Chapter 17
OWEN
The ice was the only thing that made sense, because my personal life definitely didn’t. It was currently in the middle of a crisis.
I pushed the puck across the rink, my blades slicing into the fresh surface.
Breathe. Move. Don’t think about her.
That last part wasn’t working. She was the only thing that I could think about, and nothing about it made sense.
I flicked the puck against the boards, watching it ricochet back, and my mind drifted right back to where it had been stuck all night.
Harlow, cross-legged on the living room floor, and the way her hair escaped from her messy bun and framed her face.
The vulnerability in her voice when she talked about being alone and the way her eyes lit up when she smiled at me.
You have to step back and let me live my own life. Date, or whatever, with whoever I want.
And like an idiot, I’d agreed.
I wound up for a slap shot and sent the puck flying toward the empty net.
But what was I supposed to do? Tell her no? Tell her she couldn’t date whoever she wanted because the thought of someone else’s hands on her made me want to put my fist through a wall?
Yeah, that would go over great. Hey, Harlow, I know I’ve given you every possible mixed signal in the universe, but please don’t move on because I’m not done being confused about my feelings.
I retrieved the puck and started skating laps, pushing harder, faster, like I could outrun my own thoughts if I moved quickly enough.
I knew why I agreed. It was the right thing to do.
She deserved freedom, deserved to find someone who wasn’t a complete emotional disaster.
Someone who could actually give her what she wanted without all the baggage.
Without Jax looming over everything and without the complicated history of a drunken night, neither of us could remember.
But knowing it was the right thing to do didn’t make it feel right. It felt nauseating.
Every time I pictured her with someone else, something dark and possessive twisted inside me in a way I didn’t even know was possible. The jealousy was irrational. It was stupid, and I had no claim on her, no right to feel this way.
But I did anyway.
I stopped center ice, bending over my hands on my knees, chest heaving. The silence pressed in around me, amplifying every thought I had been trying to ignore.
Maybe this was my punishment. Wanting something I could never have and having to watch from the sidelines while she found happiness with someone else. Maybe that’s what I deserved for making such a mess of everything.
The rink doors opened, echoing across the ice.
I glanced up, expecting to see the morning maintenance crew or maybe a coach. A figure emerged from the tunnel, blonde hair pulled back in a high ponytail, figure skates dangling from one hand.
Harlow.
My gaze followed her. She hadn’t noticed me yet. She was too busy lacing up her skates on the bench near the boards, and I took the moment to... look at her.
She was wearing black leggings and a matching fitted tank top. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, and even from across the rink, I could see the delicate furrow between her brows as she concentrated on her laces.
She was so fucking beautiful.
She stepped onto the ice, wobbling slightly before finding her balance.
Her gaze swept across the rink, finding me, and for a brief moment she hesitated.
Her body tensed, like she was considering turning around to leave, and I couldn’t blame her.
After everything, I understood if she wanted to avoid me entirely.
Something shifted in her expression, and she started skating toward me.
A smile tugged at my lips before I could stop it. The kind of smile that came from somewhere deep, that I couldn’t control, no matter how hard I tried.
“You’re up early.” She glided to a stop a few feet away.
“Couldn’t sleep.” I shrugged, spinning the puck with my stick. I left out the part about not being able to sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about her. “You?”
“Same.” She wrapped her arms around herself like she was cold. “That empty house gets really loud at night.”
My chest tightened at the thought of her in that house alone at night.
I knew what that felt like. One day you’re arguing with your sister about hogging the bathroom, and the next you’re alone.
Harlow’s situation wasn’t exactly the same as mine.
She still had her family. They just weren’t living in the same house as her anymore, or even the same state, but I understood because even though I still had Jax, Kaia, and Cam in my life, they weren’t here. It wasn’t the same. It was lonely.
“The offer still stands,” I said quietly. “The spare room.”
She shook her head, but there was less conviction in it than before. “Still a bad idea.”
“Probably.” I flicked the puck toward her feet. “Want to skate with me?”
