I glanced toward the stands, looking for Harlow…
And froze.
She was still in the stands, but she wasn’t alone anymore. Some guy had slid into the seat next to her—tall, dark hair, smiling at her in a way that made me want to rearrange his face. He was leaning in, saying something that made her laugh, his body angled toward hers.
The jealousy hit me like a slap to the face. It was a dark, possessive thing that clawed up from somewhere primal anddemanded Ido something. March up those stairs. Put myself between her and whatever this asshole thought he was doing. Make it very, very clear that she was…
Mine.
The thought was so raw, so unexpected in its intensity, that it stopped me cold.
She wasn’t mine. Not really. Not in any way I could claim publicly. We had one drunken night neither of us remembered, one incredible morning on the couch, and we agreed to keep it quiet while we figured things out. That wasn’t a relationship. That wasn’t ownership, but try telling that to the jealousy currently turning my vision red at the edges.
The guy said something, and Harlow smiled, not the smile she gave me, but still a smile.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides.
“Easy there, killer.” Bennett’s voice cut through the red haze. “You’re going to snap that water bottle in half.”
I looked down. He was right. I was gripping the plastic so hard it was buckling under my fingers, water threatening to spray everywhere.
“Who the fuck is that?”
Bennett followed my gaze and shrugged. “Jace Porter. He’s in my physics class. He’s harmless.”
“He doesn’t look harmless.”
“He looks like he’s making conversation with a pretty girl.” Bennett raised an eyebrow. “Which, according to you, you have no claim over. Remember? Nothing’s going on?”
I wanted to punch Bennett, and I wanted to throat punch Jace. I wanted to run up those stairs and put myself between them to make it abundantly clear to every guy in this arena that she was off-limits because she was…mine.
But I couldn’t.
If I walked up there and kissed her, word would spread faster than a wildfire in the dry season. Someone would tell someone who would tell someone, and by the time I made it home, Jax would know. Everyone would know, and we weren’t ready for that.Iwasn’t ready for that.
So I stood there like an idiot, watching some asshole smile at the girl I couldn’t publicly claim, and tried very hard not to spontaneously combust from the unfairness of it all.
Harlow glanced down toward the ice, toward me, and our eyes met.
Something flickered across her face. Recognition of what I was feeling, maybe. Or amusement at my barely concealed rage. Her lips quirked up at the corners, and she raised one eyebrow in a silent question.
Jealous?
I narrowed my eyes.Absolutely fucking not.
Her smile widened. She knew.
Jace said something else, and Harlow turned back to him, nodding politely. But I caught the way she shifted slightly away from him. The way she glanced back at me one more time, just for a second, like she was checking to make sure I was still watching.
I was.
I would probably always be watching.
“You’ve got it bad,” Bennett observed. “Like, really bad. Embarrassingly bad. I’m actually feeling secondhand embarrassment for you right now.”
“Thanks. That’s very helpful.”
“I try.” He shouldered his bag. “You coming to the locker room, or are you going to stand here and glare at Jace until he spontaneously catches fire?”
