My lungs seize.
He exhales hard. “I can try to do better. To give you more space. But only if you tell me what you need.”
The wordtrylands like a gift. It’s honest. It means he’s going to put in the effort, even if it’s not something he can truly promise me in this moment.
I stare at my plate. Then I pick up my fork and take another bite.
Chew. Swallow. Not for him.
For me.
When I look up again, Kai’s eyes are on my mouth like he’s watching the proof. I don’t get angry. Not this time. Because I understand what he’s really watching for. The sign that I’m still here.
I set my fork down, needing a hug from my brother. I walk around the counter and wrap my arms around him. It takes him a minute, but his arms come around me, hugging me tightly to his chest.
“You can still ask me if I’m okay, and if I say I’m fine,” I add, throat tight, “you can ask again. But…once. Not ten times.”
A small twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Only once.”
“Only once,” I confirm.
He exhales slowly, like he’s letting himself unclench.
“Okay,” he says again, and this time it sounds less like surrender and more like agreement. “I can do that.”
18
GRAYSON
The first thing I notice is that my body reacts before my brain even catches up.
Before logic. Before rules. Before the mental spreadsheet I’ve been keeping since freshman year that tells me exactly what happens when you cross lines inside a room built on loyalty and blood and unspoken oaths.
My chest shifts when she walks into a room now. In a physical way—tight, then loose, then tight again, like my body can’t decide what to do with how she makes me feel either.
And that’s a problem.
Because Harlow Mercer is not supposed to be a problem.
She’s Kai’s sister. She’s off-limits. She’s the line Kai dug so deep into the ground you’d need to be blind not to see it.
She’s also…complicated.
Not because she’s dramatic or flirty or trying to be anything.
She exists like the world costs her something sometimes, and my brain won’t stop noticing.
And lately, quiet is the only thing I want.
Practice is supposed to put a stop to the relentless spin of my thoughts.
It always has. Since I was a kid. Since before I understood grief or pressure or the kind of fear that shows up in your chest at night and sits there until your ribs physically ache. Since before the two people in the world who were supposed to love me most just stopped caring or even trying.
On the ice, there’s no room to spiral. No room to replay conversations. No room to think about what someone’s eyes looked like when they realized you weren’t a joke, or a rumor, or a harmless interaction.
There’s only the next stride, the next pass, the next read.
Except today my brain is being an asshole.
