Then, softer—like he’s offering a future without demanding it, “When you’re ready, I’ll talk to him. I’ll take it.”
My chest physically aches, as if it’s being torn in two.
He’s trying to protect me from being collateral damage.
I whisper, “I need time.”
Grayson nods once and looks back to the ice. “Take it.”
So I do.
I pause for one second, looking over his face one more time, then I turn and walk away.
28
GRAYSON
Ifucked up. I fucked up big time, and all I can seem to do is lie in my bed and replay every stupid thing I did or said. My insomnia reaches an all-time high, and it’s my own fucking fault.
Not because my brain is spinning in its own version of the worst-case scenario, but because I’m actually living it. Will she forgive me? Will she talk to me again? Or did I completely fuck up any and all chances of us ever making things work?
I stare at the ceiling until it starts to look like something I could map out—lines and shadows and little imperfections that feel meaningful because I need something to be. The apartment is too quiet. The kind of quiet where you can hear the vent rattle and the refrigerator click and the exact rhythm of your own heartbeat—steady, steady, steady—like it’s trying to convince you you’re fine.
Maybe this is the part where she decides I ruined the only safe place she had. Maybe this is the part where she disappears. The thought makes my stomach roll, sharp and sudden, because I’m not supposed to be the guy who gets gutted by a maybe. I’mbuilt on routines. On control. On doing what I’m supposed to do even when my mind tries to sabotage me.
But Harlow isn’t a drill.
She’s a person.
A person who looks like the world costs her something sometimes, and my brain won’t stop noticing the exact places it drains her. A person with a past she carries like it’s heavier than it should be. A person I’ve grown attached to in a way that makes me feel stupidly hopeful and violently protective and—worse—greedy.
Because now that I’ve seen her,reallyseen her, it feels impossible to go back to the version of my life before her. And I don’t want to even imagine a version after her.
Want is a dangerous thing to carry when you don’t know how the story ends.
So, I drag myself out of bed before the ceiling can start giving me answers it doesn’t have. Shower. Coffee. Captain’s skate. Anything that puts me in motion, anything that makes me feel like I’m still the same guy I was yesterday—before everything cracked and turned into something I can’t unsee.
The water doesn’t fix it. It never does. It just makes me look awake enough to pass.
By the time I step onto the ice, my body moves on muscle memory. The cold air bites my lungs clean. The blade edges bite back.
For a few minutes, I can almost pretend the rink doesn’t hold a second life for me—one that lives in a forum window, in late-night jokes, in “unfortunately. you?” and “talk or quiet?” and a username that has been carrying more of my truth than I ever meant to hand anyone.
Kai runs captain’s skate the way he runs everything: sharp, efficient, no wasted movement.
He doesn’t need to raise his voice. His presence already does it.
Today, his eyes are too sharp. He clocks me the way he always does—like a teammate, like a roommate, like someone who knows when I’m off by an inch and will still call it out like it’s a mile.
A pass hops my blade because my grip is too tight. The puck taps off and skitters.
Kai glides up, effortless, like he’s made of something sturdier than the rest of us.
“You good?” he asks.
It’s casual, but it isn’t. Not really. I could lie. I’m excellent at lying. But Kai Mercer is the human version of a penalty box—you can argue all you want, but he’ll still put you in there.
“Yeah,” I say anyway.
