their own little hands. Each finger was a colorful feather, with googly eyes glued to the thumb.
“We made these in class,” Cami said proudly.
Lily nodded. “We got to do arts and crafts and eat popcorn instead of do math.”
I smiled. Over the past few weeks, I’d learned to see the difference in the twins after spending more time with them. Like when I went down to replace the batteries in their smoke detector or when they came up to visit me for no reason at all. Separately, it was difficult to
tell them apart, but together, it was easy to see the differences in the girls’ faces. Their mom, of course, knew who was who without a glance.
Maryann gave me a small smile and a shrug as she shut the door behind her. “I hope we’re not bothering you. They’ve been talking all morning about when they could come over.”
“They never bother me,” I said. Just the opposite. I’d babysit if Maryann ever needed me but never offered. Didn’t want to come across as a perv. I just liked having them around.
The girls pressed their paper turkeys at me.