Page 265 of Romeo

My fingers tightened around my keys.

“Not tonight,” I whispered.

I switched off the last lights in the back, leaving only the security lights glowing through the shop. There was no point borrowing pain from a conversation I hadn’t even had yet. Besides, Jasper was in Nebraska. I missed him enough without inventing ways for him to reject me from so far away.

I checked the front door twice after locking it, tugging the handle harder the second time because my mind was still nowhere near what I was doing. The November air hit me the moment I stepped around the side of the building, cold enough to sting my cheeks and make me pull my coat tighter around myself.

My car sat alone behind the shop beneath the weak yellow light over the back entrance.

I had crossed maybe half the distance when movement near the dumpster caught my eye.

My steps slowed.

There was nothing unusual about shadows behind the building. A stray cat had scared me more than once, and people occasionally cut through the lot on their way to the next block. But this was Rosewood.

I almost kept walking.

Then a man stepped into the light.

Recognition came slowly enough to make the memory feel wrong at first. The gas station. The man who grabbed my wrist after I made it clear I wasn’t interested, and somehow managed to make a public place with people all around us feel smaller than it was.

My fingers tightened around my keys.

He smiled, and something in the expression made me stop.

“You remember me.”

The parking lot suddenly seemed too empty as he took another step out of the shadows.

My car was behind him and to the left. I could see it clearly. Twenty feet, maybe less, but it may as well have been a mile if reaching it meant moving closer to him before I could get away.

I shifted backward instead.

His eyes dropped to my feet.

The small movement in his gaze changed everything.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, unable to hide the fear in my voice.

His mouth twisted. “You don’t get to tell me where I should be.”

The keys dug into my palm.

The shop door was behind me. Locked. I fumbled with the keys as I tried to find the shop key by feel, not wanting to draw his attention to what I was doing.

I took another step backward, but he moved at the same time.

I barely had time to turn before his hand closed around my upper arm.

Pain shot through me when he yanked me toward him. My keys slipped from my fingers and struck the pavement, the metallic clatter startlingly loud in the empty lot.

“Let go of me!”

I shoved at his chest and twisted hard enough to wrench my shoulder, but his grip only tightened. My free hand caught the side of his face, nails scraping skin, and the instant he cursed, I thought I had made enough space to get away.

Then my back hit the brick wall.

The impact knocked the breath from me.