The sound of it—the flat, sharp impact—cut through the noise of the bar like a crack of ice. Everything stopped. The music kept playing, but every conversation in the room died at once, and I felt rather than heard the collective intake of breath from the people around us.
Jasper didn’t move backward an inch.
He caught Eric’s wrist mid-shove, twisted it sharply behind his back, and used the momentum to spin him around in one controlled motion. Eric stumbled, off-balance and startled, and Jasper drove him forward—palm planted between his shoulder blades, steering him with ruthless efficiency toward the exit.
I stood frozen for a half second. Then Lucy had my arm, and Paige was already moving, and we were all out of the booth and following.
My heart was going so hard I could feel it in my throat. I had known this was coming—had felt it building, like a storm before it breaks—and knowing had not prepared me for the actuality of it, for the sight of Jasper’s jaw set and his eyes cold and Eric’s face going from shock to fury as he realized what was happening to him.
Tables scraped. Chairs shifted. A few regulars jumped back to clear a path, and I saw their faces—some alarmed, some grimly satisfied, all of them watching.
Eric twisted and tried to plant his feet. “Get your hands off me?—”
Jasper didn’t slow. He tightened his grip, yanking Eric’s arm higher up his back until Eric hissed in pain, a sharp, ugly sound. Paige’s hand found my shoulder from behind and held on.
Then Eric swung his free hand around in a wild arc.
He caught Jasper across the jaw.
I heard myself make a sound—not a word, just something that came out of me before I could stop it.
Everything in me lurched forward. I wanted to go to him—that was the immediate, animal thing, to cross the space between us and put myself there. But Lucy held me where I was, and she was right to, but every second of it cost me something. My heart was going hard and fast, and my hands had curled into fists at my sides without my deciding to.
Jasper’s head snapped to the side. He stilled for one long, controlled breath.
When he turned back, his eyes were absolutely flat.
I had seen Jasper quiet before. I had seen him contained, measured, deliberate. This was none of those things. This was something that lived on the other side of all of them—something trained and cold and waiting, and it moved through me like ice water because I understood in that moment, with complete clarity, that the man standing across from Eric right now was not the man who cut wildflowers and talked about books with me. This was what years in the Marines had made, and it was focused on Eric Michaelson, and Eric had absolutely no idea what he had just done.
He released Eric’s wrist.
And then he hit him.
It was not wild or retaliatory. It was precise—one clean, short punch that snapped Eric’s head back and sent him staggering sideways into the bar, catching himself on the edge of it with both hands, blinking hard. A glass tipped and fell. Someone behind me said something low and sharp.
The entire bar had gone absolutely silent.
Jasper rolled his shoulder once, and then he grabbed Eric by the collar, hauling him upright and marching him toward the door like the interruption had not happened. Eric was dazed, not quite fighting now, just stumbling in the direction he was being pointed.
I was shaking. I realized it distantly—my hands, my legs, a fine tremor I couldn’t stop. Lucy was still holding my arm, Eliza held my hand, Paige and Piper had moved up beside me, and the five of us followed them down the length of the bar. I was aware of faces turning toward me, and I looked at none of them. I kept my eyes on Jasper’s back, on the set of his shoulders, on the controlled, deliberate way he moved.
At the door, Jasper gave one final, firm push, and Eric went through it and stumbled out onto the sidewalk, barely catching his balance. Jasper followed him out just far enough, and when he spoke, his voice was so low and so even that I almost could not hear it from the doorway.
“Listen to me very carefully. If you come near her again—if you set foot in her shop, if you look at her, if I find out you have been anywhere near her—I will make sure you regret every second of it. She told you no. She meant no. We are done here.”
Eric straightened. He looked at Jasper and then, over Jasper’s shoulder, at me. His eyes moved over my face with that expression I had come to know so well—assessing, possessive, the expression of a man who believed that what he wanted was a fact about the world rather than a choice he was making.
Then he looked back at Jasper, and something in his face changed. The dazed quality cleared, and what replaced it was uglier—a cold, aggrieved fury, the look of a man who had been wronged and intended to say so.
“You know what you did,” he accused.
Jasper said nothing.
“She was right there.” Eric’s voice had dropped to something tight and controlled, like he was working very hard to sound reasonable. “I had been patient. I had been waiting. And then you came back and just—” he made a short, contemptuous gesture, “—walked right in. Like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t put in the time.”
I felt something cold move hit me.Put in the time.Like I was a thing to be earned through waiting. Like patience was a form of ownership.
Jasper’s jaw was set. When he spoke, his voice was very low and very even. “She’s not something you wait your turn for.”
