Page 149 of Romeo

Her answer came almost immediately.

Ma Belle: You don’t always get to decide what’s enough for me.

I stared at her words. She’d told me some version of that before. Apparently, I still hadn’t learned it. I had spent months making careful decisions in the name of protecting Fiona. When to flirt. When to back off. What to tell her. What not to tell her. How much of myself she should have to deal with at once.

At some point, careful had started looking a hell of a lot like control.

Me: No. I suppose I don’t.

Ma Belle: So tell me something good.

I looked around my room as though something on the walls might give me an answer. Nothing about club business qualified. My wrist still ached. Jack had stolen one of my beers earlier and denied it despite holding the fucking bottle.

None of those were what she was asking.

I thought about the quiet that came after church ended or the common room finally emptied. About those few minutes when nobody needed anything from me and my brain stopped running in six directions at once.

Fiona always showed up there.

Me: You’re the first person I think about when the noise finally stops.

Ma Belle: That was very good

Me: Your turn, Ma Belle.

This time she made me wait. I watched the three dots appear twice before the message finally arrived.

Ma Belle: I miss you

I read it once.

Then again.

Fiona had dodged those words every time I tried to get them out of her. Even after graduation, she’d admitted it only when emotion had gotten ahead of caution.

Tonight, she offered them because I asked her for something good.

Me: Best thing I’ve heard all week.

I let the phone rest on my chest.

For days, I’d convinced myself that distance was something I was giving Fiona for her own good.

It hadn’t been.

I’d been tired. Frustrated. Pulled in too many directions, and somewhere underneath all of that lived the fear that if Fiona saw me when I had nothing charming left to give, maybe she wouldn’t like the man underneath.

So I’d made the decision for her.

Again.

Me: I’m not going anywhere, Cher. I promise.

Ma Belle: Good. Because I’m not letting you

A laugh escaped me as I settled deeper against the pillows.

There she was.