Triple Love Score

by Brandi Megan Granett

  “And you’re the right people?”

  “See! You are catching on. I’ll get that contract outlining my services to you by morning. Have your legal look it over and get it back to me as soon as possible. We might be too late for a Christmas launch, I don’t rule it out, but we can start now and push hard for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Speaking of that, not to mess with your creative process, if you could whip up any love poems or tributes to mom, that would be awesomecakes.”

  “Awesomecakes?”

  “Yes, catching on, I see. Email in the morning.”

  Then click and the line went dead.

  Saturday morning was spent on the phone with Avery and Stanton trying to explain the Internet to them. It was hard. The contract outlined a variety of services and splits and publishing rights, and sorting through it made her own head spin, let alone Avery and Stanton’s. “But you write poems,” Stanton said. “On a Scrabble board?”

  “Yes,” Miranda said. Then she tried to explain the entire thing to them again. Finally, she said, “Can I have Scott’s number?”

  “Why do you need Scott’s number?” Avery asked.

  “He’s the one who told me to start this in the first place. Maybe he can help sort it all out.”

  Miranda held the number scrawled on the back of her electric bill like a sacred document. Then she chided herself for being a foolish girl with a crush. She pounded in the numbers and listened impatiently to the ringing.

  Then came the knock on the door. Phone tucked under her chin, she opened the door to find Ronan holding a dozen white roses. The sight of him caused her to lose her breath for a moment. His eyes, bright blue, twinkled. She looked at his sweet, sweet mouth, and remembered the things he could do with those lips and that tongue.

  “Ronan,” she exhaled, just as Scott picked up the line.

  “Sorry, wrong number,” Scott said.

  “No, Scott, wait, it’s me, Miranda.”

  “Miranda? Is everything okay? Are your parents okay?”

  “Yes, yes.” Miranda motioned Ronan to sit on the couch. But he didn’t. He set the flowers down on the entryway table and reached his arm around her, letting his fingers hook through the belt loops of her jeans.

  “I missed you,” he said, nuzzling his face into her hair, his breath tickling her ear.

  Miranda put a finger over her lips and tried to free herself. He wouldn’t let go.

  “Just take your call,” he said. “I’ll keep myself busy.”

  “What can I help you with, Miranda?” Scott said.

  “Oh, sorry, someone just came to the door. I spoke to Ambrose. I need help.”

  “Oh, Ambrose, excellent!” Scott’s tone brightened.

  Miranda tried to swat Ronan away, but he held his ground. He dropped to his knees and began inserting his fingers between the buttons on the fly of her jeans. Miranda swiveled. He just reached around to continue. She stopped fidgeting and let him. “Well, yes, excellent. He has a lot of ideas and sent a contract. I need it to be reviewed.”

  “Stanton does that all the time. What’s the problem?”

  “He doesn’t understand the Internet. And frankly, I’m not sure I do either.”

  “And?”

  Miranda heard the nature video sound track fire up in the background.

  “Lower it, sweets,” Scott said. “I’m on the phone.”

  “With who?” Lynn asked.

  “Miranda. Remember from Thanksgiving.”

  Ronan began undoing the top bottom; her jeans were tight, and he struggled some. She brushed his hands away only to have him try again.

  “Randa Panda? Tell her about Christmas, Daddy, tell her we will be in Connecticut again. Tell her Miss Avery promised we would do gingerbread houses. Tell her. Tell her I missed saying goodbye to her!”

  Miranda’s heart did a leap. She stepped away from Ronan, this time just before he undid the last button of her jeans. “Please,” she whispered. “On the couch.” She pointed to the couch and stepped closer to the kitchen.

  “Did you get that?” Scott asked.

  “I did. But I have to say I didn’t expect it. You didn’t seem to have a good time. And I missed saying goodbye to her, too.”

  Ronan flicked on the television and flipped quickly through the channels, settling on soccer.

  “You did?” Scott asked.

  “Yes, I did. She’s great, Scott. She’s just like you. At least the way you used to be before you disappeared. I want to know the real story.”

  “Randa, it’s not so straight-forward with me and Lynn, and I didn’t want to ruin anything more between us.”

  “Ruin? I don’t think anything with Lynn could ruin anything for anyone. You need to explain.”

  “At Christmas. It’s easier in person.” His voice was a husky whisper.

  In person, she swooned. In person.

  Ronan let out a roar of Irish accented expletives at the television.

  Miranda glared at him.

  He pointed to the television and shrugged.

  “Are you okay? Just tell me about Ambrose. What do you need?” His tone tightened. She could almost see him pulling back away from her.

  “The contract. I was hoping you could review it.”

  “I’m not a lawyer anymore,” he said. “I teach third grade.”

  “I know, but you were a lawyer. And you understand this stuff. And you’re my friend. My oldest friend. I’ve known you since I was a baby. More than a friend.”

  “More than a friend?” he asked, again in a whisper.

  Miranda’s cheeks flushed. She turned her back to Ronan. “I just thought you would be able to help. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bother you,” she stammered.

  Ronan’s team obviously did something wrong again; a new stream of invectives filled the air.

  “Who is there now?”

