Chapter 17
seventeen
. . .
Violet
By the time we stumble out of the arcade, my cheeks hurt from laughing, and Rowan’s carrying a ridiculous blue frog plush that’s almost as big as my torso. Naturally, he presented it to me with a mock bow that made my heart do stupid, dangerous things.
The frog is tucked under his arm like it weighs nothing, despite its comically oversized head and glittery bowtie. No man should be able to carry a stuffed animal that absurd and still manage to radiate casual sex appeal, but here we are.
My eyes keep catching on the way his strong fingers curl around its fuzzy blue leg, how those same hands gripped the edge of the air hockey table, how they shook when he told me he wanted to kiss me and I didn’t let him.
I shouldn’t be thinking about his hands. How they’d feel on my waist, fisted in my hair, or anywhere else. But it’s impossible not to when he keeps doing these playful, stupidly sweet things with a grin that says he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.
And when he turns to look at me, that blue frog becomes the most romantic gesture anyone’s ever made.
“I had fun tonight,” I tell him once we’re back in his truck. “Thank you.”
“Night doesn’t have to be over,” he says, his voice dropping a little lower. The way he’s looking at me makes my skin feel too tight. I might burst into flames if he keeps it up. “You could come by the house again. Have a drink?”
I bite my lip, pretending to consider it, even though we both know I’m going to say yes.
“Fine,” I say with an exaggerated sigh. “But only because I want to see Bramble.”
The smile that breaks across his face is nothing short of devastating.
The drive to his place is quiet but not in an uncomfortable way.
Rowan keeps the music low and windows cracked to let in the night air.
The plush frog is strapped in the backseat—Rowan insisted it needed protection, too—and I can’t help my smile as I glance over at the man driving.
I’ve caught him looking at me every so often, as if he’s checking to make sure I’m still here.
When we pull into his driveway, he doesn’t say anything. Just gets out, rounds the truck, and opens my door. His hand is there before I even think about it, brushing against mine, steadying me as I climb down. The warmth of his palm against mine is electric.
A few minutes later, we’re back on his porch, drinks in hand.
The breeze drifts over us, cool against my flushed skin, carrying with it the faint scent of wood smoke. There’s nothing heavy or haunted weighing down on me tonight. I’m not waiting for something to go wrong. Everything just feels…right.
Rowan lifts his glass and tips it toward me. “To total and utter domination.”
I clink my glass against his. “You got lucky.”
He leans back, watching me over the rim of his drink. “You keep telling yourself that.”
I trace the rim of my glass with one finger, watching the condensation bead and roll.
I don’t really know how to sit this close to Rowan and not remember every version of him I’ve ever known.
The boy with a permanent bruise on his knuckles.
The one who used to steal my snacks in class just to see if I’d smile.
The shadow of a smirk that used to undo me without even trying.
I wrote him off a hundred times. Told myself I was over him a hundred more. Still, he was always there.
Now here he is with tattoos and laugh lines. It’s almost easier to pretend it’s just a drink on a porch. Just another night.
But nothing about this is ordinary.
“I didn’t think we’d ever get back here,” I say.
Rowan glances over. For a moment, I think he won’t answer. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything at all.
Then he shifts, his body turning toward mine just enough that our knees brush.
“I think about that a lot,” he says quietly. “How much time we lost.”
A lump swells in my throat as I stare out into the dark field. “I used to lie in bed and try to convince myself you never thought about me at all.”
His brows draw together.
“Because…” My voice falters. “Because that hurt less than believing you did.”
The silence that follows is almost physical. Thick. Taut. It hums between us, a live wire stretched just beyond snapping.
Then his voice cuts through. “You’ve haunted me, Violet. You’re everything I couldn’t stop needing, even when I told myself not to.”
I turn my face away before he can see what his words have done—though I know it’s too late. I already feel it, hot and raw, welling in my chest. That ache. That damn ache I’ve tried so hard to ignore.
“You had a funny way of showing it,” I manage, voice brittle.
“I know.” He exhales, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. “And I’d give anything to go back and do it differently.”
My throat tightens. “What if you leave again?”
Rowan doesn’t answer right away. Instead, his eyes lock with mine, steady and intense, trying to carve the truth into me with just his gaze. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“But you can’t promise that,” I whisper. “No one can.”
“You’re right,” he concedes. “I can’t promise nothing will ever take me away. But I can promise I’ll never choose to leave you again.”
I want to believe him so badly it hurts.
