Sleep didn’t come easily for Ronnie. Or at all, really. There came a point in the night when the weight of his arm around her hips and his breath fanning over her neck, had become too much. She hadn’t been able to stop her racing mind or slow the unrelenting cadence of her heart. She didn’t belong there. She’d had to leave.
She’d tried going back to her apartment, but over the last few weeks, they’d spent so much time together there that it was filled with him. Everywhere she looked, he was there: an old Marines t-shirt, his favorite coffee cup, a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy he’d brought to read while she studied…his lingering scent on her sheets.
He was everywhere.
So, she went to the only place she felt comfortable—her mother’s house.
It wasn’t lost on her that the reason she was in this position was because she’d lied to the one person who loved her the most. The same woman who had wanted to hold her and sing her to sleep like she had when she was a child when she had appeared on her doorstep in the middle of the night. She wouldn’t be here if she’d just let her mother set her up with some douche she would never have to talk to again if she didn’t want to. She wouldn’t be here with a heart aching so bad it felt like she would die from it.
Ronnie had promised herself a long time ago that she wouldn’t let this happen. She wouldn’t let a man close enough to care what he thought. To not continuously look for any lingering doubt in his eyes, any disappointment. She wasn’t sure why the opinion of his father meant so much to her, but it did. He was a horrible person, and Ronnie knew she probably put too much stock in what other people thought, especially an asshole like Henry Fox, but she didn’t seem to be able to help it.
Sometime in the night, she thought she slept. Maybe. It was fitful, the scene at the Fox house playing through her mind on a loop. The horrible words. His cold, steely eyes filled with judgment, even hatred. Every old insecurity she’d ever had ate at her, weighed her down until she knew she wasn’t the right person for Curt. He deserved better than her. He deserved someone he would be proud to take home or even just to police events.
By the time the sun peeked over the mountaintop, and sunlight filtered through the old pink blinds, she felt hulled out, her ego having taken such a beating that she didn’t know how she was ever going to move past this.
A little past eight she heard the gleeful shouts of her nieces in the kitchen. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t muster the will to move.
A few minutes later, the door creaked open, and Rory peeked her head in.
“Ronnie?” The soft concern in her sister-in-law’s voice was enough to have tears springing to her eyes. “Aw, sweetheart, what happened?”
Rory climbed onto the bed behind her, wrapped her arms around her and held Ronnie close.
“I…I…” Ronnie couldn’t get any words past the rawness in her throat. It hurt, the words thick and scratchy. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“I’m going to kill him,” Myles said, coming through the door. “On Christmas Eve?”
Ronnie moved to sit up.
“It wasn’t him, Myles.” She swallowed the lump in her throat down, swiped at the moisture under her eyes. “It was me. I broke it off.”
The crease in the middle of her brother’s forehead deepened. “I don’t understand. You looked so happy the other night.”
“Things happened. I just didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“Doesn’t look like that to me. If that were true, you wouldn’t be so broken up about it.”
“It wasn’t even real. We made it all up.” She looked at Rory, the first glimmer of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I was sick of you and Mom nagging me and setting me up on horrible dates, so I faked it. We faked a relationship.”
Rory sucked in a breath at the same time her brother huffed out a laugh.
“If that was fake, Ronnie, I am Albert Einstein,” Rory said, incredulous.
“Believe me, she’s no Einstein.”
“Hey!” Rory shoved Myles hard enough that he stumbled backward. Their antics had an ache forming in her stomach. A sob escaped her. “Oh, honey… are you in love with him?”
Another sob escaped before she could stop it.
“No. I don’t know.” She sighed, rubbed a hand over her face. “Maybe…yes. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Love always matters, Ronnie.”
“It was too soon anyway.”
“Love doesn’t run on a timeline.”
A harsh knock sounded on the back door. Myles looked out the window.
“It’s Curt.” When Ronnie sank back into the pillows, he walked to the door. “I’ll go out. Do you want to see him?”
Ronnie shrugged, sank deeper into the pillows. She honestly didn’t know. She’d nearly convinced herself she’d done the right thing, but knowing he was just outside made her question everything.
The sound of his deep baritone made her feel a little lightheaded. She could hear their voices in the entryway, heard the squeals from the girls when they saw him, asking if he was there to open presents with them. Evidently, they were just as taken with him as everyone else. She couldn’t blame them.
“I’ll go see what’s going on,” Rory said, leaving her to sulk by herself.
Flinging the covers off herself, Ronnie swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was a mess, dressed in only a pair of leggings and an old t-shirt she’d found in the back of the closet. But she knew she owed him an explanation.
When she opened the door, she could hear Myles and Curt speaking in hushed voices just inside the door.
“I’m not sure it’s a good idea, Curt.”
“I just want to make sure she’s okay. Things went a little sideways last night at my parent’s house, and I just need to make sure she is okay. I won’t stay if she doesn’t want me to.”
“You can come back,” Ronnie said, coming to stand at the end of the hallway. Curt turned, closed his eyes and let out a whoosh of breath.