She looked down at the puck, then back up at me, one eyebrow raised. “I’m a figure skater, not a hockey player.”
“I noticed.” I nodded toward her white skates with their toe picks. “I promise not to judge your inferior skating abilities.” I winked at her.
“Inferior?” Her eyes narrowed, but her face twisted with amusement. “I could skate circles around you.”
She was probably right, but I wasn’t going to admit it.
“Literally, maybe. You’re good at the twirly stuff. But speed? Power? That’s a different game.”
Her eyes widened. “The twirly stuff.” She repeated it flatly, but a hint of a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth. “You mean the athletic discipline that requires years of training, incredible core strength, and the ability to land triple jumps without shattering your ankles?”
“Sure. That.” I grinned. “The twirly stuff.”
She rolled her eyes, but she was fighting a smile now. This felt almost normal, like before, when we could just exist in the same space without the heaviness of everything pressing down on us, suffocating us. I wanted, no, I needed this more than anything.
“Fine.” She pushed off, skating past me with casual grace. “But don’t come crying to me when I leave you in my inferior dust.”
I abandoned the puck and followed her, matching her pace easily. Side by side, we carved loops around the rink; the only sounds were our blades slicing into the ice.
“So,” she said after a moment of silence. “Last night was... nice.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She glanced over at me. “It felt like old times. Before everything got so...”
“Complicated?”
“I was going to say weird, but that works too.”
Everything had gotten so complicated, all because I couldn’t get my shit together, and I honestly had no idea how to fix any of it, but I wanted to.
We skated in silence for another lap.
“Thank you,” she said suddenly. “For coming over and for the pizza and for...” She trailed off, shaking her head. “For not making it weird.”
“I thought you said it was already weird.”
“It is. But last night was...” She searched for the word. “Somehow less weird.”
I laughed. “I’ll take it.”
She smiled, and I felt it with my whole heart.
“Show me something,” I said impulsively.
“Like what?”
“A figure skating thing. One of your twirly moves.”
She gave me a skeptical look. “You want me to perform for you?”
“Not perform. Just...” I struggled to explain what I wanted. I wanted to see her in her element. “Show me what you love about skating.”
She studied me like she was trying to figure out if I was serious.
“Okay,” she said finally. “But you have to stay over here. I need space.”
I raised my hands in surrender and drifted toward the boards, giving her the center of the rink.
Harlow sucked in a deep breath, rolled her shoulders, and then she was moving.
It was different, watching her like this, not from the shadows of the stands like some creepy stalker, but up close, invited.
She built speed with long, powerful strokes, her form perfect, and then she launched into a spin that started slow and accelerated until she was a blur of blonde hair and graceful limbs.
When she came out of it, arms extended, she transitioned perfectly into a series of footwork that I couldn’t begin to understand but knew was technically demanding.
She was breathtaking.
Not just physically, but the way she moved, the joy that radiated from every ounce of her body.
She finished with a slower spin, and when she stopped, her chest was heaving, her cheeks were flushed, and she was smiling.
“Well?” She skated toward me, slightly breathless. “Still think it’s just twirly stuff?”
I never thought it was just twirly stuff. I knew all the work and dedication that Kaia, Cam, and Harlow had put in over the years.
“That was...” I shook my head, genuinely at a loss for words. “That was incredible.”
“Your turn,” she said.
“My turn?”
“Show me something. A hockey thing.”
I laughed. “Hockey isn’t exactly graceful.”
“Neither are you, but I’m trying to be supportive here.”
“Ouch. The insults. I’m wounded.”
“You’ll survive.” She tilted her head and waved her hand. “Come on. Show me what all those years of skating in circles chasing a rubber disc have taught you.”
I huffed out a laugh. “It’s a puck.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s really not…” I stopped, shaking my head at her smirk. “Fine. You want to see hockey?”
I retrieved my stick and the puck, then took off across the ice. I wasn’t showing off exactly, okay, I was absolutely showing off. I pushed my speed, crisscrossing through imaginary defenders, and ended with a hockey stop right in front of her, sending a spray of ice shavings toward her skates.