  “Someone from work,” Miranda said. “Ronan.”

  “I see. I guess I can look at the contract, but I am not promising anything. Can you email it?”

  “I don’t have your email address.”

  “First name last name at gmail. It might take me a bit to get back to you. It’s book report grading week.”

  “Book reports, eh? Must be nice to do something like that.”

  “It is nice. I like being near Lynn. I like when the kids learn something.”

  Another roar thundered from the living room, or maybe this one was more a cheer.

  “I should let you go. Get back to what’s his name,” Scott said.

  “Ronan,” she said. “But, it’s okay.”

  “No, I’ve got to get dinner started.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Yup,” she said.

  “Christmas,” he said. “I’ll see you then?”

  “Yes, Christmas. I want to see you,” she said, her own voice a whisper now. “I really enjoyed spending time with you. And Lynn.”

  “We did too, Randa. I’m sorry about how I left. It’s just complicated, okay?”

  “Complicated? I think I can handle it, Scott.”

  “I hope so, Randa, it would mean a lot to me.”

  Ronan let out another series of foul words even a sailor would be embarrassed by.

  “Me, too,” Miranda said. “Bye.”

  “Bye,” he said.

  Miranda listened to his breath on the other end of the phone line. She listened to the music from Lynn’s nature show. After a few minutes, the final muted click came and then silence. She held the phone to her ear straining to hear some echo of his voice still. Ronan, distracted by the game, didn’t notice her standing there. Scott’s words flitted through her, danced around her. See you. Complicated. Christmas. She looked over at Ronan. Delicious Ronan. With his count down of days and desire to be with her right now, regardless of the complications.

  C H A P T E R

  YOU HUNGRY?” Ronan asked. He clicked the game off and with two long strides he wa
s back in front of her. He brushed her hands away from her face. “What’s wrong, my dear?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked. “When did you last eat? You don’t look so good.”

  “I’ve eaten.”

  “When?” he asked.

  “Does drinking with you yesterday count?”

  “Are you Irish?” he asked.

  “No,” she said.

  “Then no, it doesn’t. Can I take you somewhere?”

  “Sure, let me grab my coat.”

  “Love, I want to take you somewhere. Nice. Maestro’s maybe, or Prime. You’ll want to change,” Ronan said.

  She looked at him. The slacks, the button down shirt. “But you don’t have to. Those places are too fancy. Expensive.”

  “Miranda, I have twenty-six days left in America. I am teaching a class that runs until the seventeenth, so travelling to the Grand Canyon or the redwoods or the French Quarter is out of the question. I should have thought about those things sooner. I have approximately two thousand American dollars, which will mean almost nothing to me in Ireland given the exchange rate and inflation right now. I just met a woman I would like to fall deeper into love with, and I would like to have some fun before I go back to whatever awaits a poet with an American Masters in Fuck All Poetry in the village I grew up in. My choices right now are plumber or carpet installer. Plumber pays better but then you deal with shit all day. Carpet is hard on the knees. Forgive the speech and put on a dress or something, would you?”

  Miranda considered him for a minute. Remembering the warmth of his breath on her body. His body on her body. The surprise of the illuminated manuscripts. The look in his eyes just now, so earnest, so frustrated with her and yet still willing to take her to dinner. This man in front of her right now. Not some other guy on a phone a state away.

  “We could go to the Falls,” she said.

  “What kind of food is that?”

  “No, Ronan, Niagara Falls. I have a car. It’s only a five-hour drive, straight across the state. Have you ever been?”

  “Really? That’s all?”

  “You never looked?”

  “I never had a car. My sister didn’t like touring.”

  “Didn’t like it? Why did she come all the way here?”

  “A man, I told you. We are a romantic lot. But she wasn’t suited for travel.”

  “Do you miss her? Will you see her when you get back?”

  “Miss them? They Skype me every day to make sure I haven’t fallen in with the wrong sort.”

  “The wrong sort?”

  “Catholics. Old things die hard.”

  “Fair enough. Do you want to go? I’m not Catholic. I’m not anything really—that might be the wrong sort.”

  “You fair lady are asking me to go somewhere. Of course, I’ll go. I’ll go anywhere you want.” He leaned in close and placed his lips on her forehead. “Anywhere.”

  The kiss and his tickling breath stripped her of her words. “Let me,” she stuttered, pointing to the bedroom, “pack a few things. Do you, um, need to like pack?”

  “I have things in my bag,” he said, pointing to the back-pack by the front door. “I didn’t think I was going home tonight.”

  “Ronan.” She let the word out like a sharp cry, faux outrage. A smile spread across her face.

  “Miranda,” he said. “I told you I am serious.”

  “Oh,” she said. Her phone vibrated; another email from Ambrose with an update to the contract. She didn’t even read it; she clicked forward and sent it along to Scott.

  Ronan slid into the passenger seat as Miranda quickly shoveled several weeks’ worth of coffee cups and plastic water bottles into a loose grocery store bag that already contained a coffee cup and half of a donut. “Is it like busy hands, busy mind? Dirty car, dirty mind?” he asked.

  She swallowed her embarrassment and decided to play along. “I don’t know, Ronan, do you think my mind is dirty?”

