Page 283 of Romeo

Jasper had already seen pictures of him. He had teased me about how many photos I kept on my phone and listened when I talked about my nephew without ever realizing the word nephew carried an entire history beneath it.

I lowered my eyes to where my hand still rested over his heart. “Okay.”

Packing took less time than it should have because I had no idea what I was packing for. Jasper remained downstairs while I changed into jeans, a sweater, and boots, then shoved clothes into a duffel with hands that occasionally stopped working whenever my mind wandered back to the parking lot. I added toiletries, my charger, another sweater, then stood in the middle of my room staring at everything I owned and wondering what a person was supposed to take when a man told her to pack a bag because she was becoming his.

Before I left the room, I looked at the framed photograph on my dresser.

Charlie was laughing at something outside the frame; his whole face crinkled with it. Frank had sent me the picture a few months earlier, and I printed it because some things deserved more than a phone screen.

I touched the edge of the frame.

“Soon,” I whispered.

I didn’t know when I would find the courage, but Jasper deserved to know the truth about Charlie. Not because anything about Charlie’s life was going to change. Frank and Claudia were his parents. That had never been a question for me.

The only thing that would change was Jasper finally knowing that the little boy I called my nephew was also the son I had given birth to. And how he would feel about me when he knew the truth.

I slipped down the stairs and left a note for Granny on the table. She would panic if she woke and found me gone. It felt cowardly sneaking out while she slept, but the thought of standing through another conversation about why I was leaving made my chest tighten. I didn’t have enough pieces of myself put back together yet to survive Granny’s questions on top of my own.

Outside, Jasper secured my bag to his bike and handed me a helmet.

That was when I realized I wasn’t taking my car.

I stared at the motorcycle, then at him. “How far is home?”

His grin appeared much too quickly. “Get on, Ma Belle.”

I should have known.

Hours later, I knew two things with absolute certainty. First, my entire body was going to hurt tomorrow. Second, Jasper had intentionally allowed me to believe we were going to Nebraska without ever saying Nebraska once.

The road had been strangely soothing at first. I wrapped myself around him because there was nowhere else to put my arms, pressed my cheek between his shoulder blades, and let the steady vibration of the motorcycle drown out everything I didn’t want to think about. Jasper stopped often enough that I knew he was watching me more carefully than he pretended, feeding me coffee and food, checking my hands for cold, touching my face as though he needed physical confirmation that I was still beside him.

It wasn’t until the signs started pointing farther south and the air started getting warmer that suspicion pushed through my exhaustion.

By the time we crossed into Louisiana, I was too tired to be angry.

I should have known.

The city swallowed us in sound and light, a completely different world from the quiet roads we had spent most of the day traveling. Music drifted through open doors. People spilled across sidewalks. The air smelled warmer, heavier, carrying food and alcohol and something sweet I couldn’t identify beneath the exhaust.

Jasper changed as soon as we entered the city.

I felt it in the way he sat on the bike. Something in him loosened as streets became familiar, his body leaning through turns without hesitation. Even the way his voice changed as soon as we hit Louisiana—that southern accent so similar to Gator’s.

Nebraska might be where he lived now, but watching him navigate New Orleans made me understand what he had meant when he said home.

He had never promised to take me west.

The Bourbon Bar sat in the middle of all that New Orleans energy as if someone had captured the city and shoved it through the front doors. Even before Jasper killed the engine, I could hear laughter from inside. Music spilled onto the sidewalk every time the door opened, followed by bursts of conversation and the warm smell of whiskey and fried food.

I climbed off the motorcycle slowly, my legs protesting the movement. “You are such an asshole,” I said with no heat in my voice.

Jasper removed his helmet and gave me a completely unapologetic smile. “You asked where we were going.”

“And you said home.”

“This is home.”