They both knew it was bullshit. The timing couldn’t have been more obvious, because the offer had come in not a month after Orna had been rushed to the hospital with a stroke. And that had only been because Keira had found her and called 911. Orna had tried to call their mother repeatedly, and, as usual, Merrin hadn’t picked up her phone. The news had rocked Ronan to his core—how could he be half a world away from the woman who’d raised him when she might not have too many years left?
Naturally, he’d found an opportunity to bring him back home. One that wasn’t to the standard of his Harvard and Cambridge background, but it had been close to Orna and Keira and that’s what mattered to him right now. The rest could be figured out later.
“I’m not sick,” Orna said, ignoring his response. “I don’t want you to throw your life away because I had a little visit to the hospital.”
“It wasn’t little,” Keira mumbled under her breath, and she squeaked when the older woman jabbed a bony finger into her arm.
“I’m fine, okay? Fit as a fiddle, I’ll have you know. And as I always say—”
“The older the fiddle, the sweeter the tune,” Ronan and Keira recited in singsong unison. His grandmother was full of funny old sayings.
“That’s right,” Orna said with a nod. “Best you two remind yourselves of that; there’s nothing wrong with growing old. Not everybody has that privilege.”
Ronan leaned back in the booth and watched as Keira rested her head on top of her grandmother’s, her brown hair—the same shade as Ronan’s—mixed with Orna’s snow-white perm. Despite their disagreements and how they often rubbed each other the wrong way, this was his family right here. His little sister, his grandmother. The three musketeers.
“Now,” his grandmother said. “We need to talk about your marriage situation.”
“Wasn’t aware I had one of those,” he replied breezily.
“You don’t. That’s the issue. I know I already have one great-grandbaby, but I’m not getting any younger.”
“A minute ago, you were telling me you were fine. Fit as a fiddle, I believe you said.” He winked at her, and Keira smothered a laugh behind a napkin. “And you don’t look a day over sixty-five with those cheekbones.”
Orna was eighty, but he knew she guarded that information like the key to a bank vault. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Ronan Walsh. And yes, I have some more time in me, God willing. But I don’t have forever. Now, I know a young girl—”
“So do I.” Ronan grinned. “Several, in fact.”
Orna’s end-of-her-tether huff made him swallow a chuckle. Truth was, Ronan didn’t date much these days—he’d tried it once or twice, and it always ended up in tears. Never his. So he’d shifted his focus to his career, and his life had a lot less drama because of it. Now he was adding family back into the mix, and that would keep him plenty busy.
Romantic relationships weren’t worth the hassle.
“Don’t you want to be married, Ronan?” Orna asked, shaking her head.
“Not really,” he replied honestly.
“But—”
“You never married, and neither did Mom and Dad,” he pointed out with a shrug. “Anyway, Keira has the white-picket-fence thing totally covered. And honestly, I give her an A-plus at life. Gold stars all around.”
His sister tossed him a look that said she would hate him forever if he dragged her into it. Oops. Too late now.
“That means something, coming from a professor,” Ronan added with a mock serious face. “I couldn’t possibly live up to the standard she’s set.”
“You fight dirty,” Keira muttered.
“I only want you to have the good things in life that I never got myself,” Orna said.
“I’m focused on my work, Gram.” He reached across the table and clasped her hand. “And I love what I do. How many people can say they bounce out of bed in the morning because they love their job so much?”
“Life has to be more than work,” Orna replied wisely. “Would it be so bad to settle down and make a family?”
Like the one he grew up in, where neither one of his parents ever seemed to love their children or each other? Like the family who kicked Orna out of her home for getting pregnant, or the rich man who paid her to move across the world like a fly to be shooed?
Uh, no thanks.
Keira’s making it work.
An outlier. Every research study had those, and Ronan knew they weren’t to be trusted. The trend was to be trusted. The bulk of information telling the same story, not the little red dot flying free in the white space.
And the trend told him that relationships equaled pain and suffering.
Chapter Three
Fact: an elephant’s penis is so big it can rest on it like an additional leg.
Audrey rocked back and forth on her heels outside the classroom for her first lesson of the semester. Of course the subject she’d been most excited about was Brain-Changing Positivity with none other than Professor Walsh, former professor at Cambridge University in England and graduate of Harvard. First name, Ronan. Age, thirty-four. Height and weight…dreamy.
A crush on your professor? Really? Well, isn’t that more cliché than the elbow patches on his blazer.
She bit the inside of her cheek. Luckily, her grades didn’t matter. Unlike most of the students at Harrison Beech College, Audrey wasn’t getting a degree. Hell, she wasn’t even like the majority of mature age students in her night classes, who were doing it for career advancement.
She was learning for fun with no end goal in mind.
Most people would shake their heads at that, but she’d always loved learning. Before her mother died, when Audrey’s dreams were still intact, she used to fantasize about growing up and strolling through a leafy college campus, her arms filled with heavy books containing the secrets of the universe. These days, she satisfied that need with night classes on everything from depictions of women in film, to the politics of the British monarchy, to American postmodern literature, to philosophy and social media. Anything to keep her neurons firing.
