Little Conversations (23 page)

A genuine fear lit up in Jake’s eyes.  “I mean that she told
me to fuck off after she left your place, and I haven’t seen her since!”

“Wait, no… she left
with you
!”

“Fuck, Ronin…” Jake babbled anxiously, “she didn’t want
anything to do with me.  She yelled at me to leave her the fuck alone and took
off walking.  She won’t return my calls.  I don’t know where she is, but it isn’t
with me.”

Ronin released Jake and stumbled back a few steps in
complete shock. 

“But, she doesn’t live there anymore…” he mumbled
bewilderedly. 

“Ronin, seriously, dude.  I don’t know where she is.  I’ve
been in Billings.  I’m only back for the weekend.  I haven’t seen her, I swear.”
 Jake brushed at the wrinkles Ronin had put in his shirt and walked back over
to his date, putting an arm around her shoulders.  She looked nervously back
and forth between the two, appearing relieved that they weren’t going to come
to blows. 

Ronin stared at Jake another minute, trying to make sense of
it all.  Suddenly, he turned on his heel and stalked back into the bar. 
Standing at the doorway, he craned his neck and saw Amy rubbing up against Matt
out on the dance floor.  Ronin worked his way through the swinging crowd and
tapped Amy on the shoulder.  She blanched a little at the fierce expression on
his face. 

“Where’s Devin?”

Amy didn’t say anything at first.  She studied him closely,
trying to determine how much to tell him. 

“Amy, please…” Ronin beseeched with an utterly broken look
in his eyes.  “I’ve got to find her.”

Amy looked up at Matt who gave her a slight nod.  “Tell him
what you know,” he murmured. 

“I’m not exactly sure—” Amy began, and Ronin looked away
with a frustrated sigh.  “I only know she’s gone.  Not to school.  Not with
Jake.  But she couldn’t stay here, Ronin.  Not with Kim back.”

“Kim’s not back,” Ronin interrupted.  “She was in town, but
not with me.”

“But that night…” Amy looked confused.  “…what you said.”

“Devin’s always wanted Jake, Amy.  How could I compete with
that?  She’s been in love with him for fuckin’ ever.  I gave her an out…”

Amy smiled sadly and shook her head.  “Ronin, you idiot.”  She
looked up at Matt again, then back to Ronin.  “I honestly don’t know where,
exactly.  But she said something about California…”

As had become her pattern for the past few weeks, Devin
spent most of her time sitting on the bluff overlooking the beach, watching the
sun work its way towards the pacific horizon.  The Del Mar sky was turning quiet
and gray for winter, matching her melancholy.  Every so often, a blink would
push a tear from her eyes, the whipping wind chilling it as it ran down her
cheek.  She really shouldn’t miss him.  But she did.  Every day.  She shouldn’t,
though.  It wasn’t real, not for him.

She heard the faint chirp emanate from her iPhone.  A text. 
Should she even read it?
  Eventually her morbid curiosity won out. 
Could
she really feel any worse anyway?
 She sincerely doubted it.  

Devin pulled her phone from her sweatshirt pocket to see the
text was from Ronin. 
Yep, she could feel worse. 

You ok?

Two weeks without a word.  Nothing since that night in his
kitchen.  Nothing since he told her that she was just a stand in for Kim. 
Loneliness and loss morphed into anger and indignation.  She took a deep breath
and lied her ass off.

Never better
J

And she even added the smiley for good measure.  Overkill
maybe.  It actually sorta made her want to throw up.  She went to slip the
phone back in her pocket when she got an immediate response from Ronin.

Liar

What the hell did he know?
 He thought she’d go back
to Jake.  After those last few amazing days they were together, the intense
emotion of every touch, every breath almost whispering of love… and then the ice-cold
goodbye. 
What right did he have to dredge up all this bullshit?

Really, I’m great

Her phone chirped again.

You didn’t go back to Jake

Devin’s heart stopped beating.  Every breath she took was
increasingly labored and shaky as she fought a full-on flood of tears.  She reeled
for a response that wouldn’t make her sound pathetically sentimental. 
Something that would not sound as though she was pining away for him.  She
fought the burn of tears, her hands began shaking as she raised one of them to
her mouth to stem the sob developing there.  Her mind drew a blank, but her
iPhone buzzed again.

Why didn’t you go back to Jake?

