But if I wanted answers, it meant I had to do what I promised myself I wouldn’t. I had to see Ronan again.
* * *
It took several long seconds for me to get up the nerve to rap my knuckles on the motel room door. When Ronan opened it, I couldn’t say what surprised me more – his appearance or the gun he was holding loosely against his leg.
I’d never seen Ronan in anything other than a suit and on the rare occasion, jeans, so to see him in a pair of sweats and a simple white T-shirt caught me off guard. But it was the smudges under his eyes and the bleakness in his gaze that had me wishing more than ever that I had the right to touch him.
“Can I come in?” I asked, not liking how shaky my voice sounded.
Ronan studied me for a long moment and then finally opened the door wider. The room was dark because the curtains were drawn despite it being early afternoon. My conversation with Hawke the day before had left me too rattled to go see Ronan last night and I’d ended up sleeping in this morning after tossing and turning all night. I’d told work I wouldn’t be in today and I hadn’t even bothered trying to work from home because I was too distracted.
From the condition of the motel room, it seemed like Ronan hadn’t been faring much better than me. I supposed it wasn’t unusual for the bed to be unmade but the half empty bottle of scotch sitting on the nightstand definitely wasn’t the norm. In all the time I’d known Ronan, I’d seen him drink on only the rarest of occasions and always in moderation. I glanced over my shoulder as Ronan closed the door, drenching the room in darkness. I was glad when he flicked on the floor lamp near the door because it gave me a chance to study him. He had yet to say anything and he hadn’t put the gun down. That bothered me…a lot. Not because I believed him to be a danger to me, but because I couldn’t figure out why he had it out in the first place.
Ronan’s eyes held mine for a moment but his expression was unreadable and after what seemed an unnaturally long time, he finally went to the chair by the table and tucked the gun into the shoulder holster that was draped over the back of it. Once the gun was put away, I was surprised to see the hand he’d been holding it with start to flex and release several times before the pad of each finger began tapping rhythmically against the thumb.
The nervous gesture hit me hard and I actually had to sit down on the end of the bed as Hawke’s words went through me again. My intent when I’d come here had been to demand answers about what had really happened to Trace but seeing Ronan so broken had me hesitating. I nearly shook my head when things finally clicked into place for me. I’d wanted to prove to Ronan that I could be the man he needed instead of the boy he remembered. But maybe what he needed – what he’d always needed since the day he’d lost Trace – was the same thing I’d needed after my parents had died…someone to trust, someone to hold on to when the pain became too much.
I’d never really realized that I’d spent these last few years making it all about me and what I’d needed. I’d wanted to lean on him after the loss of Trace but I’d never considered that he might need someone too. I’d wanted to draw from his strength but I’d never offered mine. I’d wanted to be the man he desired instead of considering the fact that he might need something else…a friend. And in that moment I knew I wouldn’t be demanding answers. I wouldn’t be demanding anything anymore. If Ronan needed to protect me from an evil I wasn’t so sure existed, so be it. If he needed to slake his physical need on me, I’d offer myself willingly and find a way to live with the ramifications. If it meant I would never be able to touch him the way I wanted to, I’d find other ways to show him I was there.
I glanced at Ronan and saw that at some point, he’d sat down in the chair his shoulder holster was draped over. As usual, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking and his continued silence meant whatever happened next would fall on me. I dropped my eyes to my clenched fingers and realized I had the same strange, anxious ticks that Ronan did.
“I want you to come home,” I finally said.
Ronan took a long time to respond so I just sat there and waited. He finally said, “You said-”
“You were right. We’ll never really be done,” I interrupted. “I don’t want us to be. I want us to be what we should have been after we lost Trace.” I looked up at him. “Friends,” I whispered. “I want us to be friends.”
I held Ronan’s gaze until the tightness in my belly became too much and then I lowered my eyes again. “If you think there might be a threat against me then keep me safe. Do it for Trace, for me…I don’t care. Just come home.”
