Page 33

The cheeky grin that is known for getting women into trouble with him appears, and all the tension between us disappears. This is the man I missed, the one who was my friend and who could always make me laugh. “I’ve never gotten any complaints, you know.”

I laugh, shoving him lightly. His laugh floats through the air as I link my arm through his so we can keep walking. “I’m glad we’re friends again, Ronan.”

His hands slide into his pockets, keeping step with me. “Me too.”

“Joy is going to be so proud of me.” My comment earns me a snort of laughter. “What? She is! I’ve officially been on five dates, and I fixed a longtime feud with someone.”

“Does this one count? Because I definitely saved you from this one.”

My eyes widen as I look up at him. “Because the only thing they could talk about were bugs, Ronan.”

“That’s because they’re an entomologist, Mia.”

“Yes, in food production and disease prevention.” I shiver. “I’m going to have nightmares about bugs crawling on my food and giving me diseases.”

“I think it’s safe to say you and the entomologist don’t have a future together.”

“Stop making fun of me,” I whine. “This also means I’ll have to tell Bryce and Josie the real reason I’ve been a jerk to you.”

“Bryce knows. I mean, about what happened in Indianapolis. I told him when it happened, because I wanted him to know. He doesn’t know that’s why you’ve been so mean.”

For the second time tonight, my jaw drops open. “He what ?”

“Yeah.” Ronan grins. “And I think that he told Josie.”

“So, this whole time I’ve been keeping this from them to protect her and they’ve known?” He nods and I groan. “God, I’m never going to hear the end of this.”

A couple of days later, the six of us are at Bryce and Josie's, ready for another game night.

Honestly, I don't know why we keep doing this to ourselves.

The night always ends with one of the guy's pouting and us girls moving out to the patio with glasses of wine while they argue about the real winner.

I guess that's what happens when you try to do anything competitive with a bunch of Olympians. They always like to win.

The first thing everyone notices is that Ronan and I drove together. He offered to pick me up since he passes my apartment on the way from his condo. Carter is getting out of his own car with Kat when we pull in, his eyes widening when he spots me in the passenger seat.

He's storming into the house ahead of us, calling for Bryce.

"What?" Bryce questions, coming out of the kitchen with a towel in his hands. "Why are you screaming at me, dude?"

“Am I dead? Because I think I’m in some alternate universe.”

"What?" I want to roll my eyes at how overly dramatic Carter is being. Bryce is just more confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Your boyfriend is the most dramatic person I have ever met," I tell Kat, who's standing next to me in the entranceway.

Josie comes jogging down the stairs, brows furrowed. "What the hell is going on?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Bryce says. "Carter came running in here and asked if he's dead."

Josie’s brow furrows. "What? Why would he be dead?"

"Carter is freaking out because I drove Mia here and he happened to arrive at basically the same time."

At Ronan's explanation, it goes deadly silent. Carter and Kat seem to wait with bated breath for the other two's reactions. Josie and Bryce, however, are doing that annoying silent communication thing she and I perfected years ago.

"Stop that." I snap my fingers in front of Bryce's face. "It's only cute when Josie and I do it. Just say whatever you want to say."

"Did you kidnap her?" Bryce asks hesitantly .

Josie jogs down the rest of the stairs, coming to a stop in front of me and grabbing my face in both hands. "Did you hit your head? Do you have amnesia?"

"I will count to two and you better—"

Her hands drop immediately. "Nope, definitely still our normal Mia." She turns a glare to Ronan. "What happened?"

I kick off my sandals by the door. "And here I thought you'd all be happy we made up."

As I walk into the living room to get comfortable, four voices are fighting to be heard over one another. I can barely make out Ronan's amused laugh. When I collapse on the couch, he takes a seat next to me. Everyone else gathers around like I'm about to tell them a ghost story or something.

"We need to know what happened!" Josie demands, but she's looking a little too pleased for my liking.

I look at Ronan, only for him to shrug.

"Remember the dates we both had the other day?" I ask. "Well, they suck."

