Chapter 58
Willow
The rink buzzes with the usual noise—wheels on polished concrete, low laughter, a whistle here and there as Coach yells something vaguely motivational from the sideline.
It’s all normal. Except…Landon’s quiet.
He’s standing near the bleachers with his arms folded, his expression unreadable. He watches us warm up with an almost hesitant edge to him. Like he’s here, but not really here.
“Landon looks like he’s about to propose or throw up,” one of the girls mutters under her breath.
“Maybe both,” Daisy quips.
I smile—until I catch Landon’s eyes. Something’s coming. And I feel it before he even opens his mouth.
“Can I get everyone’s attention?” he asks.
Our wheels slow. A few girls stop and coast toward the center, curiosity pulling them in.
Daisy glances at me. I offer a tiny shrug, though my chest already feels tight.
“I need to say something,” Landon continues, “and it’s not about Nationals.”
Some of the team members raise their eyebrows. A few smirk, expecting a motivational speech, maybe a joke.
No one’s expecting what he actually says.
“I knew Jinx before I agreed to help your team. I knew she was on this team and offered because of her,” he says, eyes on the group, not on me. “We weren’t just friends. We were scent matches.”
You could hear a pin drop. A few of the girls glance at me, and I want to sink into the floor—or slap a hand over his mouth to stop him from sharing our past with them.
But they’re my girls. If anyone deserves to know, it’s them.
So I swallow hard and press my lips together, steeling myself for the words I know are coming.
“She was mine,” he adds, quieter now. “For a little while. And I was hers. And then I ruined it.”
No one says a word. I feel the moment when the shift happens—when the easy trust the team had for him starts to fracture.
“I kissed someone else,” he says plainly. “I did it to push her away. To make her think I didn’t care. And then I let her leave.”
Daisy’s head snaps toward me. “Jinx…?”
I nod. My voice isn’t ready yet.
Landon clears his throat and steps forward slowly, pulling something from under his shirt. The delicate chain catches the overhead lights.
My necklace.
The one I forgot when I hastily packed my bags.
He slips it off and holds it out to me. There's no pleading on his face. Only plain offering and regret.
“I found this on my nightstand,” he says, just loud enough for the team to hear. “She left it behind when I hurt her, and I’ve kept it ever since. I didn’t know what else to do…except hold onto it and remember what I did.”
A fresh wave of pain rolls over me, and I suck in a breath.
I don’t move to take it. Not yet. My heart’s too loud in my chest, pounding in my ears, drowning out the sounds of my team as they absorb what he’s saying.
“You’re the reason she came back wrecked,” Daisy says, stepping forward now as if she's ready to do battle for me. Protective. Fierce.
“You broke her,” someone else adds.
“I know,” Landon replies, not flinching at the accusation. “And I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m not asking for anything.”
He looks at me again, softer this time. “I just needed to say it out loud. So she’d know I remember everything I did. And I regret all of it.”
The team closes in around me.
But all I can look at is the necklace still hanging from his fingers. A piece of something we never got to finish.
The silence hangs between us.
He steps forward and lays the chain in my hand, closing my fingers around it. His touch sends an electric shock up my arm. Why does he still affect me?
No one moves. No one speaks. My fingers are still curled around the delicate chain, the metal warm from where it had been against Landon’s skin.
I can feel Daisy’s eyes on me first.
Then I hear her voice, calm but dangerous enough to cut glass. “You hurt her, and then thought it would be a good idea to come and train with her team? That’s fucked up.”
Landon straightens his shoulders, his lips pressing into a thin line. “Yeah.”
“You’re the reason she never talks about Georgia,” she adds, stepping closer, protective heat rolling off her.
Landon nods once.
It’s surprisingly brave of him—not backing down even as every pair of eyes on the team turns to ice. Even Knox, who normally couldn’t care less about anything, is frowning at him now. Cheese mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like unbelievable.
I force myself to breathe.
“It’s fine,” I say quickly. Too quickly.
“It’s not,” Daisy snaps, turning toward me. “Jinx, what the hell? You’ve been showing up here acting like you’re fine, but this? This is the guy who—?”
“It’s fine,” I say again, firmer this time. “He’s not lying. He messed up. But he’s owning it.”
There’s a beat of silence. Then Daisy crosses her arms and glares at Landon. “I don’t care if you found God and learned to cook, if you screw with her again—”
“—you’ll break up the rink so you can bury him in the new cement,” Knox offers. “And we will help.”
Landon gives a bitter smile, but he doesn’t disagree.
I hold up the necklace. “He didn’t come here expecting me to take him back. He came here to give something back. That’s more than I thought I’d ever get. And he’s here to help us now…”
The girls settle, not fully trusting, but not pushing it either. The protective anger hasn’t left their faces—but it’s muted now. Contained.
Landon nods again, swallowing hard, then he steps back, leaving me with my team. His gaze drops to my feet, unable to hold my eyes.
Daisy exhales and looks at me, quieter this time. “You okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. I really am.”
Even if my hands are shaking.
Even if my heart is still caught somewhere between the past and whatever the hell the future’s supposed to look like.
The others peel off slowly, giving me space. I stand there a little too long, the necklace still curled in my palm. I don’t know what to do with it now that it’s mine again.
Daisy stays right beside me without a word.
We don’t look at each other.
Just stand, shoulder to shoulder, in the quiet echo of the rink.
After a long beat, she says, “You really loved him.”
It’s not a question.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Stupid, right?”
“No.” Her voice is soft. “Just…hard to come back from. Loving someone like that.”
My throat tightens. “I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.
I come here for practice every day and pretend he didn’t mean everything to me—for a week.
” I let out a short, bitter laugh. “A week. That’s not a long time, but it felt long enough.
