Page 71 of Dirty Fighter

“What you cost me?” But I already know what she’s going to say.

“You lost your home because of us. The last years with your father.”

“That’s bullshit, Rowan. You aren’t the reason I left.”

“Can you really look me in the eyes,” she says, her voice level as she gives me back the words I threw at her the other morning, “and tell me that if I hadn’t come to you that night, you still would have moved out three days later?”

24

Rowan

He blinks, his brows crumbling like all the assurances he’s probably stacked up for me.

But I know I’m right. I know what happened, how it ended, and the awful aftermath that played out the only way I could see… but still ended up costing this man more than he ever should have had to pay.

Then Jason is leaning close again, taking my face in his hands and searching my eyes. “First thing I need you to understand, Rowan, is that my leaving wasn’t your fault. Trying to kiss you like that was stupid. I left because I was embarrassed that I’d been acting like some lovesick asshole who couldn’t muster enough self-control to manage my feelings around the girl who lived in the same house.”

“Your house, and you weren’t⁠—”

“Our house. It was as much yours as it was mine. Neither of us bought it. We lived there because of our parents. And when I realized how I was making you feel, instead of straightening my shit out, I removed myself from the situation.”

Wait. “Jason, that wasn’t⁠—”

But he doesn’t stop. Almost like he’s afraid that if he doesn’t get to say what he needs to, he’ll never have the chance again. Same as me.

“I shouldn’t have tried to kiss you that night. I was just so fucking sure of myself when the only thing I was seeing was what I wanted to see. And by the time I realized I’d been wrong, you were stumbling backwards and running away.”

“No.” It comes out as a whisper, but if I’d been able to breathe in that moment, it would have been a roar.

“Tried to talk to you after. The next day in the kitchen—” He shakes his head, his hand covering his chest.

“But I wouldn’t let you.” This was what I was telling him.

“Which was fair. I’d already turned a friendly gesture into an awkward nightmare once. Cornering you alone in the kitchen⁠—”

“Jason, you didn’t corner me anywhere.” I can still remember the way he stepped into the kitchen after dinner that next night, head low, hands in his pockets, as he hung back to give me as much space as he could… like he was doing everything humanly possible to signal that he understood the lines were there. That we couldn’t cross them.

And all I’d wanted was to tell him he hadn’t done anything wrong. That I was the one who was sorry. I was the one who’d made the mistakes.

But— “I was scared.”

He flinches, turning away for a slow breath before straightening to look at me again. Regret etched into every line of his face in a way that has me shaking my head, backpedaling to clarify that it wasn’t him. Never⁠—

“I know.” His voice sounds tortured, his eyes haunted. “When Marsha told me that— Christ, Rowan, I never meant to scare you.”

“Marsha told you what?” I choke, a dread building with the realization that there was more to what happened than I had understood.

“After you left the kitchen, I went up to my room. Maybe an hour later, she came up. She told me that you’d gone to her about what happened the night before. That you—” His voice cracks, and I die a little inside. “That you were scared. Of me.”

“No.” This time, mustering the necessary force to match my horror and outrage. “Jason, no. I never⁠—”

“Rowan, I saw your face. In the kitchen and the night before when you almost tripped running away from me.”

“Yes, I was terrified, but not because of you!” I cross to him, taking his hands in mine. “I wanted you, Jason. From the night we met. But the moment my mother set eyes on Ed, what I wanted didn’t matter anymore. I understood it. Had made peace with it. But that night, I forgot that I wasn’t supposed to talk to you. That I wasn’t supposed to laugh at your jokes or even look at you.”

His chest is rising and falling in hard breaths now, his head moving in a slow shake like he’s not sure he’s hearing me right. “You wanted me?”

“That night, I wanted you to kiss me.” I can still remember the breathless rush of being that close to him, of his big hand over mine where it pressed against his side. The way he’d so gently tipped my chin until our eyes met. That dizzying sense of falling, of rightness, of wanting. “For a few minutes, I forgot about everything else. And if it hadn’t been for the car door⁠—”