  “That first time we were together, maybe. You were very bold.”

  “I don’t know where that came from. I expected you to laugh at me or leave. I think I was looking for a way out or something.”

  “Are you glad I took you up on your offer?”

  She didn’t answer right away. She put the car into gear and headed down the winding road that led to the inter-state. As the car accelerated smoothly up the on-ramp and launched itself into the travelling lanes, she placed her right hand on his knee, enjoying the way his dress trouser slipped like silk under her touch. “Yes,” she said. “I’m glad you stayed.”

  “May I?” he said, pointing at the radio.

  She nodded.

  He flipped around through several stations and finally gave up and hit the CD button. Country music guitar chords filled the car with Taylor Swift singing about some exciting heartbreak. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows.

  “What?” she said. “I’m a poet. I’m allowed to like romantic things. Even sappy romantic things. They are the foundation of my art form.”

  “Actually isn’t the Bible or maybe even Gilgamesh more the foundation of the art form? Do you like church music, too?”

  She pointed to the stack of CDs loose under his seat. “Gregorian Chants, count?”

  He guffawed and picked up her hand and kissed it. “You are a wonderful woman, Miranda. See I told you I wanted to get to know you. This makes it so much better.”

  “So what do you teach? You said you teach. I haven’t seen you on the roster at the department.”

  “So you looked for me?”

  “No. The poetry department is kind of small. And well, your name would be obvious. Stop being cryptic anyway. You wanted to get to know each other.”

  “I teach at the church downtown. In their outreach program for kids.”

  “What kind of kids?”

  “Kids with nothing better to do than get in trouble.”

  “But you made it seem like your work was worthless before. That sounds amazing.”

  “It would be.”

  “If what?”

  “If it worked. Just last week a seventeen-year-old boy had to drop the program and pick up more hours at the grocery store after school. His sixteen-year-old girlfriend is pregnant. He used my class to write her love poems. I thought he was expressing himself. I was beside myself with glee that someone was writing about something other than smoking pot or playing video games. I gave him examples. He actually read them and talked to me about them. And then boom. He knocks a girl up, and it’s all over.”

  “It doesn’t have to be over, does it?”

  “It sure looks that way. And I feel like if I was only paying attention, I could have said something. Offered the kid a condom, talked him out of it. Something.”

  Miranda shifted in her seat and punched at the button on the CD player to skip to the next song. Condom. Again Danielle’s voice echoed through her. She needed to ask before she lost her nerve.

  “About condoms. I notice that we haven’t been great about using those, and I need to know if there is anything I should be concerned about.”

  Ronan turned the radio off completely. His mouth dropped open a little. “You’re on protection, right? I just assumed when you didn’t say anything that you took the Pill. You do take the Pill, right?”

  “Yes, yes, I do. But that’s not everything. And I feel like I have been really irresponsible here. Swept away as it were.”

  “Oh, that. I was tested when I started at the school, if that is what you are worried about.”

  “Yes. It was.”

  “Should I worry?” he asked.

  “I haven’t been with anyone in a long time either. Not since the last time I was tested.”

  “A relief then,” he said.

  “I feel like an idiot for not thinking about this before-hand. We aren’t fifteen,” Miranda said.

  “No, we aren’t. But it sure feels that way, doesn’t it? Miranda, when you touch me I forget all
about everything else. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. Normally, I am, well, a bit more in control of everything I do.”

  “And I am something you want to do?”

  “Sure,” she said, “I guess you are.”

  They drove for hours, finally stopping at a rest area for food. Miranda patrolled the shelves pulling down snack after snack. Potato chips with bacon seasoning. Twix bars in king size. Snowballs. Green Smoothies, now with more pineapple.

  “Hungry?” Ronan asked.

  “Something about being with you works up my appetite,” she said, leaning up to kiss him. She nipped at his bottom lip and played her tongue against his. His exhale felt warm against her face, and his breath smelled sweet, like fresh bakery bread. This made her more hungry.

  “How much longer until we get there?” he whispered when the kiss finally ended.

  “Two more hours. We really should see the Falls in the dark and then find a room. If you want, that is.”

  “A room,” he said, pulling her back against him, “would be delightful, Miranda.”

  She liked how he said her name, the way his body pressed against hers, and the way her body responded in kind to him. “Delightful, yes. But first the Falls”

  “I’ve already fallen,” he said.

  To this, she couldn’t reply, or rather, maybe didn’t want to reply. Fallen, she thought, as the cashier rang out her snacks and Ronan’s rather meager Milky Way bar. Was it falling if the other person didn’t fall with you?

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Always,” he said.

  They couldn’t have planned it better. They arrived at the Falls just as the last stragglers of tourists finished their dinner and began the staggering walk to their cars and hotels; bundled up tightly against the cold, whole families waddled like penguins in all directions away from the Falls. By the time they reached the edge, their own faces stinging with cold, they stood alone before the great gorge illuminated in its Christmas colors. The sound roared around them, and the wind caused their eyes to tear; Miranda stood transfixed at the water rushing over the edge and churning at the bottom. Ronan took up her hand and kissed it, then moved to stand behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you.”