Page 226 of Romeo

Jasper: Maybe I do.

I bit the inside of my cheek and looked toward the television without seeing any of it.

Granny glanced over. “What are you smiling at?”

“I’m not smiling.”

Her eyebrows rose.

I lowered my phone enough to glare at her without any anger. “I’m not.”

“You look like somebody just told you Christmas is coming twice this year.”

“Watch your show.”

“I can do both.”

Of course she could.

I waited until she turned back toward the television before looking at my phone again. Jasper hadn’t sent anything else. He was waiting for me to respond. The annoying man had become very good at that.

Me: Where is this imaginary house?

His answer came quickly enough that I wondered if he’d already been expecting the question.

Jasper: You tell me.

Me: I don’t know.

Jasper: Virginia?

I looked around the room again.

Virginia was home.

Rosewood was home now. Granny, Frank and Claudia, Georgie and Josie... Charlie. The mountains, and every road I’d learned to drive on. It was the place where I’d finally stopped running because somebody had given me a key and promised I could keep it.

I couldn’t imagine not loving it.

That wasn’t exactly the same thing as never imagining leaving.

Because now there was someone else. Someone who lived fifteen hundred miles away.

Me: Maybe.

Jasper: That didn’t sound convincing.

Me: It was a text. It didn’t sound like anything.

Jasper: I know you better than that, Cher.

I smiled despite myself.

Me: Maybe I haven’t decided where it is yet.

There was a longer pause.

Jasper: Fair answer.