Forever Luminescent

Chapter 18

A DEEP-ROOTED GROAN SLIPPED out from the back of Ronan's throat. Gwenn giggled, pointing back at her notes to get him to focus.

"Ronan, come on, you know this already," she coaxed. The look he gave her screamed how lost he truly was. She sat up over the comforter, scooting closer to him to press her color-coded notes onto his face. "Come on, you know how you can identify bipolar disorder on a patient. Professor Franklin went on and on about it."

In response, he pried the notebook from her grasp and dropped it on his other side. She gasped and reached over him for it, but he grabbed onto her arms, blocking her, and forced her onto her back while he hovered above her.

"I cannot take another minute of this torture," he said. Her breath hitched as she stared up at him, her arms pinned down on the comforter. "Please, let's do something else."

Gwenn looked away from his wide icy stare, focusing instead on the almost barren land stretching around them. Ronan had insisted on bringing her to a new undisclosed location in the middle of nowhere—it was really in Lockfell, but the area was abandoned and deserted. The nearest road was about two miles away, so no one would be able to find them even if the apocalypse started.

"We made a deal," she said, finding her voice. Ronan pouted, then let go of her wrists and laid down beside her. "And this is our midterm, so we have to get a good score."

Ronan ran his hands down his face. "I thought our stupid paper counted as our midterm."

"Midterm paper," she corrected, and sat up to fetch her notes. "Now we have our exam to focus on." Her hair tumbled out of her loose bun down her shoulders. She blew onto a random strand covering her line of vision, then flipped a few pages of her notebook, refreshing on the material before facing Ronan.

"We could be doing something fun," he complained. Gwenn hid a laugh.

"What kind of fun?" she asked, poking his thigh with the back of her pen.

He raised an eyebrow. She blinked, studying him with a blank expression. When the puzzle pieces fell into place in her mind, her cheeks filled with a red hue, and she yelped and jumped away from him. The grin that spread across his face made her blush ten times deeper.

"Ronan!" Gwenn grasped at her chest. Loud guffaws pierced the afternoon air.

"I didn't say anything, Davidson," he pointed out, but that wide grin spoke volumes of how spot-on she was of his intentions. "Why are you so scared of me? I don't bite."

That much was true, but those eyes weakened her knees and lowered her inhibitions. Their deal was to study and find her biological mother, not whatever was playing out in his guy brain.

Instead of answering, she smoothed down her hair and focused on her notes. Information on bipolar disorder flashed up at her, some sentences highlighted in orange. She recognized everything on the page, all thanks to her late night studying before she went to bed. Nothing better than falling asleep murmuring about different mental disorders and waking up with the term cognitive behavioral therapy on your tongue.

"Come on, Ronan, we have to finish this," she said, shaking herself out of her thoughts. "I already have to study this on my own before I meet with you. Don't you think I'm tired of it too?"

At that, the ice in his eyes melted over. He reached a hand out for her. "Alright, let's do this."

Gwenn had to give it to him. Ronan actually focused on the lesson. He answered every question she threw at him, and when he got stuck on anything, they would go over it without even a huff from him.