“Why?” Ronan asked, his voice sounding uneven.
I swallowed hard. “Because I don’t want the only one who cares whether I come home each night to be my dog,” I whispered. The admission sucked at my insides but I managed to keep the tears at bay. But when I heard Ronan shift in his chair and a moment later heavy fingers sifted through my hair, I feared I wouldn’t be able to keep it together.
I expected Ronan to tell me he cared about me but he surprised me when he leaned down and pressed his lips against the top of my head. “Me too...except I don’t even have a dog.”
I let out a chuckle and then felt my whole body relax as Ronan pulled me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me. My hands were pressed against his chest but as badly as I wanted to slide them up to wrap around his neck, I managed to keep them where they were.
Friends with Ronan…just friends. Fuck, how the hell was I going to pull this off?
Chapter Fifteen
Ronan
“Wow, you are a really terrible driver,” I said as I studied the tight grip Seth had on the steering wheel he was hunched over.
“What? No I’m not,” Seth responded in irritation as he checked his rearview mirror for what had to be the twentieth time in the last minute.
“You’re going five miles under the speed limit and I’m waiting for the hunchback to appear on your back any second now. And if you hold on to that steering wheel any tighter, they may need the jaws of life to pry it from your fingers.”
Seth snorted but he did straighten somewhat and eased up on his stranglehold on the wheel. I’d been surprised when Seth agreed to let me go with him to work and to my amazement, he hadn’t asked me why. He’d done a lot of things that had surprised me since he’d shown up at the motel the day before. That in itself had been a shock I still couldn’t get over.
I’d finally forced myself to walk away from Seth after I’d made love to him in his kitchen a week earlier but I hadn’t been able to walk away completely. It would have been easier to bring out another guy to work with Hawke to provide round the clock security for Seth without him knowing it, but just the idea of actually leaving Seth all together had made my chest hurt in a way that I couldn’t explain. So I’d resorted to my old habit of watching him from afar and I’d spent my days following him using the tracker I’d planted on his car. And I’d spent my nights tossing and turning as I remembered the feel of Seth beneath me, surrounding me in a way that I was coming to fear that only he could. On the few occasions I’d actually managed to fall asleep, I kept hearing Seth’s broken voice telling me not to come back.
That’s when I’d gone in search of the alcohol. It was the only thing that gave me any measure of peace but it never lasted long. Maybe if I’d been willing to give up my monitoring of Seth all together, I could have drowned myself completely with the mind-numbing liquid, but I’d been too afraid that something would happen to Seth and I wouldn’t be there to protect him.
Like I hadn’t been able to protect Trace.
I’d felt only shame yesterday when Seth had spied the alcohol on my nightstand, even though I had no reason to since Seth didn’t know anything about my history with it. The only other time I’d relied on alcohol to numb me was in the weeks following Trace’s death and I’d gone a step further and made it part of a lethal combination with the painkillers the doctors had prescribed after I was discharged. Hawke was the only one who’d seen me in that time and
I suspected he’d noticed my downward spiral in the last several days as he and I met up to switch shifts watching Seth. He’d finally told me to go back to the motel a couple days ago to get some rest when I’d been too out of it to do Seth any good if something were to happen. I had no doubt that Hawke was well aware that my lack of sleep wasn’t the only thing that had me bleary eyed and confused. I’d managed to sober up somewhat before Seth’s arrival, but only because I’d just woken up a half an hour earlier and hadn’t had the chance to lose myself in my bottle again.
My negative relationship with alcohol had been something I’d struggled with my entire life, though I hadn’t been the one with the problem. While I’d always hesitated to label my father an alcoholic, there was no doubt that’s what he’d been. Of course, there hadn’t been anyone around to ask if he’d always been that way since my mother had died giving birth to me and the aunt who’d raised me for the first few years of my life had been killed in a car accident just before I’d turned five. I’d been too young to understand the dynamics of my family but I’d learned very quickly the penalty for referring to the woman who’d raised me as “Mommy.”
