Page 125 of Romeo

Fiona

The ceiling fan turned lazy circles above my bed, shifting shadows across the walls each time the blades passed through the light coming in from the street. I’d been watching them long enough that I should’ve fallen asleep from sheer boredom.

Instead, my brain kept returning to the phone on my nightstand.

It hadn’t really been silent for three days. Jasper still answered me, but the easy conversations that usually stretched from one subject to another had disappeared. Now our exchanges amounted to a few words here. A short answer there. Hours between them.

Nothing I could point to and call wrong.

That almost made it worse.

I told myself it was club business. Jasper had a life in Nebraska that existed whether I was part of it or not, and I knew enough about motorcycle clubs to understand that some things took priority when they happened.

Still, the distance between Virginia and Nebraska seemed bigger when he wasn’t filling it with messages.

I rolled onto my side and stared at the dark screen.

Maybe I’d pushed too hard.

The thought had been circling for two days no matter how often I tried to dismiss it. Asking what he was wearing. Flirting more openly. Practically admitting that I’d thought about kissing him. Prom had felt like something changed between us, but maybe that had only been true for me.

Jasper had ridden all that way because he knew I wanted to go.

He was kind enough to do that.

That didn’t automatically mean anything else. Except kind men didn’t usually look at women the way Jasper had looked at me on Granny’s porch.

Did they?

I groaned softly and grabbed my phone. This was ridiculous. I could either spend another hour inventing explanations for his silence or ask him. My thumb hovered over his name.

Me: Are you busy?

The message delivered and nothing happened. I put the phone face down beside me and told myself I wasn’t going to stare at it.

Ten seconds later, I turned it over. Still nothing.

Wonderful.

I dropped onto my back, annoyed at myself for caring this much. Jasper didn’t owe me immediate answers. We weren’t dating. We hadn’t even kissed. Apparently, somebody needed to explain that to the nervous knot beneath my ribs.

When the phone finally buzzed, I grabbed it so quickly it nearly slipped from my hand.

Jasper: Always have time for you, Cher.

Relief arrived before I could stop it, followed almost immediately by irritation.

Me: You haven’t lately.

I regretted the message the second it left my phone. It sounded needy, as if I expected him to report in every few hours simply because we’d gotten used to talking that often.

Jasper: Fair.

I frowned. There was no argument. No flirtatious excuse. Just... fair.

Me: Is everything okay?

Jasper: Club business got complicated.