“Ronnie…” His voice was hoarse. Quiet. He moved to her, his long legs eating up the space between them until he was right there, and she could smell the fresh scent of his soap. His hair was still wet. Even the collar of his shirt was wet like he hadn’t fully dried off before he threw on the shirt and left.
Suddenly, Ronnie felt self-conscious standing there blotchy faced, in an old, holey t-shirt that she wasn’t entirely sure was clean. Deciding it didn’t matter, she held up a hand. She didn’t want to do this—though she wasn’t sure what “this” was yet—in front of her entire family.
“Not here.”
He followed when she walked back down the hallway to her old bedroom.
“I thought about waiting, letting you have some time with your family, but I decided I needed to see you. To make sure you’re okay.”
Ronnie sat on the edge of the bed, watched him. On closer inspection, she saw how disheveled his hair was, and she thought the long-sleeved t-shirt might very well be on backward. She was already hurting him. Better to get this over with quickly.
“This was all a mistake, Curt. I’m sorry. We should have stuck to the rules and not taken things further. I’m not right for you.”
Ronnie saw hurt move through his eyes only to be replaced by what she thought was fury. She’d never seen his eye so hard. Well, that wasn’t quite true, they looked very much like they did last night when he confronted his father.
“That is bullshit, and you know it.”
Even though she’d expected it, his harsh tone startled her, and her eyes widened. He might be angry now, might not understand, but he would. She knew what she did to her father, how much he’d suffered because of her. She wouldn’t let that happen to Curt.
“No. You deserve to be with someone you can take home to your family. Someone you can be proud of.”
“Oh, for fucks sake, Ronnie. How many times have we been over this? I give zero fucks what that man thinks. The only reason I went there last night is because my mother asked me to, otherwise I never would have.”
“But—”
“Just stop!” The words came rushing out of him. “You need to stop telling me what I need…what I deserve. Don’t I get a say in this? You don’t get to decide what I want. The only thing you get to decide is whether or not you want me. So, tell me. Tell me the truth. Am I the one you want? If you say I’m not, I’ll walk out that door and never look back.”
Ronnie stood there, mouth agape as her heart stumbled around in her chest.
“Curt, it’s not that simple.”
“It is for me. Yes or no, Ronnie. That’s all I want from you.” He watched her, eyes scanning her face, body rigid.
“Well, yes, but…”
He crumpled with relief. After a beat, he dragged her to him, his mouth covering hers in a reverent kiss that spoke of tomorrow and forever.
When he pulled back, he wiped away the tears she didn’t even know were running down her face.
“You need to let go of this notion that you’re not good enough. I’ve known, maybe from the first time we met, but certainly since we started this convoluted game, that you were what I wanted. That you, with your big heart and even greater determination, were exactly what I needed in my life.”
She wanted to argue. Tell him he was wrong, but no words came. All she could do was watch the emotion in his eyes bleed into truth as he spoke.
“You need to know something,” he continued, lifting his hand to palm her face, his thumb caressing her cheek. “This was never a game to me. This was never pretend for me. I meant it all.”
He closed what little gap there was between them, drew her to him. His eyes dropped to her mouth, darkened with the same lust she knew was mirrored in her own. He kissed her again with a tenderness that made her feel fragile in his arms, like maybe if he held her too tightly, she might break from the enormity of his feelings.
Ronnie tried to deepen the kiss, to convey in some way the depth of her own feelings, that she hadn’t been pretending either, and that was the reason it all scared her so much. Because she knew then that running had been a mistake. That somehow over the last few weeks, Curt had woven himself into her very soul. He became a part of her, and just the thought of being apart from him had torn her in two.
“I’m sorry,” she said, moving from his mouth to kiss along his jaw. “I’m sorry I ran. I got scared.”
“I know. But you have to trust me. Trust that I know who you are, and that I want you.”
“I trust you.”
“Do you?”
She nodded, pressed her body into his so his warmth surrounded her. He wrapped himself around her, held her tightly.
“Good. Then trust that I mean it when I say I’m in love with you,” he murmured against her hair. The cadence of her heart thrumming in her chest. “I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you, if I have to, but you need to trust that.”
She drew her arms up around his neck, looked into his eyes, felt the smile on her face.
“I love you, too.”
She watched as something inside him snapped; she could see it in the way his eyes darkened and felt it in the way his fingers tightened on her waist. When he kissed her this time, it was needy, deep…intoxicating. It was almost too much, but at the same time it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t sure if it would ever be enough.
He whispered her name between kisses. Pleas, prayers, oaths, she wasn’t sure, but each word felt like a brand, and she was happy to oblige.
She wished they could go home. Skip Christmas, and spend the day in bed, but her family was out there waiting. It occurred to her then that maybe he didn’t have that in his life. A family like hers. One that supported and meddled and…loved. From what she saw, he’d grown up with the opposite. And she suddenly wanted to give him that. Wanted him to be a part of hers. Show him what love felt like. The Argents certainly had enough to give.
Because for all their meddling and all her stubbornness, it had all led to this moment. A moment when she wasn’t pretending. A moment that was completely real.