It was the first of many times that my father took his fury at my perceived role in my own mother’s death out on me. But as the years passed, his rage turned into something else…something that often had me missing the beatings. Because those bruises had healed…the ones he’d inflicted on my soul hadn’t.
“You okay?”
Seth’s question knocked me out of the past. “Yeah, why?” I asked as I glanced at him. His eyes fell to my hands and I realized I’d reverted to my habit of tapping my fingers together. I had no idea at what age I’d started doing it but to this day, it was a vice I just couldn’t shake, mostly because I never even realized I was doing it. It had driven my father crazy but no amount of slaps or punches had broken me of the habit.
“Yeah,” I said as I separated my hands and rested one of my arms on the armrest between me and Seth. “Just wishing I’d had time to grab some coffee,” I said lamely, hoping the excuse would satisfy him.
“I told you we had to leave at five sharp to make it to the terminal in time,” Seth murmured. “They have coffee on the ferry,” he added, his voice sounding lighter than it had since I’d shown up over a week ago.
The idea of being friends with Seth was such a foreign and seemingly absurd concept to me considering everything that had happened between us, but in the twelve hours since I’d moved back into the guest room, I’d seen a different side of Seth. Sure, there was the initial awkwardness between us when I’d joined him for dinner, but then he’d starting talking to me about inconsequential things and I’d felt myself relaxing once I realized he wasn’t asking me about anything more personal than what types of movies I liked and if I’d read the latest book in a detective series that his favorite author had written. When I’d said I hadn’t, he’d gone on and on about the speculation over what had happened to the main character who’d been stuffed in the trunk of a car that went over a cliff at the end of the most recent book. He’d become so animated in telling me all about Detective Nick Archer and his troubles, that I’d ignored what remained of my dinner and just sat back in my chair to watch his excited hand gestures as he spoke.
The awkwardness had returned after dinner was finished and there’d been a point while we were cleaning up the dishes that I’d caught Seth looking at the kitchen island almost longingly, as if remembering what we’d done against it just one short week ago, but the moment had passed quickly when he’d realized I was watching him. He’d made an excuse about needing to catch up on some work and I’d gone up to my room to take a shower and call Mav to see how Daisy was settling in. Just before ten o’clock, Seth had knocked on my door. His pale skin had flushed with color when he spied my belt draped over the same chair he’d taken it from the night we’d made love for the first time and it had taken everything in me not to drag him to me at that point. With a mumbled explanation that he was heading to bed, he’d handed me the book he’d been holding and told me I should check it out if I was interested and then he was gone. The book was the first one in the series he’d talked so excitedly about at dinner and I’d ended up cracking it open a few minutes later and finally forced myself to put it down just before two in the morning when I could no longer keep my eyes open. My grumpiness as I’d stumbled into the kitchen a few hours later was met with a wide, knowing smile and a declaration that there was no time for coffee and Seth didn’t have any travel mugs.
“Hey,” Seth said again and then he briefly nudged my arm where it was resting on the armrest with his elbow. “First cup is on me.” I felt my heart constrict painfully in my chest at the sight of his smile but I managed a nod. Seth was taking this friends thing to heart but all I wanted to do was to tell him to turn the car around and take us home so I could get him beneath me again.
“You told the vet you were going to New York,” I managed to say in a desperate effort to distract myself from my thoughts.
“Um, yeah. Stan…that’s my dad’s business partner, well, my business partner now – he set up a meeting with another shipping firm that’s interested in buying our company.”
“You’re selling?” I asked in surprise. “I thought you wanted to run the business.”
Seth shrugged his shoulders. “I do but Stan convinced me to hear them out – he says they’re offering a lot and Dad’s company has been struggling since he…”
I waited quietly as Seth pulled himself together. As much as I would have liked to take his hand in mine, it wasn’t an option.