Devin choked back a shuddering breath. 
Why was he doing
this!?
 He had been very clear.  She was a stand-in for Kim, someone to
fuck around with to take his mind off who he really wanted. 
Just friends… nothing
more.
  Channeling this train of thought, she fed off her anger, gathering
strength to respond, even as tears poured down her cheeks.

Doesn’t matter.  Doesn’t change anything.  It’s all ok.

 And she got an immediate response.

Then why are you crying?

Devin froze, staring at her phone for a minute. 
What the
fuck?  How the hell does he know?
 She was thousands of miles from home. 
Only Amy, Joanie, and Sorcha even knew she was gone, and Amy and Joanie didn’t
even really know exactly where.  She hadn’t even told her family she was
leaving.  Suddenly, her phone began to beep and a message popped up on the
screen.

(( Find my iPhone alert ))

Thoroughly confused, she numbly touched ‘OK’ on the screen
and the beeps stopped.  Over the surf below, she heard Ronin’s gentle, deep
voice behind her.

“Why, baby?  Why didn’t you go back to Jake?”

Devin was unable to move, unable to speak, unable to breathe. 
She felt him come closer to sit beside her on the sandy bluff with his back to
the sea, his left shoulder brushing against hers.  She lifted her gaze to see
those hazel eyes, not cold and impassive, but warm and sincere.

With a barely audible voice, she tremulously answered.  “I
didn’t want Jake.  I, um…”

No!
 Devin’s mind scolded her emotion into check, and
she forced her gaze back over the ocean below.  This was all too raw, and she couldn’t
give him the power to hurt her again, not after he’d so coldly clarified how he
felt.  He had pushed her away so easily before.  She was only a stand-in.  She closed
her eyes, drawing on the anger again, pulling it to the surface to hide her
vulnerability.

“What are you doing here!?”  She wanted to shout, but it
came out more like a squeak, and a pathetic one at that.  “Where’s Kim?”  She
closed her eyes, trying to be strong, and that was so hard with him sitting there
beside her.

The wind in her hair drew his hands to her face, and he
gingerly turned her gaze to him as his thumbs brushed away her tears.  Her
trembling increased, and she couldn’t hold back a shuddering breath.  Opening
her eyes, she lifted her gaze to his.  The dazzling certainty in his expression
kindled the emotion she was so desperately trying to tamp down.

“I don’t know where Kim is.”  Ronin shook his head.  “I don’t
care
where Kim is.  I had to find you.  God, honey, I didn’t want to let
you go, but you loved him
so fucking much
.  I wanted to… I wanted you to
have what you wanted.”  Ronin took a deep breath as his hands traced the bottom
of her ears.  “And then, you didn’t go back to him.  Melanie was gone, they
were over.  But you didn’t go back to him.  And every day that went by, every
second, baby… I missed you.”

Devin’s tears began in earnest now.  There was no stopping
them as Ronin continued.

“And when I say I missed you, I mean I really fuckin’
missed
you.”  His eyes closed for a moment, then opened as his gaze locked onto hers. 
His voice dropped to a whisper.  “I love you, Devin.  I tried so fucking hard
not to, but I just… couldn’t.  You are just too easy to love.”

The dam burst in her.  It all broke free—her resolve, her
anger, her restraint.  Devin threw herself into his arms.  She buried her face
into his neck, breathing in the scent of his skin. 

“Ronin,” Devin breathed into his skin, “I never thought I’d
see you again.  I couldn’t stay there and see you.  I love you too much… it just
hurt too bad…”

His arms locked around her and one hand tangled into her
hair possessively.  She clutched at his shoulders as she cried earnestly.  As
the sun disappeared into the ocean, Ronin held her.  
Ronin loved her.
 

“Shhh, it’s okay, honey,” he whispered.  “I love you.  I won’t
fuck it up again, okay? 
Ever
again.”

Slowly, her tears began to diminish as they murmured their
words of love.  Of forever.  Of devotion and forgiveness. 

The sun had fallen below the horizon and twilight was upon
them.  Devin pulled back from him slightly and studied him through red-rimmed
eyes.  He looked exhausted.  Her hand reached up to brush her thumb against the
coarse stubble of his jaw.  He didn’t look like he’d shaved in a couple days. 
His clothes were rumpled, and he had his work boots on. 

“Ronin, you look, um…” she half-laughed and half-stuttered,
“you kinda look like shit.”

Ronin smiled sadly back at her.  “I had to find you.  I
found out you weren’t with Jake, and I just had to.  I left the bar and drove straight
to Bozeman.  I didn’t even go home.  I stood there in the ticket line at the
airport using that fuckin’ little iPhone app to find out where you were.  I
showed it to the ticket agent, and said I needed to go there, as fast as I
could.”

