Chapter 5
Keaton
I lingered in Rowan’s doorway longer than I should have, staring at a room that left me more confused than I’d been when I’d walked in.
“Okay,” I muttered under my breath, even though nothing about this was even close to okay.
I took a step back, then another, as if putting distance between me and his empty bedroom might change things. Of course, it didn’t.
He hadn’t left anything behind, not even in the bathroom we shared.
I grabbed my phone for what felt like the millionth time since Rowan had disappeared.
My thumb scrolled to the last number I’d called.
I knew exactly how it would go, yet I kept torturing myself by making another attempt to reach him.
It went straight to voicemail again, but I tried once more anyway because not trying felt worse.
When I got the same result, I dragged a hand through my hair and paced across my room, trying to make sense of it all.
Why would he leave like that?
Why not say something?
Why not—
My phone buzzed in my hand, and every muscle in my body locked up as I looked down at the screen.
Rowan
We need to talk
Everyone knew those words never led anywhere good. They were what people said when something had already begun to fall apart but hadn’t admitted it out loud.
A part of me wanted to ignore him the same way he’d been ignoring me for nearly twenty-four hours. How the hell did he get to disappear on me, then come back and act as if I owed him something? The other part couldn’t type a response fast enough:
Where are you?
His answer came almost immediately:
At my parents’
Are you coming back?
After a pause, he eventually replied:
No
My jaw clenched. He didn’t offer any context. He just gave me a one-word answer, as if that was all I deserved. My irritation was mounting. Still, I managed to type out another message:
Ok. Do you want me to come to you?
No. Meet me at the river
My grip tightened around my phone. The river was our spot, so maybe it wasn’t that he had a problem with me and something else was wrong.
Despite being pissed at him for leaving me in the dark, I typed:
I’m on my way
The drive gave me too much time to think. My mind ran through every possible way our conversation might go, and none of them were good. He’d packed up his room, he said he wasn’t coming back, and now he wanted to meet somewhere that meant something to both of us.
The closer I got, the more the tension built in my chest, pressing up from beneath my ribs and making it hard to breathe. I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel, then stopped, then started again. I had too much nervous energy to sit still.
By the time I pulled up, my hands were tight on the wheel, and my teeth were grinding hard enough to make my jaw ache.
He was already there, sitting on his bike near the water’s edge with his head down. It wasn’t until I parked that I realized he was looking at his phone. He didn’t even bother to look in my direction.
For a moment, I just sat there, watching him and trying to push down the dread creeping up my throat about what was coming next.
After shutting off the engine, I got out and walked toward him, gravel crunching under my shoes. Each step felt heavier than the last as anger and something too close to fear tangled together inside me. “Rowan.”
He lifted his head slowly, his expression guarded, and it immediately put me on edge. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I shoved my hands into my pockets, mostly to stop fidgeting. “You want to explain why your room is empty, or am I supposed to figure it out on my own?”
He climbed off his bike and stood in front of me. “That’s why I said we needed to talk.”
“Then start talking.”
He scratched at the side of his jaw. “What I saw last night …” he said slowly. “Was that your way of getting back at me?”
I stared at him, still trying to piece everything together. “Getting back at you for what?”
“You didn’t think I’d make that connection?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“I walked in and saw Devon kissing you. What was I supposed to think?”
“You—what?” I stammered.
“I saw you and Devon kissing after your fight.”
“You saw that?”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I saw it.”
Suddenly everything fell into place—why he’d left, why he hadn’t answered, and why his room was empty.
“That’s what this is about?” I asked. “You think I planned that?”
“What else was I supposed to think?” he shot back.
“Not that.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “Did you even consider that maybe I didn’t want him to?”
He didn’t respond, just watched me as if he were trying to decide whether that was really a possibility.
“He kissed me,” I forced out, slower this time. “I didn’t expect it. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t want it! He caught me off guard.”
Rowan’s shoulders dropped slightly. “How long?”
“What?” I blinked.
“How long before you stopped it?”
“It was a second. Maybe two. Then I shoved him off me.”
He nodded, then exhaled. “Why would he kiss you?”
Shit. I’d wanted to tell him about Devon. I’d known I needed to, if only to avoid exactly what was happening. But when Rowan had told me he’d never been with anyone else, a voice in my head wondered whether he’d judge me for having a previous relationship.
Turned out, avoiding that conversation was going to make my explanation sound a hundred times worse.
“Because we have history,” I replied in barely a whisper.
Judging by how Rowan went still, he’d heard me. “What kind of history?”
I hesitated. “We used to hook up. Or date, I guess.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You didn’t think I should know that?”
“It was before you,” I explained.
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
“The point is, you didn’t tell me,” he snapped. “We’ve been living in his house and training under him, and I had no idea.”
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“It matters! It mattered all this time we’ve been together, and I had no clue you used to fuck the guy who owns the gym where we train and the house we live in.”
“You’re right. I should have told you. I wanted to.”
He scoffed. “Sure, you did.”
“You may not believe me, but I did. I was just worried you’d be pissed that I’d been with other people while you hadn’t.” Immediately, I knew that’d been the wrong thing to say.
“Other people? Who else at the gym should I be aware of?”
“No one.” I shook my head.
“I guess that’s something.” He rolled his eyes.
“I get it. You’re pissed at me. Obviously, I should have told you all of this earlier, but that doesn’t change the fact that you thought I’d kiss someone else to get back at you.”