“This company is the industry leader and Stan says they’ll make sure no one loses their jobs. That was always real important to my dad…he thought of the people who worked for him as family, you know?”
Seth glanced at me and I nodded. I’d never met more kind-hearted people than Fred and Corrine Nichols. They’d welcomed me with open arms from the second Trace and I had walked in the door and I’d been overwhelmed that not only would I not be judged for my sexual orientation despite their own son being gay, but that they weren’t looking down on me for being from humbler roots than Trace. Yes, I had achieved a certain level of success in my career but I was a blue collar guy through and through, despite my attempts to appear otherwise.
“Yeah, I know,” I said reassuringly. “You’ll do what’s best for the company, Seth. Everyone knows that.”
The words seemed to soothe Seth because he visibly relaxed before continuing. “I’m thinking about seeing if they might be interested in a partnership instead. They have a really strong presence in Europe and the Middle East but our company has had more success with the Asian and South American markets.”
I listened as Seth explained the intricacies of the business and I couldn’t help but admire how much he knew for his young age and limited hands-on experience. I’d known Seth was smart but I was realizing it was another thing I’d underestimated about him. And he’d clearly inherited his father’s passion and work ethic, something Trace had never managed to pick up. From the time he was a kid, all Trace had ever wanted was to join the military. And while he’d been intensely devoted to it and, more often than not, it had been his sole focus, he’d consistently struggled to commit himself to anything beyond the life he’d built for himself. It was the reason he’d left Seth in the care of their grandmother rather than leave the military to take care of Seth himself – because he couldn’t see himself in any other role…not wouldn’t, couldn’t. I’d struggled with Trace’s selfish choice but as I’d thought back to my own father, I’d realized that in some strange way, maybe Trace’s decision had been the right one. I’d figured maybe it had been better that Seth hadn’t had to suffer his brother’s resentment.
That was before I knew the truth about how much Seth had suffered during the home invasion that killed his parents. Or that he’d been left in the care of a woman on a spiraling mental decline.
By the time we arrived at the ferry terminal, t
here was already a line but Seth had timed it perfectly and the line of cars began moving onto the ferry minutes later. True to his word, Seth bought me a cup of coffee and we stood at the railing near the front of the slow moving ferry and watched the mainland come into sight as the sun began its morning ascent. We didn’t speak, but I couldn’t help but notice how right it felt to be standing there next to Seth. It would have been so natural to move just a little bit closer to him so our bodies were touching but I managed to stay where I was.
Friends.
Something I desperately needed but wasn’t anywhere near what I wanted to be with this man. But it was all I could give him. And it was all I could take from him.
Seth’s driving was even worse once we got off the ferry and into heavier traffic but I held my tongue. As mentally mature as Seth was and as grown up (and hot) as he looked in his crisp navy business suit, there were a lot of areas of life that he’d been deprived of any kind of normalcy and driving was one of them. And it had to be made a hundred times worse by the anxiety he felt about leaving the safety of his home. It wasn’t until he’d pulled his car into his space in the parking garage of his building that he relaxed, but only marginally. It was tough to see Seth struggle with tasks that everyone else, myself included, took for granted and part of me felt a shimmer of anger at Trace for him choosing his own needs over his brother’s. As much as I’d loved Trace, I’d struggled to accept his inability to see beyond his own needs. Since I’d been more than happy to not have to share too much about my own past, Trace’s lack of sensitivity hadn’t bothered me overly much, but knowing the pain his choices had caused his younger brother was hard to stomach.
As we rode the elevator to the office, I glanced at Seth and noticed a slight tremor in his frame. But as soon as the door opened, he pasted a slightly too big smile on his mouth and began greeting people as he made his way through a set of glass doors. The receptionist greeted him and it was strange to hear her referring to him as Mr. Nichols.
Salvation (The Protectors, Book 2) Page 12