Page 8 of Romeo

“What about my friends?”

“Tell them whatever you want except my name. Tell them Fiona has people who care about her. Tell them treating her like shit is a bad idea. I don’t particularly care how you phrase it.”

He nodded.

I stepped back and smoothed the front of his shirt where I’d wrinkled it.

“There. Almost respectable again.”

Joseph stared at me.

“One more thing.”

His shoulders stiffened.

“If you ever make her cry like that again, I won’t stop at a conversation.”

This time, he believed me without needing details.

“Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good man.”

I turned toward the exit.

“Wait.”

I looked back.

Joseph glanced toward the floor before meeting my eyes again. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

For the first time since I found him, he sounded less like a kid caught doing something shitty and more like one who actually understood that he had.

“Then learn from it.”

He nodded.

I left him there and headed back outside.

The cold December air felt considerably better than the overheated hallway. I pulled on my helmet and climbed onto the bike, taking a moment before starting the engine.

That should’ve been enough.

Fiona didn’t need me policing every boy who looked in her direction. She sure as hell didn’t need to know a thirty-one-year-old biker had walked into her school the morning after meeting her and scared the piss out of her almost-date.

Josie would call me insane.

She’d be right.

I started the engine.

The certainty from last night hadn’t gone anywhere.

That was the problem.

I had spent my entire life hearing stories about La Croix men and women who recognized forever before they had any logical reason to. I’d laughed at every one of them.