Chapter 24
Rowan
My smile faded because nothing good ever followed the words “We need to talk.”
Keaton stood near the end of the bed, one hand wrapped around his opposite wrist as he stared at the carpet instead of me.
I took a step back. “About what?”
His throat moved as he swallowed. “Us.”
The entire night I’d felt as though I was on top of the world.
I’d won my bout, my parents had been happy, and Grant had been talking about a fight in June, sponsors, and everything that might come next.
Keaton had been there through all of it, yet chose this moment to hit me with relationship talk.
“Us?” I questioned.
He finally met my eyes. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”
For a second, I couldn’t say anything. My ribs ached and my shoulders were on fire from three rounds with Navarro, and the bruise under my eye throbbed every time I blinked, but what Keaton had just said was harder to take than any of that other stuff. “Doing what?” I finally asked.
His face twisted. “Ro.”
“Don’t call me that right now,” I snapped. He flinched, but I continued. “Say what you mean and let me hear the words.”
He took a deep breath. “I think we need to break up.”
“Why?”
His eyes were wet. “Because I hate what this is doing to us.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“But it is the answer.”
“No, it’s how you’re feeling.” I kept my hands at my sides because touching him would be a mistake. “I want the reason.”
He glanced down at the floor again, and I hated that he couldn’t look me in the eyes. “It’s a lot of things.”
“Then start with one.”
“You’re here,” he replied. “I’m in California. Grant’s talking about your next fight, sponsors, and whatever comes after that. You’re building something at Atlantic Combat. Meanwhile, Marcos isn’t just talking about Vegas. Plus, he got Phil Reynolds to work with me when I get back.”
I balked. “Phil Reynolds?”
“Yeah.”
“The Phil Reynolds?”
“That was the other stuff I said I’d tell you in person.”
“You were going to tell me tonight?”
“That was the plan.” He wiped at his face, but the tears came anyway. “I wanted it to be good news. Then Grant started talking, and all I could think was that both of our careers are moving forward, just in different places.”
“Phil Reynolds is good news.”
“It is.” His voice cracked. “That’s why this hurts so much.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “You’re breaking up with me because our careers are going well?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m breaking up with you because as we both progress, we’ll have even less time for each other than we do now.”
I wanted to argue, but nothing came to me fast enough. My eyes burned, and I sat on the edge of the bed because standing in front of him made it too easy to reach for him. Keaton stayed where he was, giving me space I didn’t want.
“That doesn’t mean we’re done,” I replied.
“No, but we’re already struggling, and this is before the next fight, the next camp, and whatever else they ask of us.”
“We’re trying to maintain a long-distance relationship. It’s not supposed to be easy,” I argued.
“Right, but it shouldn’t already feel like we’re losing pieces of each other.”
That hurt because I couldn’t pretend he was wrong.
I’d felt the strain of being apart at the airport when Mom asked about Christmas, and I couldn’t promise I’d come home.
Keaton and I had to work around training and recovery, relying on phone calls and whatever flights we could manage.
But I’d kept telling myself we’d already lost four years, and now that we finally had another chance, that had to mean something.
“That doesn’t mean the distance has to break us. ”
“Maybe not.” He dragged both hands over his face, then let them drop. “But I think it’s already making us ask for less than we need or deserve.”
I stared at his shoes instead of his face. “What does that even mean?”
“It means I keep waiting for the right time to miss you. To need you. To tell you I’m having a shitty day and want my boyfriend without feeling guilty because I know you’re exhausted from training.” He took in a rough breath. “And I know you’re doing the same thing.”
I lifted my eyes before I could stop myself, and seeing the tears on his face almost took the rest of my control with it. “So we try harder.”
“We’ve been trying.”
“Then we keep trying!”
“For how long?” Keaton wiped under his eyes again. “Until I hate Florida because it has you, and I don’t? Until you hate California because I’m there and you can’t be? Until one of us starts saying no to opportunities because being apart hurts too much?”
“I wouldn’t ask you to do that.”
“I know, and that’s the problem. You’d never ask me, and I’d never ask you. So we’d both keep choosing our careers and feel guilty about it.”
“I don’t feel guilty for wanting this.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I don’t feel guilty for wanting you either.”
“I know.”
I reached for him, then stopped with my hand between us. “Then why isn’t that enough?”
“Because wanting each other doesn’t put us in the same place, and living for stolen moments just isn’t enough.”
The words were simple enough to hurt because they were true. “That’s it?” I asked. “You came here to watch me win, then break up with me because the distance got too hard?”
“I came here because I love you.”
“Then don’t do this.” I hated the desperation in my voice, but I couldn’t take it back.
I didn’t want to. Pride didn’t matter when Keaton was only a few feet away, crying and telling me he loved me, but still choosing to believe we were better off apart.
I’d already lost him once because I’d been too scared to reach for him when it counted.
I wasn’t going to sit there and pretend I was strong enough to let him go without asking him to stay.
“Stay tonight.” I stood, and he moved back. “We don’t have to decide everything right now. You’re tired. I’m tired. This night has been a lot. Stay, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”
He stared at me, and for a second, I thought he might give in. “Don’t ask me to do that.”
“I’m not asking. I’m begging you, baby.”
His face crumpled, but he didn’t say anything.
“It’s always been you,” I admitted. “Even when I hurt you back in high school. Even when I tried to tell myself I could move on. Even when you hated me. It was always you.”
“Rowan.”
“I only want you. I’ve only ever wanted you, and now you’re telling me we can’t be together.” I swallowed, but it didn’t ease the lump in my throat. “I just want you to love me as much as I love you.”
“I do,” he said quickly.
I shook my head because if that were true, none of this made sense.
“I do,” he repeated. “Don’t do that to me. Don’t stand there and make this about me not loving you enough.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He wiped his face, and his hand fell uselessly to his side. “And I can’t stay here while you think that.”
“Keaton.”
He shook his head.
I didn’t move closer. Not because I didn’t want to, but because the second I crossed the room, we’d both use touching as an excuse to stop thinking.
“Then come to Tampa.”
He looked away. “I can’t move across the country right now. I’m still recovering, Phil just agreed to train me, and Marcos thinks Titan is where I need to be.”
“Then I’ll come home more. We’ll plan the flights around our camps.”
“We’ve been planning everything around training and flights. It isn’t enough.”
“I spent four years without you. I don’t know how to go back to that now that we finally have another chance.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then look at me and tell me there isn’t another way.”
He turned back, and I thought I had him.
“There isn’t.” He reached for the door handle, then stopped. I thought he might turn around and give me one more chance to ask him to stay, but he didn’t. “Bye, Rowan.”
Then he opened the door and left. It closed behind him, and I stayed where I was, staring at it as if waiting long enough might make it open again. That he’d come back, tell me he couldn’t go through with it, and I’d cross the room to pull him to me before either of us could say another word.
But the handle didn’t move.
I crossed the room anyway and stopped in front of the door. My hand lifted, but I couldn’t make myself grab the knob because opening the door meant chasing him, and chasing him wouldn’t change what he’d already said.
In LA, I’d been the one who left. I’d walked away before he could explain or stop me, before I had to look at him and admit how badly it hurt. Now I knew what that door had felt like from the other side.
He loved me, yet he’d still left.
I braced a hand against the doorframe and bent forward, trying to breathe through the ache in my ribs and the pain that had nothing to do with the fight. When my legs gave out, I sank to the carpet and covered my face with both hands, but the tears still came.
I’d spent four years missing Keaton, then somehow got him back.
Now I had to learn how to live without him all over again.