Maybe taking classes for nothing beside the joy of learning was strange. But she was okay with that.
Which was all to say, her concerns about showing up tonight had nothing to do with grades and everything to do with total and utter personal embarrassment.
Sucking in a breath, she pushed down on the handle to the classroom. It was empty because she was a good ten minutes early. On purpose. At the front of the room, Professor Walsh was writing the class title and his name and email address on the whiteboard, arm stretched up in a way that put his lean, strong body on full display.
Ever since their encounter a week and a half ago, she’d been thinking about Professor Walsh. Way too much. Way too inappropriately. Way too…everything.
You’re here to clear the air. Not ruminate on him being borderline offensively hot.
“Uh, hi,” she said, hugging her bag to her body. Something about this man made her feel like she needed a physical barrier. He stirred things inside her that she’d promised herself wouldn’t be stirred by anyone, ever.
“Audrey.” He said her name before he turned around, as though he instinctively knew she was there, and for some reason that made her stomach do little somersaults. “You’re a little early, but feel free to take a seat. I’m getting myself situated.”
When he turned, she had to force herself not to gulp like some cheesy cartoon character with hearts for eyes. He looked…devilishly handsome. “You grew a beard.”
He chuckled and ran a hand over his jaw. “Well, this is only the beginnings of one. I thought some facial hair might prevent any further confusion about which side of the desk I’m supposed to be sitting on.”
“It looks good.” The words popped out of her before she could stop them. Before she could even contemplate stopping them. She was prone
to sharing facts, and it was totally and utterly a fact that the liberal sprinkling of bristles along Ronan Walsh’s jaw was an unnecessary improvement to an already achingly handsome man.
“I was wondering if I might be able to take a moment of your time,” she said quickly, hoping they could both gloss over her fawning. The air seemed charged somehow, like that feeling right before a storm swept through town.
“Sure. You might need to come a little closer, though,” he replied in an amused tone. His accent was as intriguing as the rest of him—American, definitely, but there were some rounded vowels and a slight lilt that made her blood hum. Perhaps it was a souvenir from his time in the UK. “What can I do for you?”
“I wanted to clear the air about…what happened.” Ugh, so freaking awkward.
How did one apologize for falsely accusing a person of attempted fraud?
“Because you called me a sex robot or because you told me I couldn’t possibly be a professor?” A smile tugged at his lips, and it didn’t seem unkind in any way.
“I did not call you a sex robot.” Maybe Audrey should grab herself a shovel and start digging. If the earth wasn’t going to heed her wish to open up and swallow her whole, then she might have to take matters into her own hands. “But yes, my assumption that you were not part of the college faculty was incorrect and unfair. Although, in my defense, the beard does make you look more…”
Attractive? Sexy? Like you’ve been plucked from my wildest dirty dreams?
“More…?” Ronan raised an eyebrow.
“Scholarly.” Audrey nodded, trying to give herself a confidence boost. “I find beards to be quite academic.”
Okay, now Ronan looked even more amused. Ugh, this was not going how she’d planned.
“I’m glad my facial hair gets your seal of approval,” he said, his blue eyes flicking over her face. His curiosity was a magnetic pull. Nobody was ever curious about Audrey or her bland-as-oatmeal existence. Everyone in Kissing Creek knew her story—dead mom, deadbeat dad, future prospects that dwindled with each passing year. Girl from the wrong side of the tracks who wouldn’t ever make anything of herself, because the longer you stayed in a situation like that, the higher the chance you’d be stuck there forever.
But he looked at her like she might be worthy of his interest—like she might have something worth saying.
“It’s octothorpe, by the way,” he said. “The official term for the hashtag.”
Despite feeling an unwanted swirl of attraction rousing butterflies in her stomach, Audrey’s chest got warm and fuzzy. “You looked it up.”
He leaned back against his desk and smiled. And oh boy what a smile it was. “I couldn’t have my professional capabilities questioned like that.”
Audrey cringed. “I’m not usually so judgmental, Professor Walsh. I promise.”
“It’s fine. And no need to call me professor, okay? I don’t need to be identified by the label,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “The elbow patches do that quite well enough.”
Audrey laughed. “Stop. You’re killing me.”
“Okay, I cease fire.” He held up his hands in good nature. “And Ronan is fine.”
“It’s a good name.”
“Very scholarly to match my beard?” he teased.
“What happened to the cease-fire?” Audrey couldn’t help but laugh. The man was charming, smooth. Yet kind. The kind of man she’d always been attracted to and yet would forever and always be out of her league.
Behind them, the noise of students trickling into the room reminded Audrey that they weren’t alone. She instinctively took a step back, as though she’d been caught doing something wrong, even though there was nothing at all wrong with approaching her professor before class.
Don’t you mean Ronan?
His name echoed in her head. What exactly about this man had turned her into a puddle? Maybe it was simply because he embodied the things she wished she had in her own life—success, education, an upward trajectory. Combine that with a delicious-looking package and of course she was attracted to him. It was biology.
