Page 26 of Formula Dreams
The corner of his mouth curls into a sardonic smile as he stares harder at his beer.“Surprised you haven’t heard the story.”
“I spent most of last year buried in FI2,” I say.“Didn’t exactly have time to keep up with grid gossip.”
He lifts his pint, takes a slow sip, then sets it down.He turns toward me on the stool, resting a forearm on the bar, and it’s a move of openness and invitation.“You know the general story of how Posey and Lex got together?”
I nod.“She said she was a journalist, but she’s really a romance author.I remember it blew up for, like, a day?Hot news item, then disappeared.”
He huffs a humorless sound.“Yeah.I’m the one who outed her to the press.”
I blink.“Wait—seriously?”
He nods once and doesn’t look away.Just clear eyes.
“Why?”
“Why indeed?”he murmurs and barks a sarcastic laugh to a very private joke he must have been thinking about.Then he turns to me and drops a truth bomb.“I was jealous of Posey.She was taking my friend away and I didn’t like it.Joke’s on me because it was such a shitty thing to do, outing her the way I did, it cost me my friendship with Lex.”
That’s real pain I hear.And self-loathing.
“The fact you acknowledge it was a shitty thing to do speaks volumes about your character.”I let that sit between us for a moment.“Maybe it’s not permanent.”
He shakes his head.“It is.We don’t talk.We don’t train together.We barely make eye contact unless there’s a camera in the room.”
“You could spend time together again,” I say gently.“Start there.”
“Yeah, that won’t be happening.”Ronan doesn’t look at me.“I wasn’t nice to Posey either, so I doubt Lex would throw water on me if I were burning.”
Being caught in a car fire after a crash is something we all fear, so that speaks to the depths of the divide between them.
“What’d you do to Posey other than outing her?”I prod.
He pauses, and for the first time tonight, his eyes reflect what looks a lot like regret.
“Let’s just say I wasn’t very nice to her,” he replies firmly, clearly unwilling to share details.“And leave it at that.There’s no coming back from it.”
“I don’t know,” I say.“I think there’s always room for forgiveness.At least for people who are truly sorry.”
He goes still, head slowly turning my way.“I don’t do apologies.Word of advice, don’t ever ask for one from me.”
There’s no venom behind his words, no bark meant to push me away.Just a quiet, worn-out warning from someone who’s built entire fortresses around his regrets.
I don’t comment.Instead, I study him.Really study him.
Everything about Ronan Barnes says he wants to be the villain in his own story—razor tongue, short fuse, permanent scowl—but the cracks are showing.He says he doesn’t apologize, but I’ve never seen someone look sorrier about a wrong they won’t even say out loud.There’s weight in his silence.In the way his eyes drift back to his glass like he’s trying to bury himself under the next sip.
He paints himself in broad, ugly strokes, but it seems like a defense mechanism more than the truth.
And God help me, I find that kind of sadness beautiful.Not the brokenness itself, but the way he tries so hard to hide it.Like he thinks he has to be bulletproof, or he won’t be able to function.
This is bad for me because I’m not drawn to perfect men.I never have been.
And right now, sitting next to this one—this infuriating, walled-off man who’s maybe the loneliest person I’ve met in years—feelings twist quietly in my chest.
Not sympathy.Something else.Something deeper.
Curiosity.Compassion.And a dangerous spark of want.
Not for the way he looks or moves or how always sounds like he’s challenging, but for what’s underneath all that.The part he clearly thinks no one will ever care enough to look for.
