Page 264 of Romeo

I blamed Jasper.

It seemed fair.

Two nights had passed since his phone call, and I could still hear pieces of it at inconvenient times. His laugh when he caught one of those stupid little breaths I apparently made. His voice dropping when he talked about me wearing his shirt. The way the teasing had shifted when we started talking about that kiss, becoming something quieter without either of us deciding it should.

I had told him I wished he were here.

That part had replayed more than everything else.

Not because I regretted it. I didn’t. That was almost the problem.

Last year, Jasper had been this outrageous biker I met at Christmas who flirted as easily as breathing and seemed perfectly comfortable walking into a room as if everyone in it should naturally be happy to see him. I had expected him to become one of those people I remembered because the meeting itself was memorable. Instead, he had somehow worked his way into everything. My phone. My mornings. My worst days. My good news. The stupid thoughts that weren’t important enough to tell anyone else.

And lately, my future.

I folded the cleaning rag and set it beneath the sink, then checked the register one last time even though I’d already closed it out. The ‘future’ conversations had started as jokes. At least, I thought they had. Nebraska winters. Christmas decorations. Whether I would survive living somewhere that apparently considered temperatures below freezing a perfectly reasonable way to conduct winter. Then there had been the imaginary house, built piece by piece through texts until I knew things about a home that didn’t exist. Where the kitchen would face. The kind of porch I wanted. Whether Jasper should be trusted with landscaping decisions simply because he owned a landscaping company.

He said yes.

I said absolutely not.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, children had slipped into the conversation too. Never in a way that made my heart pound because he was asking me for something. Jasper didn’t do that. He teased. Asked questions sideways. Let me answer as much or as little as I wanted.

Did I want children someday?

Yes.

How many?

I didn’t know.

Did I want a house full of them?

Maybe.

Would he spoil them?

Obviously.

Would I let him?

Probably not.

He had laughed at that.

I hadn’t told him that every time he talked about some distant imaginary child, another child stood directly in the middle of my thoughts.

Charlie.

My hand stopped on the light switch near the back room. That was the part of the future I couldn’t imagine past. Jasper knew there were things I hadn’t told him. He had never pushed. Maybe that should have made telling him easier.

It didn’t.

How did I explain that I had given birth when I was fifteen? That the little boy I called my nephew in photographs wasn’t technically my nephew at all? That Frank and Claudia were raising my son because I had loved him enough to know I couldn’t give him what he needed?

The words changed depending on the day. Sometimes they sounded reasonable. Sometimes they sounded like a confession. Sometimes I imagined Jasper going quiet, and that was the version that scared me most. I could handle anger. Questions. Shock.

I wasn’t sure I could handle him looking at me differently.