Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Romeo
Thursday afternoon, and the clubhouse common room was half-empty, with most of the brothers either working or out on runs. I sat at one of the tables near the back with a beer I’d barely touched while Jack leaned against the bar, scrolling through his phone.
“You’re distracted,” he said without looking up.
“I’m always distracted.”
“Not like this.” He put his phone down and crossed his arms. “You’ve checked your phone six times in the last ten minutes.”
I glanced at the phone beside my beer. “Counting now, are we?”
His smirk widened. “Whoever she is, she’s got you wrapped around her finger, doesn’t she?”
I took a drink instead of answering and Jack laughed.
Months ago, I probably would’ve denied it just to keep the bastard from enjoying himself. Now there wasn’t much point. Half the club had noticed something was different even if most of them still didn’t know who was responsible.
“Your charm has limits, Romeo.”
My eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You can’t just text a girl and expect her to fall at your feet.”
“You think my charm has limits?”
“I know it does.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Twenty bucks says I can make her smile in five texts.”
Jack laughed. “You’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
He studied me for a second before reaching for his beer. “You’re on.”
I picked up my phone.
Fiona had been on my mind even before Jack opened his mouth. She usually was. The difference lately was how much had begun slipping through the careful boundaries I’d spent months trying to keep in place.
Sunday mornings with coffee and waffles, because that was her preference.
A secret she wasn’t ready to tell me.
I hadn’t needed to know the secret to hear the fear beneath it. That bothered me more than whatever she might eventually say.
I opened her messages.
Me: I need you to settle something before someone gets hurt.
Ma Belle: That sounds ominous
I glanced at Jack, his smug grin getting bigger.
Me: Jack says my charm has limits.
Ma Belle: Jack is right
Jack saw my face and laughed. “That didn’t go well, did it?”
“Shut the fuck up.” My attention returned to the screen.
Me: Betrayal from Virginia.
Ma Belle: What did you do?
I smiled because she knew me entirely too well.
Me: Told him I could make you smile in five texts.
Ma Belle: You’ve already used four
I laughed. She was playing along—that was all I needed to know.
“Damn,” I muttered.
Jack’s grin widened. “Your girl giving you trouble?”
I ignored him and started typing. I had one message left. Jack expected some bullshit line polished by years of practice. The problem was, Fiona had become nearly immune to those. If I wanted the smile, I knew exactly how to answer.
Me: I miss you. Five.
I hit send and set the phone on the table.
Jack’s amusement faded as he watched me. “You’ve got it bad, brother.”
“Yeah.”
There wasn’t much else to say.
A few months ago, admitting that in front of one of the brothers might’ve annoyed me. Now it felt stupid to pretend.
Ma Belle: That’s cheating
Me: Did you smile?
Her answer took a few seconds.
Ma Belle: Maybe
That was enough. I looked toward Jack. “Pay up.”
“What?”
“She smiled.”
“You don’t know that.”
I turned the phone so he could see the screen.
Jack read the message. “She said maybe.”
“Which means yes.”
“That is not how language works.”
“It is with her.”
Me: Tell Jack he owes me twenty dollars.
Ma Belle: I’m not helping you win money
He muttered something about delusional assholes while pulling a twenty from his wallet and tossing it onto the table. I picked it up and tucked it into my pocket.
Me: Too late. Your “maybe” made me rich.
Ma Belle: Twenty dollars isn’t rich
Me: It’ll buy enough gas to get me a little closer to Rosewood.
Ma Belle: Not much closer
I looked at that one for a second.
There were moments with Fiona when I could almost feel the distance between us—not because of how far apart we were, but because both of us kept standing at the edge of something, waiting to see who moved first.
Me: Then I’ll have to decide whether you’re worth paying for the rest.
Her answer came quickly.
Ma Belle: And?
I smiled. There was my answer. She wanted to know.
Me: Cher, I’d walk the last hundred miles.
The phone stayed quiet.
Jack shook his head, but there wasn’t much teasing left in his expression. “You’re in deep, brother.”
It was true, and the strange thing was, I’d stopped thinking of that as a problem.
Fiona might eventually tell me something that changed the shape of what I knew about her. Whatever she was carrying had enough weight to make her afraid of my reaction, and I had no idea what waited on the other side of that conversation.
Still, if she called me tomorrow and asked me to come, I wouldn’t need twenty dollars from Jack.
I’d find my own way.
Ma Belle: That was very good
I stared at it.
Jack leaned closer. “What’d she say?”
“None of your fucking business.”
He laughed and went back to his beer.
I slipped my phone into my pocket, but the warmth of her answer stayed with me.
Five texts.
I’d won the bet, but the twenty bucks felt like the least important thing I’d gotten out of it.
