I rolled onto my side, punching the throw pillow into a more comfortable shape. It didn’t help. Nothing helped. My brain was a hamster wheel of Harlow-related thoughts, spinning endlessly through memories, fantasies, and fears.
The way her voice cracked on the phone tonight shattered something inside me.
I’d never driven so fast in my life. Had barely registered the road, the traffic lights, the fact that I was probably breaking about seventeen laws. All I could think about was getting to her. Protecting her. Making sure nothing touched her.
And then I arrived to discover the intruder was a fucking cat.
The laugh that escaped me was quiet, but it broke some of the tension coiling in my chest. A cat. She called me in tears because of a cat. Under any other circumstances, I would never let her live it down.
But the way she slammed into me in that hallway, trembling, crying, clinging to me like I was the only solid thing in her world… that wasn’t funny. That was everything. That was the moment I stopped pretending I had any control over this situation.
I don’t give a fuck about space.
The words came out before I could stop them. Before I could filter them through the part of my brain that was supposed to remember all the reasons this was a terrible idea.
None of it mattered in that moment.
All that mattered was her.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. She was right down the hall. Maybe fifty feet away. Sleeping in sheets that would smell like me when she woke up.
We’ll figure everything else out tomorrow.
Tomorrow, I would have to face the reality of this decision and figure out how to coexist with her in this space without losing my mind.
Because I wanted her.
I wanted to be her person.
The realization should have terrified me. It did terrify me. But it also felt inevitable, like I’d been walking toward this moment my entire life without realizing it.
Harlow Cruz. My best friend’s little sister.
When had it happened? When had she stopped being Jax’s sister and started being... this? This force of nature who made me forget every logical reason I had for staying away?
The creak of my bedroom door made me go still.
My breath caught in my throat as soft footsteps padded down the hallway. Which was ironic, considering I hadn’t slept a single second since lying down.
And then she appeared.
Harlow stood at the edge of the living room, silhouetted by the faint glow of the streetlight filtering through the blinds. She was wearing my shirt, the worn gray t-shirt I left on the dresser, the one that was way too big for her and hung to mid-thigh.
“Owen?” Her voice was small, uncertain. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “Yeah, I’m up. What’s wrong?”
She shifted her weight from one bare foot to the other, arms wrapped around herself. “I can’t sleep. I’m still a little freaked out, I guess.”
She looked so fucking cute standing there. Her blonde hair was a disaster, tangled and wild like she’d been tossing and turning for the past hour. Her teeth worried at her bottom lip in that way she did when she was nervous, and there was something almost shy in the way she wasn’t quite meeting my eyes.
I rolled onto my side and lifted the edge of the blanket.
“Come on.”
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“You heard me.” I patted the narrow strip of couch beside me. “Get over here.”
