Marlowe
Ronan stayed for three more days, filling the homestead and the den both with an easy, infectious warmth that seemed to loosen something in King I hadn't fully realized had still been held tight.
"You should see him at nineteen," Ronan told me one evening, the three of us gathered around the fire pit behind the homestead, King groaning good-naturedly at whatever story was clearly coming. "Skinniest kid you've ever seen, absolutely certain he was going to be the most terrifying enforcer this territory had ever produced. Took him falling off his own bike in front of an entire recruitment class to knock some humility into him."
"I did not fall off my own bike."
"You absolutely did. Face-planted directly into a mud puddle, in front of at least a dozen witnesses who never let you fo