By Tuesday night, the clubhouse had been chewing through every ounce of patience I possessed.
I sat against the headboard in my room with my phone resting on my chest, listening to footsteps pass in the hall outside.
Club business had swallowed most of the week.
Every time I thought things might settle, someone needed something else, another conversation went sideways, or another problem landed in front of us.
Somewhere along the way, my conversations with Fiona had shrunk with everything else.
I still answered her.
Mostly.
A few words here. A quick response there. Nothing like the hours we normally wasted arguing about breakfast, music, or whatever ridiculous question one of us invented.
I’d told myself she didn’t need the version of me left after everything here had taken its share. That sounded noble enough until Fiona stopped reaching out.
No message tonight.
Nothing the night before either.
I opened our conversation and scrolled back.
The change was obvious when I actually looked at it. Fiona hadn’t suddenly disappeared. She’d stopped trying after I made every conversation feel like she was interrupting something more important.
Well done, asshole.
I typed before I could overthink it.
Me: Tell me something good.
Her answer came almost immediately.
Ma Belle: Granny made peach cobbler
A smile pulled at my mouth.
Me: Something better.
Ma Belle: Sugar gave me a raise
Me: Better.
Ma Belle: I’m running out of good things.
Me: You haven’t mentioned that you missed me yet.
Ma Belle: That would require me to miss you
I laughed softly knowing I deserved that one.
Me: Cruel, Cher.
Her next message wiped away the smile.
Ma Belle: You’ve barely texted me all week.
There wasn’t any accusation in the words I could argue with. I’d done exactly that.
Me: I know.
Ma Belle: I thought maybe you didn’t want to anymore.
I sat straighter. Of all the possibilities I’d imagined when I started pulling back, that one had never occurred to me. Fiona had spent enough of her life watching people leave. And I’d just spent a week quietly teaching her that my attention could disappear without explanation.
Me: There hasn’t been a single day since I met you that I didn’t want to talk to you.
Ma Belle: Then why didn’t you?
I rubbed a hand over my face.
Because everything in Diamond Creek had been loud and ugly, and Fiona lived in the quiet part of my mind. Because I didn’t want to carry the clubhouse into every conversation with her. Because some nights I was so damn tired that I knew I’d give her a few scraps of attention and call it enough.
All of that was true.
None of it meant I’d made the right choice for her.
Me: Because everything here got loud, and I didn’t want to give you whatever was left of me at the end of it.
Ma Belle: I would’ve taken whatever was left.
I closed my eyes.
Of course she would.
Fiona knew what it was to live on whatever remained after life took its share. She probably understood that kind of exhaustion better than I wanted her to.
Me: You deserve better than leftovers.
Her answer came almost immediately.
Ma Belle: You don’t always get to decide what’s enough for me.
I stared at her words. She’d told me some version of that before.
Apparently, I still hadn’t learned it. I had spent months making careful decisions in the name of protecting Fiona.
When to flirt. When to back off. What to tell her.
What not to tell her. How much of myself she should have to deal with at once.
At some point, careful had started looking a hell of a lot like control.
Me: No. I suppose I don’t.
Ma Belle: So tell me something good.
I looked around my room as though something on the walls might give me an answer. Nothing about club business qualified. My wrist still ached. Jack had stolen one of my beers earlier and denied it despite holding the fucking bottle.
None of those were what she was asking.
I thought about the quiet that came after church ended or the common room finally emptied. About those few minutes when nobody needed anything from me and my brain stopped running in six directions at once.
Fiona always showed up there.
Me: You’re the first person I think about when the noise finally stops.
Ma Belle: That was very good
Me: Your turn, Ma Belle.
This time she made me wait. I watched the three dots appear twice before the message finally arrived.
Ma Belle: I miss you
I read it once.
Then again.
Fiona had dodged those words every time I tried to get them out of her. Even after graduation, she’d admitted it only when emotion had gotten ahead of caution.
Tonight, she offered them because I asked her for something good.
Me: Best thing I’ve heard all week.
I let the phone rest on my chest.
For days, I’d convinced myself that distance was something I was giving Fiona for her own good.
It hadn’t been.
I’d been tired. Frustrated. Pulled in too many directions, and somewhere underneath all of that lived the fear that if Fiona saw me when I had nothing charming left to give, maybe she wouldn’t like the man underneath.
So I’d made the decision for her.
Again.
Me: I’m not going anywhere, Cher. I promise.
Ma Belle: Good. Because I’m not letting you
A laugh escaped me as I settled deeper against the pillows.
There she was.
Weeks ago, I might’ve looked at that message and heard my own possession in it. Proof that she was finally becoming mine.
Tonight, it sounded better than that.
It sounded like Fiona making a choice of her own.
And I was smart enough now not to get in her way.