Page 85 of Dirty Fighter

Lawyer confirmed.

Take care of this place.

Hands shaking, I fly out front, gravel and dirt giving way as I circle the cabin, past the shed. The place where my work gloves frame the spot where a branch speared the earth and broke through the wall that had existed between us for a decade.

I stop at the edge of the clearing where the land drops away and the break in the trees gives me a clear view of the water, a few retreating boats in the distance.

I watch, my hand half raised, though to which one, I don’t even know.

My heart breaking in a way it never should have been allowed to break.

Hoping he’ll look. That I can catch his attention and signal for him to come back. To let me say it again.

I’m sorry.

30

Jason

“Dude, you just… left?” Boomer gapes twelve hours later from where he’s sitting on his acres-long couch in the New York apartment he shares with Lara and Zamboni.

The former is sleeping down the hall. The latter is paws up, tucked into the nook of Ben’s big-ass arm, overlong tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.

I rake my hand through my hair as I pace the length of my buddy’s place. I feel sick. Agitated. Fucking unmoored. “I wasn’t in the best state of mind.”

I was numb. Only not numb, because somehow the absence of sensation was worse than that searing pain when I’d seen Rowan kiss the man she’d planned to marry seconds after finding out that she’d been right. The cabin wasn’t mine.

Nothing was.

Not Rowan. Not the island. Not even this time we spent together.

Not when it ended watching another man kiss the woman I love.

I’d looked away, trying to breathe through the reality of it all… The fucking ex showing up.

Rowan going off with him. For privacy. Because they had a past and promises. While we’d had… loose plans to see how things went. Fucking hell.

Something in me just… broke. Shut down.

I was already packed.

I don’t even remember leaving. I barely remember calling Bruce. Turns out he’d been pulling up to the dock already, anxious to check on us.

Christ, saying goodbye to him was rough. Coming to the island had always been about seeing him as much as it was about the cabin itself.

He didn’t know what to say when I’d explained that it didn’t belong to me anymore. But the hug he gave me when we climbed off the Mae Belle was fierce. His arms shook, and for as grizzled and tough as the old guy is, pretty sure my eyes weren’t the only ones wet when we pulled apart.

He told me not to be a stranger, and I said I wouldn’t.

But… Christ, it feels like losing my dad all over again. My dad. My grandparents. And within a breath of believing that maybe, finally, I could keep Rowan… losing her too.

“I shouldn’t have left like that. I just… What was I supposed to do?” I say to myself as much as Ben. “Wait for them to come back so I could congratulate the happy couple on reupping their fucking engagement? Ask if I could have a word with Rowan alone so I could⁠—”

Visions of throwing her over my shoulder come to mind. Of closing us in the room we’d shared the previous few days and begging her to let me convince her to stay, to give me a chance. Of getting on my knees and asking her to let me kiss her goodbye the way I had that first night… and then making her come so hard that she’d forget about the selfless fucking doctor she’s loved for the past five years.

“Flash some abs?” Boomer offers. “Pull one of those Bunny moves Axel came up with to land Nora?”

He’s trying to lighten the mood. I think.