Chapter 2
He was dressed in an outdoor jacket and a hat, his face scratched up.
He looked up at me, his eyes a little panicked, but mostly filled with surprise and a hint of uncertainty.
Maybe seeing I was the only girl around, he doubted I could get him out of trouble.
I checked how far he'd slid and sized up the terrain around us.
"Can you move?" I asked. "Any broken bones?"
He wiggled his legs and arms. "It doesn't feel like it."
"Hang tight," I said.
I stood up, moved over to a spot where the slope was gentler, pulled my climbing rope out of my backpack, tied it to a tree, and slid down to him.
It wasn't until I got close that I saw his face.
He was ridiculously handsome.
His eyes were intense, his nose sharp, and his lips looked dry, probably from too much sun.
There was a scrape on his forehead, with a bit of blood oozing out.
He looked like a wreck, but there was a kind of broken beauty about him that I couldn't explain.
I paused, a bit stunned.
He seemed out of it, too, staring as I tied the rope around his waist. Then he broke into a smile. "Thanks."
I reached out and pulled him up.
He was a lot taller than me. Once he was standing, I had to tilt my head up to meet his eyes.
"Thanks, really," he said, a little breathless. "I tried to take a shortcut and lost my footing."
"You're out here by yourself?" I asked.
He nodded. "Yeah."
"You knew that was risky, right?" I said.
He scratched the back of his head, looking a bit sheepish. "Yeah. But I wanted to try anyway."
I looked at him, not sure what to say.
I walked back to the main trail in silence, packed up my rope, and was about to head out.
"I'm Ronan Stone," he called after me. "Mind giving me your number? I'd love to buy you dinner sometime."
The sunlight slipped through the pine trees, lighting up his face. His eyes looked especially bright in the glow.
I thought for a second and handed him my number.
I walked a few steps up the trail and looked back over my shoulder.
He was still standing there, gazing up at me, like a loyal dog waiting for someone to come back.
That dinner ended up lasting three hours.
Ronan picked a diner tucked away deep in an alley. The entrance was tiny, but once we stepped inside, it felt like a whole different world.
He'd booked a private room ahead of time and ordered a whole table of dishes.
Then he looked at me, a bit nervous. "I wasn't sure what you liked, so I ordered a little of everything. If you don't like it, we can get something else."
I sat across from him, watching how nervous he was, and suddenly realized he wasn't like what I'd pictured.
I recognized him as the hottest actor. I'd even googled him before coming.
His Wikipedia page said he was a winner of EGOT, had ten years in the business, and had starred in dozens of films.
But the only movie of his I'd ever seen was Going Home.
In that movie, Ronan played a father who lost his daughter. He never broke down or made a scene.
With his eyes and the tiniest shifts in his expression, he made that despair feel so real that it was hard to breathe.
I watched that movie three times, and I cried every single time.
I thought he'd be all serious and distant, the kind of guy I'd never really get close to.
But here he was, in a plain white T-shirt, hair a little messy, looking a bit nervous, like a kid waiting for his teacher to grade his homework.
"I've watched Going Home three times," I said, trying to break the ice.
Ronan looked a little surprised for a moment, and then his eyes lit up. "Really?"
"Yeah. You were amazing in it," I said.
He blushed.
I couldn't believe a winner of EGOT would have blushed because someone praised his acting.
I looked at him, feeling a smile tugging at my lips.
"You like Going Home?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Why?" he asked.
I thought about it and said, "Because it was so real. After the father lost his daughter, he didn't fall apart or cry his eyes out.
"He was numb, hollow, doing everything like he was checking off tasks. It's a feeling I've seen before."
In war zones, after the shelling ended, people quietly shed tears.
Their loved ones were buried under the ruins at their feet, and they were powerless to do anything.
All they could do was carry what little they had, numb, joining the mass exodus to somewhere that might be untouched by war.
Ronan fell silent for a few seconds. "To get into character, I spent two months at an orphanage. Every day, I was with those kids.
"They were the same, no tears, no complaints, just sitting there, lost in their own world."
We looked at each other, neither of us saying a word.
The private room was quiet, and I could faintly hear bicycle bells ringing outside in the alley.
After that dinner, we started talking a lot.
Whenever he had a break on set, he'd text me to check how I was doing.
When I was out in the war zone, he'd often send me pictures of the food he'd cooked.