Rowan took a breath, then another, as if trying to calm himself. “I didn’t know what to think.”
“So you assumed the worst?”
“It’s hard not to when that’s exactly how it looked. You didn’t even want people knowing we were together, and then I see someone else kissing you. What the hell was I supposed to do with that?”
I pressed my lips together, not sure how to respond.
“I’m not going back to Titan,” he continued.
It took me a beat to process the words because my head was still stuck on Rowan believing I could do something that ugly to hurt him. “What?”
“I can’t stay there,” he stated. “I’m not going to train somewhere where I have to see him every day. I’m not going to live in his house after learning what he was to you.”
The sound of the river behind us filled the air as I held his gaze. I understood his reasoning, but Titan was more than Devon. It was the gym, the guys, the other coaches, and the first real support system I’d fought like hell to build around myself.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” he continued. “I need to find another place to train.”
“Rowan—”
“No.” He shook his head, cutting me off. “I know what you’re going to say. That we can make it work. That it doesn’t have to be weird. That it’s in the past and I shouldn’t care.”
I didn’t want to dismiss how he felt, and I sure as hell didn’t want to force him to live in a house owned by a guy who’d kissed me without asking.
I didn’t want him walking into that gym every day, feeling like an outsider in a relationship I’d insisted we keep hidden.
But I also didn’t know how to walk away from Titan.
Not now. Not when everything was finally starting to fall into place for me.
“You don’t know shit,” I grumbled.
Rowan might not have heard me, because he didn’t argue. Instead, he suggested, “We could leave. Find a new gym and start over somewhere that isn’t tied to him.”
Start over.
I could almost imagine it. Us in our own apartment. A new gym where no one knew our history, where there was no Devon. A place where Rowan didn’t have to sleep or train under a roof that made him feel like an idiot for trusting me.
It should’ve been simple.
But it wasn’t. Because a few hours before, I’d signed a contract that was going to change my life.
“I met with an agent this morning,” I blurted out.
His head snapped up. “What?”
“He’s representing me.”
Rowan’s shoulders stiffened just slightly before he schooled his features. I knew that look. The one that said he was doing his best not to overreact, trying to hide how he really felt. “Congratulations. You had a good fight.”
“So did you. I bet you’ll hear from someone soon.”
He watched the water for a moment, then shrugged. “Who knows?”
I swallowed hard because there was more I needed to tell him. “Marcos Silva, my agent, thinks Titan is a good fit for me right now. He said Devon knows how to develop fighters.”
Rowan let out a short, humorless laugh. “Convenient.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Isn’t it?”
I stepped closer before I could stop myself. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Make it sound like I’m choosing him.”
His hazel eyes came back to mine, and I didn’t miss the flash of hurt in them. “Aren’t you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m trying to make smart decisions about the career I’ve worked hard for.”
He frowned as if that answer hurt too, and I hated that every possible answer had the ability to sting.
I reached for his hand. “I’m not saying I don’t care what this does to you.
I’m not saying you should stay somewhere that makes you feel like shit.
But I just signed with Elevate this morning, and my agent spent half the meeting telling me how great Titan is for me and thinks I’m building something good there. ”
Rowan pulled away. “And I’m telling you I can’t stay there.”
“I heard you.”
“Did you?”
“Yes!” I snapped, then immediately took a breath because anger wasn’t going to help anything. “Yes. I heard you.”
The worst part was that there wasn’t an easy villain to pin this on. Devon had crossed a line, and I was pissed about it. Rowan wasn’t wrong to want out, but I wasn’t wrong either for not wanting to blow up my whole career because of something Devon did.
I shoved my hands into my pockets again. “I don’t know how to make any of this better without sounding like an asshole.”
Rowan’s mouth twitched, but it wasn’t a smile. “You’re walking a fine line.”
“I’m aware, and I’m not trying to tell you how to feel. I’m not standing here thinking this doesn’t suck. It does. I should’ve told you about Devon, and you should’ve told me you’d seen that kiss before you got on a plane and emptied your room.”
His gaze dropped.
“We need to be better about this.”
“Yeah,” he replied. “We do.”
“And you shouldn’t wait to tell me what’s going on in your head until after you’ve already made decisions about us. We gotta talk about shit first.”
He nodded. “I guess we both need to work on stuff because I’m not ready to lose this.”
Some of the tension I’d been carrying finally eased. “Me either.”
“But I don’t know what ‘us’ looks like now,” he admitted.
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Okay, but I’m still mad.”
I gave him a half-smile. “I assumed that was the case.”
“And I still don’t want to see Devon’s face every day.”
My grin disappeared. “I don’t blame you because I’m pissed at him too. I haven’t even let myself think about that part since everything went to hell so fast. But he crossed a line.”
“He kissed you!”
“I know.”
“And you’re still going back there.”
“Yeah,” I repeated. “I understand you don’t like it. I’m also not going to pretend everything between you and me is fine because it’s not. One conversation won’t fix all our issues, but I’m not ready to walk away from you just because we’re bad at talking.”
“I’m really bad at this.”
“Yeah. You are.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re supposed to disagree.”
“What? I’m bad at this shit too,” I admitted.
That got a little smile out of him before he rubbed his palms over his thighs, then pulled his phone out of his pocket. The screen lit up and he whispered, “Holy shit.”