Page 5 of Dirty Fighter

Only that it’s loud enough to be heard over Billie Eilish singing about sticking together.

Chaos erupts.

The woman whirls around with a bloodcurdling scream that has the guys jumping back. But it’s that glimpse of her face and those light freckles peppered across the bridge of her nose that have me leaning into the swing of her fists and a kick that lands so close to target, all three of my teammates grab their junk.

We collide, arms and legs tangling in a push-pull I’m not orchestrating. And then we’re going down. The familiar pendant around her neck glints in the light before hitting my eye— Shit!

Still, I’m fast enough to catch her against me to break the fall. I end up flat on my back with a spill of honey and vanilla-scented curls in my mouth and nose, and a barrage of elbows and knees pummeling my vulnerabilities with surgical precision.

“Wait…” Umph. “Stop…” Cough. “You’re gonna hurt yourself…” Crack. “Ow, fuck… Rowan!”

She freezes mid-soupbone. Startled whiskey brown eyes meet mine. Recognition pushes past panic… and for once, she doesn’t look away.

Breathless and flushed, she wheezes, “Jason?”

I’m searching for what to say, but Wexler beats me to it.

“Uhh, Static. Man, isn’t that your sister?”

Lattner gasps. “Your sister’s a stripper?”

I glare at my teammates. “She’s not my sister,” just as Rowan snaps, “I’m not a stripper!”

“Sorry. Right. Dancer,” he corrects, gawking along with Wexler and Huska.

I don’t like the slow roam of their eyes over Rowan’s bare legs and not-buttoned-high-enough shirt. And I really don’t like that the response those heated stares are causing in me is one usually reserved for opposing players taking liberties with my team.

“Turn the fuck around,” I growl. “Right this second. I’m talking to you too, Lattner.”

I look back to the woman who has been upending my life since the day I met her. She’s still half-straddling me, still poised with a cocked elbow she seems to have forgotten about, and still so beautiful, it takes my breath away. Rowan Lakely.

“Hey, you okay?” I ask, looking her over for damage from the fall.

She nods, gingerly climbing off me. “You?”

“Yeah but”— my heart starts a heavy thud —“Rowan, what are you doing in my cabin?”

There’s no way. She can’t be here for me?

“Wait.” She sucks a troubled breath, and her eyes dart away as that bottom lip I spent a year obsessing over ends up between her front teeth. “What do you mean, your cabin?”

Lattner peeks over his shoulder.

Wexler smacks the back of his head.

Huska chuckles, taking his sweet time to face the wall. “Not that kind of week, my ass.”

What. The. Hell.

Rowan

No. No, no, nononononooooooo.

This can’t be happening.

In the nine years since Jason Stanvic moved out of his childhood home, I’ve seen him exactly three times. Once for Christmas, the year he left. Once for a weekend the following spring. And then once, three months ago.

It was at his father’s funeral, and I was with my mom and Ron. I was still numb from the heartbreak of losing Ed, the closest thing to a father I’ve ever had. Jason was flanked by one of the guys currently staring at the wall— Wexler? —and another player I recognized from social media because he’s so big into supporting animal shelters.