He holds my gaze like he’s deciding whether to push. He doesn’t. Not on the ice. Not in front of the guys. Captain Mercer locks certain things down, even when he’s suspicious. It should make me grateful. Instead, it makes me feel like a bomb with a timer.
We run a few quick reps—high tempo, short shifts, puck movement that forces your brain to stay present or get exposed. Weston chirps when someone’s head dips. Asher sits in front of the net like a statue made of focus, tracking every shot like it personally offended him.
Normally, this is where my head clears.
Today, my brain keeps drifting anyway.
Not to the forum.
Not to the words.
To the look on Harlow’s face when I said it out loud.
To the way her body went still, like it always does when something is too much.
To how badly I wanted to reach for her—and how I didn’t.
Because I’m not allowed to take. Not from her. Not from anyone.
The skate ends. Guys peel off. Laughing, sweating, complaining like it isn’t a privilege to hurt this way. Kai’s gaze catches mine again as I step over the boards. It’s not a glare. It’s not anger. It’s a warning without words.
Get your head right.
I nod once.
I leave the rink with my chest full of noise and my mouth full of things I can’t say.
The day is a blur of class and film and pretending I’m normal. The kind of normal that sayssure, I’m finewhen you’re actually holding a secret that isn’t finished hurting people. Except that isn’t the only thing trapped inside.
Owen’s birthday sits on the horizon like the weather. Not a thought I can outskate. Not a date I can pretend isn’t coming. He would’ve been twenty-four. People say “would’ve” like it’s a kind way to remember him. It isn’t. It’s a hook. It catches you and drags you back to the moment you still don’t know how to carry.
I don’t talk about Owen much. Not because I don’t want to. Because if I do, I can feel the world tilt. Like if I say his name out loud, something in me will crack, and I won’t know how to put it back together in time for practice, for class, for being a functional human.
I’ve kept him where I keep everything that hurts: in a small box in my mind. It doesn’t mean I don’t think about him; I do, probably more than is healthy, but I don’t share him openly. And now Harlow exists in those same spaces, which feels like betrayal and relief all at once.
By late afternoon, I’m back at the apartment, standing in the kitchen staring at my phone like it’s a door I’ve used too often.
The forum icon sits there. Familiar. A habit. A pressure valve.
My thumb hovers.
I don’t open it.
It’s too difficult to see her name and not talk to her. I promised her space. I don’t want to be the kind of man who says he’ll give someone room and then reaches for them anyway the second it gets hard. I’m not proud of a lot of things, but I’m proud of control.
But I can’t delete it. I can’t, or maybe I won’t, because some part of me knows, even if it’s completely delirious, that we’ll work through whatever this is.
So I set the phone down.
I try to eat. Try to do something productive. Try to be normal. Try not to let the silence get too loud.
I don’t sleep enough to call it sleep.
It’s more like my body shuts down in short intervals out of spite, then boots back up the second my brain remembers it has new material. Like it’s afraid that if it lets go for too long, something will slip through its fingers.
Her name.
Her mouth.
