Page 39 of Dirty Fighter

A good guy.

A doctor.

Doing meaningful work.

Blah, blah, blah.

I don’t like him.

“What?” She laughs again, louder this time as she looks at me with gaping disbelief. “You’ve never even met him.”

Ack, the inner voice got away again. But also, “Don’t have to. The guy’s priorities are crap.”

She cocks her head, waiting for me to go on, but I’m distracted by the way her hair slips over her shoulder with the movement.

“If I had a woman like you at home, I wouldn’t want to leave you long enough to pick up the carryout. Let alone for a whole damn year.”

I blink, second-guessing that truth-bomb too late to take it back.

Damn those spiked drinks and Rowan’s heavy-handed pour.

“Right, except… Don’t you spend something like half the year on the road?”

Right. And I don’t even have the excuse of being a doctor changing the world for the better with no fucking pay. Because I make my living playing a game.

Yeah, pretty sure I might hate this guy. And not just the baseline hate that comes standard with dating Rowan. This is like the premium, extended package hate born of multi-dimensional jealousy.

“The longest I’m gone at a stretch is a few weeks.” But sitting here, looking at this girl who isn’t mine and never will be, I can’t help but wonder how guys like Boomer and Rux do it. How they say goodbye again and again and again.

“A few weeks is a lot longer than a twenty-minute round trip for carryout. Just sayin’.”

“Fair.” But then, because some part of me needs her to know it, I add, “It’s a lot of travel during the season, and that’s tough on a relationship. But for the right ones, the good ones, I’ve seen how they make it work.”

“I think Ron and I felt like that could be us.” She sighs or maybe yawns. “We wanted it to be.”

For sure I hate him. “But then he signed on for a second year.”

“Yes and no. Eventually, it became clear we wanted different things. Things we might not have even known we wanted or needed when we started making our plans.” She shrugs, cutting me a sidelong look. “So our plans changed.”

“And you didn’t want to move to Austin without him?”

“The job we were moving for was his. But unfortunately, I’d already given mine up and trained a replacement in Portland. Same with our apartment. And when it came to deciding what I wanted to do next… I figured it wouldn’t be the worst thing to take some time and really think about what I wanted for myself… instead of someone else.”

“Cue the cabin gig.” Another flash of lightning breaks up the night, but when the thunder rumbles seconds later, Rowan doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’ve always wanted to come here. I thought I’d get to with Ed. And then, too soon, he was gone. I didn’t have a plan. And my mother was about to…. So, cue the cabin gig.”

14

Rowan

Once the yawning starts in earnest, we call it a night, bringing a couple of heavy candles with us as we take turns in the bathroom. Me first, then him. And I’m just crawling into my side of the bed when that rolling thunder turns to a bone-jarring boom I feel all the way through me.

Jason steps into the doorway, toothbrush in hand. Casual. Easy. A bit of paste in the corner of his mouth. “You okay?”

Forcing my fingers to release the sheet I’ve just clutched to my chest, I give him the brightest smile I can muster. “Absolutely.” Then, trying again, this time without the wheeze in my words, I add, “What would possibly make you think I wouldn’t be?”

His laugh is little more than a huff of breath and slight hitch of his lips. But even in the candlelight, I can see it there in his eyes.