Chapter 8
HARLOW
As a kid, the beach house was my favorite place in the entire world, but this weekend, it felt like a prison that I wanted to escape from. I couldn’t, though. It was my sister’s wedding. I needed to be here, even if I didn’t want to be.
Standing at the edge of the water, I sucked in a deep breath of the salty air as I watched the sun disappear behind the horizon. The tide rushed toward my toes and then retreated again.
The sky was always beautiful this time of day. There was something about watching the sunset that made me feel closer to my mom, like she personally painted the deep purples bleeding into orange, and the last streaks of pink just for me. Like it was her way of communicating with me.
His footsteps in the wet sand were soft, but I felt them more than I heard them. There was a particular awareness that prickled along my skin anytime he was near, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Owen.
“Hey.” He stopped beside me, shoulder to shoulder. So close his warmth was radiating off him.
“Hey.” I kept my eyes on the horizon as the colorful sky faded to black.
Neither of us said anything. We just stood there, two people drowning in emotional quicksand.
“Cam knows,” He finally said, and my heart dropped to my stomach. “About what happened. Not…” He exhaled sharply. “Not that it was you. I didn’t tell her that part.”
That definitely didn’t make me feel any better; in fact, I think it made it worse. We were still keeping secrets, but I also didn’t want to hurt her more than I already had. There was this pit in my stomach that I couldn’t even describe other than it felt awful.
I turned to look at him and instantly felt worse. He looked terrible. Not in an obvious way, his face was still annoyingly symmetrical, but there was something hollow in his eyes. There was tension in his shoulders, making him look as if he were bracing for impact.
“Is she okay?”
Owen laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Define okay?” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. “She asked for space.”
“That’s… fair.”
“Yeah.” He dropped his gaze to the sand, watching as he dug holes in the sand with his toes. “It is.”
The guilt twisted in my stomach. The same crushing weight I’d been carrying since it happened. Every time she smiled at me like I was her friend, it felt like another betrayal. Every time I saw her across the room, it felt like I was swallowing broken glass.
“I feel terrible,” I admitted quietly.
“Join the club.” Owen’s mouth quirked up, but it wasn’t quite a smile. “It’s exclusive.” He bumped my shoulder with his. “Just me and you. We have jackets. They’re ugly, but mostly honest.”
A surprised laugh escaped me.
“She didn’t seem surprised, though.” Owen was staring forward at the water now. “About us ending things, I mean. It was almost like…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
“Like what?”
“Like she was relieved.”
Everything Syn said came back to me, about Cam and Trystan being endgame and about Owen being the odd man out. It seemed like everyone saw it except the three people in the middle of it.
“Did you know?” I asked carefully. “That she was still… That she had feelings for Trystan?”
His jaw tightened, and for a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. He exhaled slowly.
“Yeah.” The admission was quiet; I barely heard it over the waves. “I knew.” He kicked the sand. “We were always better as friends. We never should have started dating.”
“Then why did you?”
The last light faded from the sky, leaving us in that blue-grey twilight.
“Because I didn’t want Trystan to have her.
I didn’t think he deserved her.” I stared at his profile; his jaw worked.
“I know how stupid that sounds,” he continued.
“How immature, like I’m some caveman beating on my chest over territory I don’t even want.
” He finally looked at me, and the vulnerability in his eyes made my throat tight.
“I didn’t want her, Harlow. Not really. Not the way you’re supposed to want someone.
But I couldn’t stand the thought of losing to him. ”
“That’s…” I paused, searching for the right word. “Really unhealthy.”
“I know.”
“And a little pathetic.”
“I know that too.”
“And really unfair to Cam.”
“Yep.” He nodded, accepting the judgment like he thought he deserved it. Which he did. “Got anything else?”
I almost smiled. “I’ll save the rest for later.”
We stood in silence again, but this time it felt different. Not so heavy, like somehow the confession had lightened something, even if it didn’t fix it.
“So what does this mean?” The question burned in my throat, clawing its way out despite every instinct screaming at me to keep my mouth shut. “For us, I mean. Is there any chance…”
“Harlow.” His tone was a warning, like a door was closing. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Ask? Wonder? Hope?” The words spilled out before I could stop them, laced with bitterness that I didn’t want to show, but I couldn’t stop it. “Because I’ve been doing all three for longer than I want to admit, and I’m kind of…”
“We can’t.” He cut me off. “We can never be more than friends.”
“Because of Jax.” It wasn’t a question.
“Because of Jax,” he confirmed. “Because of Cam. Because of everything.” He turned to face me.
“I’m not… I’m not the settling-down type, Harlow.
I don’t do relationships well. Clearly.” He gestured at the house behind us.
“And I don’t want a repeat of Cam and me. I don’t want to hurt you like that.”
Too late. He was hurting me now, but I didn’t say that. I lifted my chin and forced my expression into something that I hoped resembled acceptance instead of devastation.
“Right. That makes sense.”
“Harlow…”
“No, really.” I stepped back, putting distance between us. “You’re right. It would be complicated and messy. And we’ve got enough of that going around.”
He reached for me, and I moved back again. If he touched me right now, I would break, and I would never be able to put myself back together.
“I should go check on… something.” I gestured toward the house. “Wedding stuff. Kaia probably needs help with… things.”
“Harlow.”
“Good talk.” I backed away. “Really cleared the air. Very productive.”
“Har…”
“See you at the rehearsal dinner.”
I turned and walked toward the house, even though I wanted to run.
So many years of waiting. Hoping. Imagining how it would feel to have Owen look at me the way I looked at him.
And now I knew that would never happen.