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your walk, love?” Ronan asked.
    Sighing, Michael sat on the ground next to Ronan. “You know me,” he replied. “I’m just a regular country boy.” Michael leaned back and pressed his body into the rough stone of the building, allowing its cold to embrace his skin. “I see that it’s still here.”
    â€œLike a blighter, it just won’t leave,” Ronan said.
    Michael knew Ronan was using one of his British slang words again, and he wished he had memorized more of the book Saoirse had given him for his birthday. “Blighter?”
    Smiling, Ronan grabbed Michael’s knee and played with the frayed trim of his khaki shorts. “Pest,” Ronan translated. “The Benz is like a pest that just won’t go away.”
    â€œIsn’t there an exterminator we can call?” Michael asked. The cool stone and Ronan’s warm touch almost made Michael forget how annoyed he was, almost made him feel like he was just lounging with his boyfriend on a summer afternoon. Almost, but not quite. “Or a towing company?” Michael suggested. “I’m serious, Ronan, I don’t think I can go another day seeing that ... that ... thing!”
    Ronan leaned back against the stone as well. He let his hand slip to hold onto the back of Michael’s thigh and realized that the car really had been parked outside for quite a long time now. “You know, it’s against school rules to have a car parked anywhere except for the lot by the headmaster’s office,” Ronan said. “Odd that David hasn’t told you to move it yet.”
    There was nothing odd about it, at least not to Michael. His father and David were working together, in cahoots with each other, so of course David didn’t care if the presence of Vaughan’s gift broke school rules. The thing wasn’t even a gift anyway; it was bait, a bribe to try and get Michael to forget every heinous act that Vaughan had ever committed. It wasn’t going to work. “My father’s one of Them,” Michael seethed. “They protect each other.”
    Ronan wanted to remind Michael that that’s what families do, they protect each other, stand by one another, but he knew that Michael didn’t want to hear that. He also knew that if anyone else had given him that car Michael would be driving it up and down every road in the United Kingdom. All he had talked about was getting his driver’s license and how driving to him was synonymous with freedom. He hadn’t changed his mind simply because he had acquired alternative methods of transportation; it was still a dream of his to be behind the wheel of a car, and Ronan felt terrible that Michael was letting his contempt for his father stand in the way of fulfilling that dream. He had to say something that would allow Michael to see beyond his hatred. “Have to admit it’s beautiful, though,” Ronan said. “Betcha it’s got a brilliant ride.”
    In one quick, brusque movement, Michael stood up. Clearly, Ronan’s words had pushed him into action. Michael thrust his hand into the side pocket of his shorts and pulled out the car keys that he had been carrying with him ever since his birthday. He stared at them with such disdain it was as if he believed they would burn his flesh. Michael flicked his wrist, and the keys flew out of his hand and were caught by Ronan’s. “Then take it for a test drive,” Michael said. “I don’t want it.”
    It was not exactly the action Ronan had been hoping for.
    Â 
    An hour later, sitting across from Ciaran in his lab, Ronan received yet another unwanted response.
    â€œNo, Ro,” Ciaran said, his right eye firmly pressed into the lens of a microscope, “I haven’t heard from Mum lately.”
    Knowing Michael needed to be alone for a few hours to sort through his feelings, Ronan had wandered around campus until he decided to go to St.