Devin was absolutely flabbergasted.  He smiled wider at the
dumbfounded cast to her eyes. 

“I did the same thing in the cab when I landed.  I showed my
phone to the driver and told him to take me there.”

“Jesus…” Devin breathed.  “Wasn’t all that a little
expensive?”

“Doesn’t fuckin’ matter.”

“Why didn’t…” Devin breathed, “why didn’t you just call me?”

“I had to see you, baby.”  Ronin’s hands enveloped her
cheeks, his thumbs brushing along her cheekbones as his fingers slipped around
the base of her head.  He touched his forehead to hers.  “I just had to…”

Del Mar with Ronin was an amazingly different experience.   Devin
took him back to Sorcha’s, and introduced him to Lancôme.  A little yap-dog, in
his opinion, but she did see him scratching the pooch behind the ears a time or
two when he thought she wasn’t looking. 

Devin went to warm up some leftover Vietnamese food for
dinner while he took a quick shower to rid himself of the ick of work, the bar,
the flight, and the cab.  After putting the food in the microwave, she took him
some towels and ended up in the shower with him, wrapped in his arms, up against
the tiled wall as he reacquainted himself with her body.  Only now, he freely
whispered against her skin how he cherished her.  As she came in his arms, she freely
cried out how much she adored him in return.  He kissed her tears away, knowing
they were tears of happiness and completion. 
Tears of love.

First thing in the morning, they went shopping.   Knowing
what he liked, Ronin was easy to clothe.  Some Levis and a couple t-shirts,
some boxer briefs and socks, and a pair of flannel pants was all he would need. 

They climbed the mesa near Torrey Pines, then drove to have
lunch at Poseidon on the Beach in Del Mar Village.  Devin told Ronin the story
of how Poseidon placed Delphin the dolphin among the stars to thank him for
persuading Amphitrite to give it up.   The young sea nymph wasn’t too keen on
losing her virginity, but Delphin had convinced her to marry Poseidon, and was
thusly honored by the sea god.  Of course, Amphitrite was one of the sea nymphs
who later got pissed at Cassiopeia for being so vain, and there was that whole
sea monster issue with Perseus, but that story had already been told. 

They spent some time walking along the beach, Lancôme pitter-pattering
alongside them and skipping away from the water that skimmed the sand.  She
still barked incessantly at every seagull and jogger, although she quieted as
Ronin picked her up and carried her.  Seeing the little purse-dog perched
happily in Ronin’s strong and gentle arms made Devin smile.  As the sun began
to set, they walked back up to sit on the sandy bluffs overlooking the ocean, watching
it dip below the horizon with Lancôme curled up at their feet. 

Back at Sorcha’s, they snuggled in the hot tub under the
glow of the rising moon.  Snuggling led to so much more, and Devin made a
mental note to have the hot tub drained and cleaned before Sorcha got home. 

But more than anything else, they just lay in bed, hours on
end, telling each other and showing each other how they loved.

Sorcha came home a few days later, slightly surprised by her
unexpected houseguest.  She knew Devin had been utterly heartbroken when she’d left
Montana, although she hadn’t known much more than that.  And, here was a guy.  He
was a hot guy, but he was a guy Sorcha had never met, had never even heard of. 
At first, she was afraid that Devin had completely lost it and picked up a
random dude at a bar once she’d arrived in town.  Then she realized Ronin was
from also Montana, and she became even more nervous, rightfully concerned that
this was who Devin had needed an escape from.  She gave Ronin the third degree,
eyeing him cautiously, watching for any signs that he might even remotely cause
heartbreak.

But then she saw the way he looked at Devin.  The way he
watched her walk into a room.  Sorcha noted the way he smiled at Devin when she
wasn’t even looking.  The soft way he said her name.  The sweet and gentle
kisses he pressed to her shoulder as he walked up behind her.  Ronin was
so
in love with her cousin.  The guy was clearly besotted, overcome.  He
worshipped Devin.  So after a few days, Sorcha lightened up a little.

Since neither Ronin nor Devin had gotten a round-trip
ticket, they rented a car for the return trip to Montana, leaving in the middle
of the afternoon about four days after Sorcha’s return.  They drove through the
desert, taking a detour through Lancaster to see what Ronin might remember.  Even
this time of year, it was still hot and dry, desolate as all fuck, which is
exactly
what Ronin remembered.