Katrina looked at Ronan with a gasp. "Jasmine sucks?"

He grimaces, clearly embarrassed about having to talk badly about one of her clients, but he seems to recover rather quickly. "Kind of the worst, actually. She was mad that I didn't live up to the reputation she'd found online."

"No." Kat groans, leaning against Carter. He pats her shoulder comfortingly. "She always seemed to be so put together, I thought she was looking for someone more serious."

He frowns. "I think the only way she's settling down is by renovating her house.” A moment passes before he adds, "But mine wasn't nearly as bad as Mia's!"

"Don't listen to Ronan!” I protest. “Georgie wasn't that bad, they just…could only talk about their work. "

Josie's brow furrows. "But isn't Georgie an entomologist?"

"Mm-hmm. We only talked about bugs for the forty-five minutes we were together. Which, did you know cockroaches can live almost seven days without their head? I didn't, but now I do."

"Oh, ew." Bryce grimaces. "At least the conversation shifted when you were eating?"

"Oh, no." I shake my head. "No, the facts just shifted to bugs in food. Which is a thing, even if you can't see them."

I swear Bryce turns a little green.

"I finally intervened the third time I saw Mia gagging while trying to eat flatbread," Ronan jumps in. "Jasmine didn't seem too sad to see me go."

"But how does any of this get us here?"

"After Ronan saved me, we talked. A lot," I explain, looking over at him. "To be honest, I was getting tired of holding it in. I opened up to him about why I was mad, got some answers, and found out that I didn't need to hide it from you, because everyone knew. Except Kat."

Confused, Bryce looks at Ronan, who immediately answers. "Summer Nationals in 2017, asshole college kids."

His confusion deepens for a whole second before realization dawns on him. "Oh! Those assholes. Wait, you were mad at him for that? He told me about it immediately. Carter, too. I told Josie that night."

I can feel how red my cheeks are. "Well, I know that now! I had no way of knowing that then and Josie had already been pissed off at you once that trip."

Josie's looking at me in amusement. "Well, I guess I was wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"She thought it had to do with you guys hooking up in Omaha," Bryce responds .

" What ?"

The exclamation comes from three people: me, Ronan, and, surprisingly, Carter.

"Oh, come on. You were not as sneaky as you thought you were. I ran into Ronan in the hallway going back to his room."

"And you were wearing the same clothes with your makeup from the previous night smeared." Josie points at me. "You never sleep in the shirt you wore all day, and you always take your makeup off.”

Well, fuck. Apparently, there never were any secrets between us. They all knew what I was so upset about and the secret we thought we managed to keep was clocked by everyone but Carter.

Ronan clears his throat. "Well, this has been an enlightening evening so far. Are there any other questions before we stop talking about the past?"

In that moment, I want to hug him. I'm not ready to face every aspect of the past. The last few days have been more than enough for me. It feels almost like my entire viewpoint is shifting, and I don't know what to do.

"Are you two together now?" The question comes from the only person in our little group who hasn't talked much, Katrina.

"No," Ronan and I reply in unison, the unsaid but lingering in the silence that follows.

"Okay, then," Bryce replies. "What do we want to play first?"

I’m in the kitchen for another drink when Carter comes in. I nod to the bottle of wine I’m opening, and he comes over to me with a nod.

“I’m a little embarrassed to admit I’m apparently the only one who was clueless about you guys hooking up. ”

I hand him the full glass, leaning against the counter.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a good chat with him and now seems as good as time as any.

“Honestly, that makes me feel a little relieved. Maybe we weren’t so obvious.

” I take a sip of my wine before remembering my conversation with Kat months ago.

“But I do need to tell you that your girlfriend clocked it immediately.”

He groans into his wineglass. “Why would you tell me that? Now I feel really dumb.”

“You had a lot going on back then,” I argue, smiling at him. “You’d just made your first Olympic team, and I didn’t see you much after that night. Not until the next summer when everything went to hell.”

