Page 85 of Breakaway Hearts

My legs give out and I collapse onto the bathroom sink, with nothing to hold me up except Owen, who buries his face in the crook of my neck, thrusting a few more times before he comes as well.

He doesn’t look up, but I stare at us in the mirror, both out of breath, him holding me up as much as he’s using me to stay upright, and I ache with how badly I want to be someone who could give in to this. To him. Who could trust that he’s not going to break my heart, my body…betray me.

Instead, I have a sinking feeling, a fear, that it’s only a matter of time.

“I’ll see you around,” I say almost as soon as he pulls out, lowering my dress and leaving him there, possibly feeling used and confused, but I don’t trust myself to fight the romantic shit, and really, we probably only had a minute or two before Jay would have banged on the door, having a heart attack when he couldn’t find me anywhere else.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Owen

Nothing to tell

Iwalk into the house and find Savannah in the kitchen with Dave. “This makes my heart so happy,” I tell them. “Are those churros?”

“For Miss Mabel,” Sav agrees, half-heartedly swatting my hand when I grab one.

“How’s the new book?” I ask, covering my mouth with my hand, but I overdid it with the dip and can feel chocolate dripping down my chin.

“That’s attractive,” Dave points out.

“The book is going well,” Sav answers. “I want to fix a few things, but I should be sending you guys a draft within the next few weeks.”

“You don’t send it to his new teammates too, right?” Colt asks, coming out of the garage with a bag of potatoes, which could mean Spanish omelets.

“I would die if any of them find out. Most of the WAGs are super nice, but one of them asked me why I didn’t just do online courses this year so I could support Noah the way he deserves.”

“Did you name a character after her and give her a horrible death?” I suggest.

“I write romance,” she reminds me, but we know. Sav has a top-secret pen name where she writes hockey romances, and we were some of her first readers. She wanted us to check the hockey bits, but we ended up reading the whole thing, and those books are addictive. She’s killing it and we’re incredibly proud of her, even if we can’t tell anyone.

“Speaking of romance…” Dave says.

He’s talking about me, because I just pulled out my phone, but that’s not what this is.

“Fuck off, asshole,” I say with love.

“She finally gave him her number, so the thing never leaves his hand,” Colt shares.

“Madison?” Savannah springs up, super excited. “Are you two⁠—”

“We’re not,” I stop her, but she doesn’t look like she believes me.

“He wishes they were,” Colt shares. “Madison’s just too smart for that.”

She is, but somehow…things are great. I don’t want a girlfriend, but I do want to spend a lot of my time with Madison, and this is how that happens. She gave me her number so we could coordinate hookups, but like in real life, she answers any questions I ask. Usually with sarcasm, or to tell me she isn’t going to respond, but she always does. Right now, she’s at the library, working on an article about drinking, like knowing your limits, how alcohol affects your body, how to tell if your friend had too much. It’s so fascinating she let me walk her home from the shelter last night so we could keep talking about it.

“I’m still salty you didn’t tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I blatantly lie.

“Imagine my surprise when the girl Owen pointed out as a friend of Jason’s who might come to games shows up at my kickboxing class and proceeds to…”

I’m hanging on every word, waiting to hear what Maddie said, but Sav just turns and looks me right in the eye.

“Nothing to tell, huh?”

“Ooh, that’s cold,” Colt acknowledges, giving her a high-five.