An elephant’s penis is so big it can rest on it like an additional leg.
Why exactly had she chosen that fact to share in the car ride to school this morning? Deanna had erupted in giggles, and there was a chorus of eews from the backseat, but clearly Audrey had sex on the brain.
That’s what happens when you go for three years without having a boyfriend. It’s like sugar cravings—the more you ignore it, the worse it gets.
And she’d never been too good at ignoring cravings, sugar or otherwise.
“Anyway, thanks for your time,” she said, awkwardly taking another step back, even though it felt like her whole body resisted it. “I’m really looking forward to this class.”
Audrey didn’t wait for Ronan to respond, but she felt his eyes boring into her back the entire way until she grabbed an empty seat. She’d chosen it carefully—not right at the front, because she didn’t want to seem too eager, but not in the back, because she didn’t want to get distracted by the slackers. She always picked an aisle seat if possible, since her hips required a little more room and she didn’t want to get wedged in.
Plus, she needed to make a quick exit as soon as the class was done. Her father thought she was doing an extra shift at Kisspresso tonight, and they closed half an hour before the class ended, so she needed to hustle home in order to keep her cover from being blown.
One day you won’t need to hide what you’re doing.
That day would come the second Deanna graduated from high school and went off to college. Then all her siblings would be out in the world, and Audrey could finally live her own life. It would come soon…ish.
She leaned back in the chair and watched as Ronan introduced himself to the class, her stomach still twisting and turning as attraction wound through her system. Maybe it would be better if she concentrated on taking notes instead of looking at him. But for the next hour, she felt her eyes drawing upward at the sound of excitement and passion in his voice.
And whenever she did look up, she could swear he was looking directly at her.
Audrey pulled into the driveway of her house as quietly as she could, letting the tires roll slowly over the cracked concrete, headlights off and her radio silent. When she killed the engine, she sat for a minute in the darkness, quietly listening to an occasional passing car or dog barking. When nothing stirred in the house, she reached over to the passenger-side seat and grabbed her pink Kisspresso polo shirt.
She was now adept at the “quick change” in confined spaces and the pretzel-like contortions it sometimes required. Working quickly, she whipped off the cute white blouse she’d worn to class and swapped it for the uniform polo. Then she stuffed the blouse into her bag and put her apron on top to hide the evidence. Glancing at herself in the rearview mirror, she wiped her lipstick off with tissue and messed up her hair a little. She needed to look like a person who’d worked a fifteen-hour day and not like someone who’d thought way too much about whether they looked cute enough for class.
Audrey got out of her car and slung her bag over one shoulder. This was always the most difficult part of the day—coming home and having no idea what kind of wreckage she would find. It was the very reason she persisted with the cloak-and-dagger approach to her night classes. They kept her going, allowing her mind to keep full of good things instead of bad. And the Brain-Changing Positivity class had already given her so much to mull over. This week, they were supposed to take note of one thing that made them happy and one thing that made them sad every day, so they could analyze mood trends.
Her footsteps fell quietly as she approached the front door. Over the road, two people were screaming at each other, the sound floating through an open window. The dog three doors down continued to bark, its deep timbre a warning rumble through the night air. Weariness seep
ed into her bones as she shoved her key into the front door’s lock—but she couldn’t let any of them see it.
She was the pillar of this family—the rock—and she had to be strong.
Pushing the door open, she called out a hello. Deanna was sprawled out on the floor, doing her homework, Oliver’s noise-cancelling headphones perched on her head while the TV blared the baseball game, Red Sox versus Rangers. Boston was losing, which wouldn’t end well for any of them. Her dad was leaning back in his chair, a beat-up recliner with holes in the upholstery and a permanent ass-shaped dent in the cushion. The kitchen was a mess of Chinese takeout boxes and dirty dishes.
Why was he spending money on takeout when she’d left a perfectly good casserole in the fridge? But asking that kind of question would only get her a lecture about how he was head of the family, even though he did absolutely nothing to take care of them.
“Hey!” Deanna pushed her headphones off her head and smiled as she got to her feet, scooping up her work and hugging it to her chest. The gesture made Audrey smile, because she looked like a Mini-Me version of her. “How was work?”
“Busy, little munchkin. I’m glad to be home.” Audrey went to the cupboard that contained their washing machine and deftly tossed her apron in, which had her blouse bundled up inside it. “Did you have dinner?”
“Dad got us takeout,” she said with a beaming smile.
“Did you eat any vegetables?”
“Rice.”
Audrey narrowed her eyes. “You know that’s a grain, not a vegetable, right?”
“If it grows from a plant, it’s a vegetable, isn’t it?”
“Marijuana is a plant,” Oliver quipped as he walked past, grabbing a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water. “And that’s not a vegetable.”
Audrey shot her brother a warning look. “I appreciate the backup, but that’s not an appropriate example.”
“Hey, you were the one talking about elephant penises this morning.” He shuddered.
“Can you lot fucking shut up?” her dad bellowed from his chair. “Are ya blind or somethin’? The goddamn game is on.”
Kissing Lessons (Kissing Creek) Page 3