Page 71 of The Thinnest Air
My skin is hot, my heart firing away. Comparing me to my mother is a line Harris knows better than to cross.
Before I have a chance to offer my rebuttal, the line goes dead.
Sliding my phone across a nearby table, I head to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine.
It’s Friday. It’s almost five o’clock. It’s Andrew’s weekend, and we’re supposed to pick up the kids from Erica’s later.
I need to unwind, but the second I uncork my favorite dry red, the doorbell chimes. Abandoning my liquid Xanax, I get the door, only the person standing on the other side is the last person I expect to see on my steps.
“Ronan.” My face wants to smile, my heart dropping to my fluttering stomach when I see him.
He looks good, even better than the last time I saw him.
His hair’s a bit longer, his skin a bit tanner. Recent vacation maybe? And he’s dressed in plain clothes, though his shield hangs on a chain around his neck. Over his shoulder, I notice his unmarked car parked in the street.
“Was on my way home,” he said. “Wanted to stop by and let you know we finally caught that stalker.”
The stalker.
God, that seems like forever ago, and now it’s all coming full circle, bringing Ronan into my life all over again.
“Come in.” I pull the door wide.
“It’s okay. I’m not staying long.” There’s a bittersweet longing in his eyes, and his hands are shoved in his pockets. He looks at me the way you look at the flickering glow of a candle, knowing it’s beautiful and tempting but it’ll hurt if you touch it.
The stalker hasn’t messed with me in forever, well over a year. In the back of my mind, I always assumed maybe Erica hired someone to have me followed just to mess with me. That’s something she’d do out of sheer spite.
“Apparently this guy was targeting random women in Glacier Park,” he says. “Just some mentally unstable local. Lived in a log cabin outside the city limits. Bit of a recluse. Anyway, someone caught him in the act, and we got a description of him as he fled, along with his plates. That’s how we nailed him. He confessed to following you, and he claims he picked you at random. Just thought you’d like to know.”
It’s sweet of him to come all this way to give me peace of mind when he owes me nothing. What we had may have been a fling, but I still hurt him. There’s pain in his eyes when he looks at me, sending a sympathetic ache to my chest.
How I wish we could’ve met under different circumstances, in another lifetime.
“Thank you,” I say, resting my hand over my heart, wishing I could hug him but knowing it’d be completely inappropriate in our current states. “How have you been? I think about you often ...”
His face lights. He doesn’t say it, but I know he thinks of me, too. “Good. I’ve been good.”
“Anything new?” I wish he could come in. I wish we could catch up. I could talk to him for hours, always could.
“Just been working,” he says. “Going on some dates.”
His gaze softens, and he smiles. I think he wants me to be happy for him. Deep down, it feels as though I’ve been punched in the gut.
“Really? Dates?” I lift my brows, forcing a smile, though I’m sure my voice gives away my disappointment. Despite the fact that Ronan’s not mine and never will be, I’m jealous of those faceless girls who get to ride shotgun in his truck, bask in his perfect, brilliant smile, and experience the toe-curling kisses I’ll never have the pleasure of knowing again.
“Yeah.” He smiles.
“Anything promising?”
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
“Anyone I’d know?” I doubt it, but I’m dying to hear a name, something, anything. Is this what jealousy feels like? Nausea, stinging eyes, a crushing heaviness like I’m staring at the one who got away, knowing he can never be mine again?
Silently scolding myself, I shake it off. I have no right to care about who he dates. I have no right to miss him, to envy the woman he’ll someday fall in love with and marry and start a family with. He’ll take one look at her, and he’ll know it was always supposed to be her, and in that moment, he won’t be thinking of me.
I bet he’ll be a good dad.
He’ll be home for dinner each night, teach his kids how to throw a football, carry them on his shoulders at theme parks, and hop in the pool with them in the summer, teaching them how to dive and letting them ride on his back.
