A month later, Ronnie represented her school at the regional public speaking competition. The topic of her speech: When Plans Derail.
It was so fucking hard not to be in the audience for that competition.
In the first year of living next door to Ronnie, I realized she could do whatever she put her mind to, and excel at it. I still believe that. One hundred percent. If Ronnie wanted to sell hotdogs on the moon, she’d have the best goddamn hotdogs available, and people would sell their souls to get up there to buy them. And I’d be right there beside her, keeping her safe and loving her with every fiber in my body.
She was incredible.
And I couldn’t wait to marry her.
Just as I couldn’t wait any longer for her to finish swimming.
Right there and then, what I wanted more than anything else was to be inside her.
My Ronnie. My reason for breath.
I stripped off my shirt, wriggled out of my shorts, and crossed to the pool’s edge to slip silently into the water.
Our home is a fortress. An isolated compound I paid for with sweat and blood, and while that sounds like a metaphor, every fucking illegal MMA fight I fought and won, every split lip, every fractured rib, every broken nose had gone toward paying for it.
Even back then, deep in my heart where I rarely let my mind wander for fear of letting it weaken me, I’d wanted a place Ronnie could be safe in. Loved in. I never believed we be in it together, mind you.
I still wake up some mornings petrified our happily ever after has all been a cruel dream.
I bought her safety and security before she knew I wasn’t anything more than the “bad boy next door”, and even though there are times I hate she’s been exposed to the fucking violent nightmare of my former life, if it wasn’t for the corrupt cop drugging me six weeks ago, I never would have gone to Ronnie in the middle of the night.
She never would have known what I felt for her.
I never would have known what she felt for me.
Chest tight, balls hard, the cool water lapping at my naked body, I followed her the length of the pool as silently as I’d entered it. She reached the end and I slid my hands up her torso from behind to cup her breasts, pressed her body to the wall with mine.
Sometimes I’m a fucking grade-A moron.
She screamed, thrashed in my arms, and smashed her elbow into my face. It crunched into my cheek, and I saw stars.
Yeah, I deserved it.
“Babe, it’s just me,” I called, instantly letting her go and wading, or more like floating backward a little. “It’s me, Ronnie. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Swiping her hair from her face and yanking her goggles from her eyes, she glared at me. “Jesus, Pratt. You scared the life out of me.”
She’d called me by my last name. I was in the shit.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. As I said, a grade-A fucking moron. After everything we’ve been through, after all the shit my screwed-up, violent life has put her through, sneaking up on her when she’s defenseless and vulnerable was not smart.
Although defenseless isn’t exactly a word to describe Ronnie now. Not only had she become an expert at the tonfa—a Chinese melee weapon—her boxing skills were intense. I suspected Fluffy had been secretly training with her. The Marine treated her like the little sister he didn’t have, which basically translated to him being just as protective of her as Groot.
But still, it was a dick move on my behalf, touching her like that when she was unaware, and I deserved the hit.
Smoothing her hands up over her face and head, she narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you naked?”
Feeling like a totally shit, I nodded.
She studied me. “Huh. Okay.”
The water lapped at my bare hips, and for a second, I wondered if I should sink down to my chin. Christ, I hadn’t felt this guilty and sheepish since… Well…since I don’t know. Maybe when I was a little kid and I saw my mom shoplifting a pair of Batman Underoos at Walmart just before Christmas.
I thought they were for me. When I didn’t find them under the tree, or in my stocking—I knew Santa didn’t exist at age seven—I felt weird. To this day, I don’t know who Mom swiped those Underoos for.