Page 26 of Heal Me, Love Me

“Then what is?”

“The point is, you didn’t tell me,” he snapped. “We’ve been living in his house and training under him, and I had no idea.”

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“It matters! It mattered all this time we’ve been together, and I had no clue you used to fuck the guy who owns the gym where we train and the house we live in.”

“You’re right. I should have told you. I wanted to.”

He scoffed. “Sure, you did.”

“You may not believe me, but I did. I was just worried you’d be pissed that I’d been with other people while you hadn’t.” Immediately, I knew that’d been the wrong thing to say.

“Other people? Who else at the gym should I be aware of?”

“No one.” I shook my head.

“I guess that’s something.” He rolled his eyes.

“I get it. You’re pissed at me. Obviously, I should have told you all of this earlier, but that doesn’t change the fact that you thought I’d kiss someone else to get back at you.”

Rowan took a breath, then another, as if trying to calm himself. “I didn’t know what to think.”

“So you assumed the worst?”

“It’s hard not to when that’s exactly how it looked. You didn’t even want people knowing we were together, and then I see someone else kissing you. What the hell was I supposed to do with that?”

I pressed my lips together, not sure how to respond.

“I’m not going back to Titan,” he continued.

It took me a beat to process the words because my head was still stuck on Rowan believing I could do something that ugly to hurt him. “What?”

“I can’t stay there,” he stated. “I’m not going to train somewhere where I have to see him every day. I’m not going to live in his house after learning what he was to you.”

The sound of the river behind us filled the air as I held his gaze. I understood his reasoning, but Titan was more than Devon. It was the gym, the guys, the other coaches, and the first real support system I’d fought like hell to build around myself.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” he continued. “I need to find another place to train.”

“Rowan—”

“No.” He shook his head, cutting me off. “I know what you’re going to say. That we can make it work. That it doesn’t have to be weird. That it’s in the past and I shouldn’t care.”

I didn’t want to dismiss how he felt, and I sure as hell didn’t want to force him to live in a house owned by a guy who’d kissed me without asking. I didn’t want him walking into that gym every day, feeling like an outsider in a relationship I’d insisted we keep hidden. But I also didn’t know how to walk away fromTitan. Not now. Not when everything was finally starting to fall into place for me.

“You don’t know shit,” I grumbled.

Rowan might not have heard me, because he didn’t argue. Instead, he suggested, “We could leave. Find a new gym and start over somewhere that isn’t tied to him.”

Start over.

I could almost imagine it. Us in our own apartment. A new gym where no one knew our history, where there was no Devon. A place where Rowan didn’t have to sleep or train under a roof that made him feel like an idiot for trusting me.

It should’ve been simple.

But it wasn’t. Because a few hours before, I’d signed a contract that was going to change my life.

“I met with an agent this morning,” I blurted out.