He sets his glass down on the porch floor with a soft clink. His palm is warm and calloused against mine, his fingers curling around my own with a gentleness that makes my heart ache.
I look down at our intertwined fingers, at the way his thumb traces small circles against my skin.
“It scares me,” I confess. “How much I still feel for you.”
When I look up, his eyes are burning with something raw and real. We’re both laying ourselves bare, waiting for the other to decide if it’s enough.
“I’m scared, too,” he admits, his voice rough. “Scared I’ll mess this up again. Scared you’ll realize I’m that same screwed up kid who never deserved you in the first place.”
In this exact moment where everything hangs in the balance, I realize something so simple it almost makes me laugh.
I’m tired of being afraid.
I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m tired of holding myself back from the one thing I’ve always wanted.
“You were never that,” I say, squeezing his hand. “Not to me.”
My fingers twitch with the need to reach out. I want to trace the tattoo on his forearm, rest my head on his shoulder, kiss the regret off his mouth and pretend none of it ever happened.
“I can’t survive another almost, Rowan.”
His jaw clenches, his throat working around a swallow. “This isn’t almost. Not this time.”
I study him. Every line of his face. The boy with storm-blue eyes that always held storms of their own, with the crooked smile that used to make me laugh until it hurt. Always the one I never quite stopped loving, no matter how many miles or years stretched between us.
His eyes never leave mine, and they’re asking, Do you want this? Want me?
I know exactly what I want. I’ve known since I was fifteen and he passed me a folded note in math class with a half smirk. I’ve known since he kissed someone else and I went home and cried into my pillow, hating how bad it hurt.
He’s here now. Right here. We have already lost so much time to fear and silence and all the wrong choices.
Why am I still waiting?
So I do the only thing that feels honest. I set my glass down next to his. I lean forward, my heart hammering so hard I’m sure he can hear it. The space between us shrinks until his breath warms my lips and I can count each dark eyelash framing those impossibly blue eyes.
For a heartbeat, we hover there, suspended in that fragile moment between wanting and having.
Then I close the final distance.
His lips are soft against mine, tentative at first. I make a small sound in the back of my throat. A sigh, a whimper, I’m not even sure, but that’s all it takes.
Rowan’s hands come up to cradle my face, his calloused palms warm against my cheeks. His kiss deepens as his fingers slip into my hair, pulling me close. His mouth moves over mine with a desperation that has me clenching his shirt in my hands just for something to hold onto.
When he pulls back enough to look at me, his eyes are dark, wild, and filled with relief. “Violet…”
I answer him by leaning in again, my lips meeting his with a softness that’s only temporary. Because then it’s all there again, that hunger, that need, like he can’t kiss me fast enough to make up for everything we’ve missed.
I melt into his touch, letting myself fall completely, finally. His lips are fire and apology and longing all at once, a confession that’s waited years to be spoken. Every missed moment, every word we never dared to say is buried in the press of his mouth against mine.
I part for him, my chest heaving, heart hammering so hard I’m sure he can feel it against his own. When he slides his tongue against mine, he groans, deep and guttural. The sound rattles straight through me, shaking loose years of restraint.
His taste is addictive, a heady mix of peach and something that’s all him. Every brush of his lips, every gentle tug, rips through me, leaving me breathless, desperate, and so aware of just how much time we’ve wasted.
The urgency in his touch fades, replaced by something slower. His lips turn gentle, dragging over mine in slow, aching strokes. He catches my lower lip between his teeth, and I feel the faintest tremor in his hand. Then, he releases me and pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against mine.
My chest rises and falls in a frantic rhythm.
My lips are tender from his kiss, and my heart shatters, pieces of it scattered at his feet.
Tears burn in the corners of my eyes, and there’s no point in trying to fight them.
None of this feels new or like something that’s just started or something that could easily end.
No, this feels old, like it’s always been here, buried beneath the surface waiting for the right moment to rise up.
Worn-in and impossibly familiar in that bone-deep way only something you’ve longed for in silence can be.
“You okay?” he whispers.
I nod, even though my throat is tight and my heart is so full it feels too big for my chest.
But when a tear escapes, sliding down my cheek, Rowan doesn’t hesitate. He catches it with his lips, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
In that breathless second, I know if he ever leaves again, it’ll destroy me worse than anything or anyone else ever could.
Yet, with his heart pressed to mine, his hands strong and sure, I’d let him ruin me all over again just to experience this.
Just to have him, this close, this real, one more time.