“Syn? What’s wrong?”
A pause. The kind of pause that comes before bad news, the kind that stretches long enough for your imagination to spiral through every worst-case scenario.
“Has Owen told Jax about you two yet?”
The ice spread from my veins to my chest, freezing my lungs mid-breath. “No. We’re flying out at the beginning of next week. We were going to tell him and Kaia in person.” The words came out too fast, tumbling over each other. “Why? What’s going on?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Syn. You’re freaking me out.”
“Jax knows.”
Two tiny words that detonated like a bomb in the middle of my carefully constructed plans.
“What? How? We’ve been so careful…”
“I came home early from the shop.” Syn’s voice was tight, controlled in that way she got when she was trying not to make things worse. “I heard him on the phone. He was... Harlow, he was furious.”
No. No, no, no.
“What happened? How did he find out?”
“Someone sent him a video. A text, I think. You and Owen were making out at some party or something.”
The frat party.
Someone had recorded it.
Someone had sent it to Jax.
“Oh shit.” I pressed my free hand to my forehead. “Oh shit, shit, shit.”
“Harlow, breathe.”
“I can’t breathe.” I started walking again, faster now, practically jogging toward my car. “How mad is he? Scale of one to ten?”
Syn was quiet for a moment. “Maybe a twelve?”
“That’s not helpful.”
“You asked.”
I reached my car and fumbled with the door handle, my hands shaking so badly that I dropped my keys twice before managing to unlock it. “What exactly did he say?”
“I didn’t catch all of it. But from what I heard...” She sighed. “He’s mad because Owen is supposed to be his best friend, and he’s been lying to him.”
My stomach dropped. It was actually months that we’d been lying. “We were going to tell him…”
“I know. But he doesn’t know that.”
She was right. We should have told him sooner. We kept finding excuses, but at the end of the day, we’d been lying.
And now it was blowing up in our faces.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I said, already jamming my key into the ignition. “But I’ve got to go. I need to warn Owen and see if we can get ahead of this somehow.”
“Harlow, wait…”
