Page 168 of Romeo

The call ended and for a few seconds, I remained outside with the dark phone in my hand, staring toward the sky.

Something had changed tonight. I knew it without needing to name it. The possibility of losing Jasper had reached into a place I’d been carefully avoiding and dragged something into the light. Maybe I’d known it was there already. Maybe that was why I’d almost told him days ago.

I wasn’t ready to call it love.

Not while the fear was still this close.

I wanted to see him first. Touch him. Look into his eyes without a screen between us and know whatever I said came from more than the relief of finding him alive.

But whatever this was, it had stopped being a crush a long time ago.

I pushed away from the wall and headed toward the front of the clubhouse.

Georgie waited near the door with his arms crossed.

He didn’t immediately ask questions or start lecturing me about bikers who were too old for me and the danger that came with them. He simply looked at my face.

“He okay?”

I nodded. “He’s okay.”

Georgie studied me for a moment before releasing a slow breath. “You’re in deep with him.”

There wasn’t any accusation in his voice this time. Maybe that was why I didn’t try to deny it.

“I am.”

He nodded once and stepped aside so I could walk back into the clubhouse.

The room hadn’t changed. The same people were there, the same conversations moving around me, but something inside me felt different.

For months, I’d been afraid of what would happen if I admitted how much Jasper mattered.

Tonight had shown me the other possibility.

I could lose him without ever saying any of it.

That frightened me more.

Jasper had promised to fight like hell to always come back to me, and I believed him.

For tonight, that would have to be enough.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Romeo

Two fucking weeks and I still couldn’t get away to see Fiona.

The texting had slowed down, but only because we spent more time talking on the phone now. Hours sometimes, late into the night when the clubhouse finally quieted and I could steal some privacy. I loved the sound of her voice when she was tired and it softened, and the husky edge it had when she first woke up. I loved hearing the frustration when I teased her because I could always tell when she was fighting a smile. Then there were those breathy little gasps when I flirted with her and the genuine, unguarded laugh I could pull out of her when I turned the charm all the way up.

That laugh did things to me no woman’s laugh had any fucking business doing.

God, I missed her.

I’d been all over the damn clubhouse looking for King, checking the bar, meeting room, and even the kitchen where he sometimes disappeared when he needed to think. I had to get out of here for a couple of days. I needed to see Fiona before she started wondering if all my promises were just pretty words meant to keep her hanging on.

As I approached the room Chasm had been staying in, I heard his voice through the open door.