Page 167 of Romeo

Right now.

But he was standing somewhere in Nebraska covered in blood, and I was crying behind a clubhouse in Virginia after spending hours thinking he might be dead. I didn’t trust any emotion born inside this much fear.

Not yet.

“Fiona,” he said gently.

“I’m here.” I drew a slow breath. “I’m just trying to process everything.”

“What part?”

I almost laughed. That I might love you. That I don’t know whether I realized it tonight or whether I’ve known for months and simply refused to name it.

Instead, I looked at the cut on his cheek.

“That you’re really okay.”

“I am.”

“You don’t look okay.”

“That’s because you’re judging me by the shirt.” The corners of his mouth tipped up.

“It’s covered in blood.”

“Most of it belongs to someone I like considerably less than you.”

A laugh escaped through my tears. There he was. I wiped my face again. “When can you come to Rosewood?”

“Soon. I need to make sure everything here is handled first.”

“How soon?”

“Soon as I can.”

Normally, that answer would’ve annoyed me. Tonight, I understood there were things he couldn’t put into a text or say over a video call.

“Okay.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Okay?”

“Yes.” I leaned my head back against the wall. “But you have to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t ever make me wait like that again.”

The tired smile he gave me held no humor. “I promise.”

I knew it wasn’t completely realistic. If something like this happened again, Jasper might not be able to stop in the middle of it because I was scared and waiting fifteen hundred miles away.

Still, the promise mattered.

Maybe what I was really asking was for him not to forget me in the middle of the chaos.

We stayed on the phone long after my breathing settled. I asked about his injuries, and he gave me just enough information to stop me imagining him bleeding to death while deflecting anything he didn’t want to discuss with humor.

By the time we finally said goodnight, the fear had loosened enough that I could stand without leaning against the wall.