“Hey.” She jumped back, laughing. “You got ice on me.”
“Sorry.” I grinned, not sorry at all. “Hockey thing.”
“Hockey thing, my ass.” She brushed at her legs, still smiling. “You did that on purpose.”
“Maybe a little.”
We were standing close now.
“Teach me something,” I whispered because I didn’t want this to end.
Her eyebrows rose. “Teach you what?”
“A figure skating move. Something basic.”
“Owen, you’re wearing hockey skates. You can’t figure skate in hockey skates.”
“Then teach me something I can do.”
She studied me for a moment, a crease forming between her brows. Then she held out her hand.
I stared at it.
“Take it,” she said. “I’ll teach you crossovers. Properly, not the sloppy way hockey players do them.”
“Our crossovers are not sloppy.”
“They’re functional. That’s not the same thing.” She wiggled her fingers impatiently. “Are you scared?”
I dropped my stick and slid my hand into hers, positioning us side by side with our joined hands between us.
The contact vibrated through me, and I was suddenly hyperaware of every point where our skin touched. She didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she hid it well.
“Okay,” she said, all business now. “The key is in the extension. Hockey players cross over for speed, but figure skaters cross over for flow. You want it to look easy even when it’s not.”
I loved this side of Harlow. I was starting to realize I liked a lot more sides of Harlow than I wanted to admit.
She demonstrated the movement with her free leg. “See how I’m extending through my ankle? That’s what creates the line.”
I tried to mimic it, stumbled, and nearly face-planted.
Her hand tightened on mine, steadying me. “Wow. That was...”
My face split into a grin. “Graceful?”
“I was going to say tragic, but sure, we’ll go with graceful. Let’s try it slower.”
We moved together around the curve of the rink.
She guided me through the movements with minimal mockery.
Her hand stayed in mine, anchoring me, and I found myself paying less attention to my footwork and more attention to the way she bit her lip when she concentrated or the way her hand fit perfectly in mine.
I spent a lot of time on this ice growing up, mostly with Jax, Kaia, or Cam, and it never felt this right like I was exactly where and with who I was supposed to be for the first time in my life.
“Better,” she said after a few laps. “But you’re still thinking too hard.”
“Story of my life.”
She glanced up at me. “What do you mean?”
“Thinking too hard.” I shrugged, not sure why I was admitting that. “I do it constantly. Overthink everything until I’ve convinced myself out of what I actually want.”
“And what do you actually want?”
We stopped skating, standing together near center ice, hands still clasped.
“Harlow...” Her name came out rough.
She slid closer. Or maybe I did. Maybe we both moved at the same time, drawn together by something neither of us could control. Her chin tilted up, her lips parting slightly.
My free hand came up to cup her cheek. Her skin was cool from the cold, soft beneath my calloused palm. Her eyes fluttered half-closed as she leaned into the touch.
I wanted to kiss her so badly it hurt.
I could imagine exactly how it would feel, her lips against mine, cold at first from the arena but warming quickly. The taste of her, finally, after all this time. The sound she would make when I pulled her closer.
Over her shoulder, I caught a glimpse of the arena clock. 6:45 a.m. The rink would be full of Coaches and skaters soon. An audience for whatever this was, whatever we were becoming.
And all I could hear was the voice in my head, the one screaming at me: She deserves better. She deserves someone who isn’t her brother’s best friend. Someone who didn’t already hurt her once. Someone who isn’t you.
I pulled back.
“Owen?”
“I’m sorry.” The words came out strangled. “I can’t… We can’t…”
“Right.” She slid back, and her hand slipped from mine. “Of course.”
“Harlow, it’s not that I don’t want…”
“You don’t have to explain.” Her voice was flat, controlled, and somehow that was worse than if she yelled. “You’ve made yourself very clear. Multiple times now.”
“That’s not…”
“I should go.” She was already skating toward the exit, her posture rigid with defeat. “Thanks for the lesson.”
“Har...”
She was gone.
“Idiot,” I muttered.
Standing here now, all I could think was that doing the right thing had never felt so completely wrong.