Page 78 of Dirty Fighter

My racing heart stalls with the realization that I can’t say any of that. Not yet.

Jason still doesn’t believe the will is real. And if it turns out that I’m not wrong about it? Finding out that he’s lost this place would be brutal. It could change everything.

Until we know for sure what I’ve truly cost him, I can’t ask for more than this.

So instead, I tell him a different truth. “You’re the best escape I’ve ever had, Jason Stanvic.”

I expect a huff of laughter. Maybe an eye roll.

What I don’t expect is the way his brows draw down or the flicker of an expression that— I don’t know what it means.

“Rowan, this has been good,” he says tentatively, shifting on his feet.

I blink, something inside me stilling at the serious tone. The quiet way he said my name. The searching look that begs for an understanding that… Oh my God. Is he ending it?

He glances away, his posture stiffening and then, like he was reminding himself to play it cool, going casual. Too casual.

“We had a plan.” He swallows. “An agreement.”

I nod, a numbness creeping over me.

It’s okay.

It’s going to be fine.

I’m not going to cry. I’m not. Because this was everything I asked for and so much more. Jason unlocked something in me I didn’t even realize existed. And even if I don’t get to keep it… That’s a gift beyond measure.

“You said you weren’t interested in anything serious.” He rakes a hand back through his hair, then shakes it out at his side. “But… I don’t… I mean, what if it didn’t have to be serious, serious?”

What?

Oh.

The air rushes out of my lungs in a whoosh that leaves me dizzy. Because this man isn’t breaking up with me mere hours after I realized that I’ve somehow fallen in love with him.

He’s awkwardly, painfully broaching the subject of more.

I nod, not fully understanding what’s on offer here, only that it’s not a hard stop once we leave the cabin.

And the nod must be enough. Because then he’s nodding too and smiling, and is that a gusty sigh of relief?

Then, before my very eyes, all that awkward tension seems to dissipate, leaving the man I’ve been falling for since… well, in this iteration of our lives, since the moment he looked at me like maybe he was seeing more than Marsha’s daughter.

And now I’m trying to play it cool, offering a single shoulder lift like my heart isn’t racing a mile a minute, and those tears I wasn’t about to let myself have at the thought of him ending things are threatening for an entirely different reason now.

Joy.

Hope.

Again and again, these two emotions, previously mere shadows of what they are now, keep pushing their way to the front of the room.

“We don’t need to call it anything,” I offer easily as he steps into my space and wraps his arms around me so I’m melting into the heat of his body, the rightness of being close to him like this.

“No rules.”

I can hear his heart beating beneath my ear. “No plans.”

No end date or promise of goodbye.