Page 32 of Ronen
“Goddess, you’ll need to pay people hazard pay if they had to be subjected to your wailing,” Connor gasped, laughing at the day I had had.
“We can’t all be choir boys,” I told him, “and thanks for laughing at my pain, asshole.”
“It’s not my fault I have a voice like an angel. Like you wouldn’t be laughing your ass off if it was me all this had happened to. I am sorry about the ankle though. They didn’t cast it, did they.”
“Naw, a boot. I woke up from the pain meds in time to stop them. That’s not why I called though.”
“You mean you didn’t call to have me laugh at you? That’s disappointing.”
“Shut it. This is serious.”
“I’m listening. Hold on,” he put the phone away from his mouth to shout,“You just planning to eat dirt for dinner, old man? Shit, Papa’s coming! You’d better look like you are in one piece before he gets here!”
Laying my head back on the couch, I stared up at the water spot on the ceiling I needed to deal with at some point. “He okay?”
“He’s fine,” Connor said, “You know how tough he is. I don’t know why Papa even gets so upset. Even if he wasn’t fine, he soon would be. Now, I’m all yours. You have my undivided attention.”
Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “I want to tell Ronen what I am.”
Silence met my confession, and I waited for my brother to say something. Anything.
“I’m going somewhere away from the crowd,” Connor spoke quietly, and I could hear his boots crunching as he walked away from the corral.
I could almost see it in my mind; the corral, the ranch house, the barn and outbuildings. I missed it, but not enough to go back for more than a yearly visit.
I loved horses, and the land, but I was never meant to be a horse breeder. Being a cop had been my dream since I was five years old, much to my parents’ disappointment.
Thankfully, Connor was as horse crazy as our dad and was happy to carry on the legacy.
“Okay, I’m in the barn,” Connor said, “Just me and the horses. And what the actual fuck, Mason? You can’t reveal yourself to anyone but your true mate. You know that. Them's the rules.”
None of us really knew who had made up the rules. Just that they had been passed down from generation to generation, for hundreds–possibly thousands–of years.
“About that,” I tempted wiggling my toes in the boot and then thought better of. Much better to just stare up at my water-stained ceiling. “Something happened during my fall. Well, after it. I…found my fated mate.”
The stunned silence that followed my admission had me on edge, before Connor exclaimed, “Ohhh my Goddess! It’s Ronen, the librarian you are always going on about, isn’t it? Is Ronen your true mate?! Holy fuck, Mason! That’s incredible!”
“True mate, fated mate,” I sighed, “whatever you want to call it, he is. We are. Yeah.”
“Well, that changes everything then,” Connor declared, matter-of-factly. “You can tell him if he’s your true mate.”
“Problem is, I’m not sure he wants to even acknowledge the fact,” I sighed, peeling off half the label on my water. “He doesn’t even like me. Like, not at all.”
“Mmmm,” Connor hummed in my ear, “I don’t know about that. From what you’ve told me about your interactions, I think he might. It’s like…what do they call it in those romance books you read? Enemies-to-lovers? Maybe opposites attract? Hate sex?”
“We aren’t any of that,” I rolled my eyes. “We definitely aren’t the last thing. Well, okay, we are opposites for sure.”
“How is it you guys didn’t know this before today?” Connor wanted to know. “You like see him practically every day,don’t you? I mean, you’ve had a massive crush since the first day you saw him. It’s always Ronen this and Ronen that. Blah, it’s like we were in high school again, listening to you go on about some omega that caught your eye.”
“We’ve never actually touched before today,” I confessed.
In between getting the boot on my foot, and the time it took for the hospital to discharge me, I’d had more than enough time to sort that answer out. “He waits until someone puts their books on the counter, scoots them over to himself, then scoots them back. He never touches anyone. At first, I thought it was just me he did it to, but today I realized he does it to everyone.”
“Library books probably have a shit ton of germs on them,” Connor said, “I mean, when you think about it. All kinds of people are touching them, coughing and sneezing, and who knows what else on them. Gross. I’m switching to eBooks from now on. Thanks for making me think these thoughts.”
“You probably don’t want me to tell you how dirty digital devices get. Think about your cell phone,” I smiled when I heard his gasped outrage of ick. Man, I did like fucking with Connor’s head sometimes. “Today, when I fell, he came running down the steps and he touched me. I think he might have been trying to comfort me.”
Which was shocking and sweet at the same time.
