Page 6 of Heal Me, Love Me

When dinner ended, my nerves were raw, and I wasn’t the only one worried. Derek, Enzo, and Mason followed me toRowan’s room. I knocked, hard enough this time to leave no doubt he’d be able to hear it if he was inside.

Nothing.

I knocked again and again but he never answered.

Derek swore under his breath. “What should we do?”

Enzo rubbed the back of his neck. “Get security?”

“For what?” I snapped, then immediately regretted it. “Sorry.”

Mason gripped my shoulder. “Don’t apologize. This is getting weird.”

Devon came up behind us. “Still nothing?”

“No,” I huffed.

“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for all of this. He’ll probably pop up in the morning, but I can check with some of the promotion staff to find out if they saw him,” Devon said before he and Coach Luis made their way to their rooms, talking quietly.

“The ring girls were hot. Maybe he’s off hooking up with one of them.” Derek chuckled.

If only he knew.

I lifted a shoulder and lied, “Guess that’s possible.”

Eventually, the guys headed toward their rooms and asked me to let them know if I heard from him. Enzo looked genuinely unsettled while Derek kept glancing back down the hallway. Even Mason, who usually turned everything into a joke, didn’t offer a smile.

Then it was just me, standing outside Rowan’s room, my phone in hand, with no idea what the hell I was supposed to do next. With nowhere else to go, I eventually went back to my room, and the silence inside the small space was unbearable.

Sitting on the bed, I called him again, but it went straight to voicemail this time, and something in my chest tightened so much it actually hurt. I leaned forward to rest my elbows on myknees and stared at the carpet as every possible scenario tried clawing its way through my brain.

Maybe he’d gone out and left his phone behind. Maybe something had happened, and I just didn’t know about it yet. Maybe he’d gotten mugged?—

I shut that thought down immediately.

He was fine.

He had to be.

2

Rowan

The hallwaybehind the arena was packed with bodies and noise, but the moment I saw Devon kiss Keaton, everything around me vanished.

For one second, I stood there, watching. Keaton didn’t shove him away, and that was all I needed to see. I turned before either of them noticed me.

Someone clipped my shoulder as I pushed through the crowd, and a voice snapped, “Watch it!”

I didn’t slow down.

Another person called my name. Maybe Derek. Maybe Enzo. Maybe someone from the commission, trying to get me where I was supposed to be after the fight I’d won less than twenty minutes earlier. But I kept moving because if I stopped, I would go back.

If I went back, I wouldn’t be calm. I’d get in Keaton’s face, demand answers, and probably say something that gave us away in a hallway full of people who had no idea what he was to me.Then he’d look at me with those brown eyes and give me an explanation I’d want to believe.

I couldn’t do that.

Not when the sight of Devon kissing him dragged me straight back to that party during our senior year of high school, to the bedroom where Ridgway caught us together and Keaton looked at me, waiting for me to choose him.