“I was so confused in Indianapolis. First, Josie was pissed at Bryce, then you were pissed at Ronan—I was getting whiplash. Not that both instances weren’t justified. I get it. I don’t blame you for being angry with him.”

“Really?” The surprise is clear in my voice. “You don’t?”

“Not at all.” He sets his glass down on the counter before leaning against it.

“When he told us what happened, my initial reaction was anger, too.

Anger at him for even putting himself in that situation and anger toward the assholes who said it.

It took me a while to realize he was in a different position than I would ever be and that his reaction would be different.

“I mean, yeah, people knew Bryce and Ronan got along, but they never guessed how close they were. When it came to me, Bryce and I were always lumped together. Which makes sense with us being best friends forever and me transferring to his team. Still, it meant no one would attempt to talk about Bryce in front of me. Not the way they would with Ronan.”

“And his reputation probably didn’t stop them from thinking they could,” I point out .

“Exactly,” Carter agrees. “It took me a while to realize he was defending them in the only way he knew how.”

“I can’t believe I never considered it. I was so worried Josie would end up heartbroken that I took everything at face value and went with it. I was so angry for so long and he couldn’t even tell me the truth because I never let him know where the anger came from.”

“He understands,” he assures me. “Ronan…He dealt with the consequences that came from his reputation more than he alluded to. People never took him seriously and people tended to make a spectacle of him instead of being honest. I actually think the way you handled it might have been a relief to him, because you continued to prove you were different.”

But I haven’t been doing that over the last several months.

Instead, I’ve been treating him horribly, letting him think that I truly believed the rumors and the stereotypes.

I used his reputation to hide my own hurt, to pretend like this man couldn’t touch me when, in reality, he was always one of the few who cut through my own bullshit.

“Forget everything that’s happened since you started at Adair,” Carter says. “I know what you’re thinking, Mia. That was a defense mechanism, and he knows that.”

My gaze drifts toward the living room, where I could hear Ronan’s laugh before settling back on Carter. “But how does he know that?”

“When he retired and everyone was accusing him of doping, you stood by him. You didn’t listen to any of those rumors and never once let your anger cloud your judgment. When every other media outlet turned their back on him, you refused.”

Flushing, I look down at the wineglass in my hand. “That was a joint statement from both Josie and me.”

“You wrote it, though. ”

He laughs when I look up at him with wide-eyed surprise. “How do you know that?”

“Come on, Mia, you and Josie have distinct voices. Even back then. Bryce and I knew it came from you, and Ronan did, too.”

A thick lump is forming in my throat, but I swallow against it. I’m determined not to cry in this kitchen because Ronan and Josie will see it the second I join the rest of the group. “I knew he didn’t cheat.”

Carter nods, reaching for his wine, and pushing off the counter. “Like I said, the two of you have always seen each other for who you are. That’s why you’re here. Don’t doubt that.”

He gives my arm a gentle squeeze before he heads to the living room.

I take a few deep, steadying breaths, pulling myself together before I go out to face everyone again.

Everything shifted between us tonight and I don’t know where it’s going to go, but I hope we get the chance we should have taken all those years ago. This can be our fresh beginning.

Ronan is laughing at something Josie had said when I enter the room, but his eyes brighten, and his grin grows when he sees me. Contentment settles in the pit of my stomach as I settle beside him on the couch. “What were you laughing at?”

“Did you know Bryce and Carter have matching tattoos?”

I turn my head to gape at him. “ No!”

Bryce groans, but Carter lets out an indigent, “What the fuck, man?”

My gaze snaps back to Josie and her wide grin.

“Don’t look at me.” Bryce points a finger at Carter. “You told your girlfriend, so I had to tell my girlfriend.”

“But we didn’t have to tell the whole group!”

Josie hides behind her glass of wine. “Oops. Must have had a little too much wine. ”

“Oh, please.” Bryce rolls his eyes. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“They’re waves,” Ronan murmurs to me.

“ Oh, my god ,” I breathe, shifting to look at my best friend. “You have to tell me everything!”