I thought that if I ever saw him again, it would destroy me.
But it didn’t. It just…made everything heavier. More real.”
Daisy shifts a little closer. “Just because the team knows he’s an asshole doesn’t mean you have to make any kind of decision. I’m all for using him to win Nationals and then kicking him to the curb. You don’t have to figure it all out today.”
I give a short laugh, rough at the edges. “Tell that to my overachiever brain.”
“Tell it to the three alphas who look at you like you hung the damn moon. I’m sure they’ll figure it out for you.”
That makes me go still.
“Don’t think I haven’t seen it,” Daisy adds, nudging me. “You’ve got a whole pack playing guard dog around you, and not one of them blinks without checking where you are. Making sure you’re okay. That’s worth way more than some scent match who broke your heart.”
“They’re…complicated.”
“Yeah. So are you. Sounds like a perfect situation to me.”
I look at her finally, and she smiles. “But you’re also kind of amazing, and whatever you decide—whether it’s them, or Landon, or none of it—you’ve still got us. This team. Me.”
The knot in my chest loosens, just a little.
“I know,” I say. And I mean it.
Daisy bumps her shoulder against mine. “Now c’mon. Let’s finish warm-ups before Coach Crusher starts swinging her whistle like a weapon.”
I tuck the necklace carefully into my pocket, take a breath, and follow her out onto the rink.
The music pulses through the speakers, but my focus is somewhere else entirely.
Every pivot, every cutback, every shoulder-check—I throw myself into it. I need to move, need to get out of my head before the emotions catch up. My skates bite into the track, an extension of me, and I let them carry the weight for a while.
The team rallies around me without saying a word.
Daisy sticks close, flanking me like a bodyguard one minute, throwing sarcastic one-liners the next.
Every joke makes me laugh just enough to breathe again.
Cheese and Knox flank us during drills, their usual competitive banter dulled with something gentler today—an unspoken understanding that maybe I’m not ready to spar, just yet.
Crusher barks instructions, her whistle loud as ever, but her eyes linger on me a little longer than normal.
And through it all, Landon stays near the edge of the track, hands on his hips, watching. He doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t correct me. He watches me skate as though it’s the last time he’ll ever get to.
When I finally pull to a stop at the water station, sweat slicking my skin and my chest heaving, I see him pick up his duffel. He catches my eye across the rink.
And for the first time since I left him behind in Georgia, there’s no heat in his gaze. No desperation. Just something quieter. Resigned. He lifts his hand in a subtle wave—just for me—then turns and walks toward the doors.
He doesn’t look back.
I don’t think for even a second before I go after him. I rip off my helmet, tugging it free from the tangled mess of my hair, and shove it into Daisy’s hands.
“Jinx?” she asks, startled.
But I’m already moving. My skates still on, I push toward the exit.
Hunter intercepts me before I reach the doors, stepping in front of me, his hand out. “Willow,” he says, low, careful. “Let him go.”
“No,” I bite out. “Not this time.”
His jaw tightens, but he must see something in my eyes—something stubborn and unshakable—and he nods once, stepping aside.
The warm air wraps around me the second I push through the rink doors, thick and heavy like the breath I’ve been holding finally exhaled.
Landon’s halfway to his car, duffel slung over one shoulder, when I call out, “So that’s it?”
He slows, then turns. “What?”
I storm toward him, skates catching on pebbles, heat prickling at my skin, and it has nothing to do with the weather. “You drop that bomb on my team, say all that shit as if it’s some kind of closure for you, and then just walk away?”
Hunter’s voice echoes behind me, low and warning. “Willow—”
I throw a hand up without looking back. “Don’t.”
Landon exhales through his nose, jaw going tight. “What else was I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know,” I snap. “Maybe something that doesn’t leave me standing there like a fucking open wound in front of my whole fucking team. God, you’re such a selfish asshole.”
His eyes flash. “You think this was easy for me?”
“Spare me,” I bite. “You’re the one who kissed someone else. You’re the one who let me walk away. And now you’re the one who’s decided you need closure, so you blow up my whole fucking world. For what?”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You weren’t.”
His chest rises and falls. It’s obvious he’s barely keeping himself from breaking something.
“Jesus, what do you want from me, Willow? You knew I wasn’t ready, and you pushed anyway. I screwed up, yeah—but so did you.”
His words gut me wide open. Clean. Brutal. Honest.
I freeze. Because he’s not wrong. And he sees it. The way I flinch. The sudden stillness in my body.
His face changes instantly, regret tightening his expression. “Shit. I didn’t mean—”
“No,” I say. “You’re right.”
The silence that falls after is heavier than any scream.
He steps forward, slower this time. Gentler. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just...didn’t know how to be who you needed.”
My throat burns. “And I didn’t know how to wait.”
We just stand there for a beat, that single truth stretching between us like a fragile bridge.
“I know it doesn’t fix anything,” he says. “But I’m not done, Willow. I’m not walking away. Not how you think I am.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“I’m not done fighting for you.” His voice softens. “I know you’ve got alphas who look at you like you’re their whole world. But I look at you like you hung the stars. I always have. I just didn’t know how to show it. I’ll do better. I’ll be better.”
My breath catches. The anger is still there, low and simmering. But underneath it…something else. Something that aches.
“You don’t get to decide that now.”
“I’m not deciding anything for you,” he says. “I’m just telling you—I’m still here. And I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to let me back in. But I’ll be here, proving I’m worth the space if you ever do.”
He starts to turn away again, slower this time, deliberate. Giving me the opportunity to call him back.
I don’t.
Not today.
But the echo of his words follows me all the way back inside.
And it doesn’t feel like the end. The wall I built around my heart cracks just a bit.