CHAPTER 12
harley
Ihad zero survival instincts. None. Whatsoever. All I had was a desperate need to run to Maverick. So desperate that I defied my mother. Sneaking out after everything was a bad idea—I knew that. I just couldn’t make myself care.
I couldn’t just leave Maverick without seeing him one more time. Not without saying goodbye. Not without… explaining or… something.
I snuck through the dark house, minding every turn to make sure I didn’t run into my mother. Going out through the laundry room was the easiest way to go. Only the help went in there.
Which was why finding my father leaning against the washing machine with a glass of scotch in hand was a shock.
Christopher Lowell was a beast of a man to the rest of the world, but they never saw the broken side of him.
The man who crumbled in his own space, falling down a bottle at every chance.
He was miserable, and I understood why. For as hard as my mother was on me, she was even harder on him.
He drank in secret to deal with it. I caught him sometimes, and he usually apologized.
Most days, he just apologized for me catching him drinking.
When he was really drunk, though, he’d apologize for all sorts of things.
He spilled secrets about his relationship with my mother, the family business, and all his regrets in life.
He’d apologize for putting me on the same track he was on and apologize for failing me.
But when he sobered up, we went right back to pretending that none of it had happened.
I swallowed hard as I waited for his judgment, knowing how he bent and swayed to my mother’s will. He considered me for a long moment while I just stared at him like a deer in headlights. If my mother found out…
“I saw nothing,” he murmured, his glass of scotch touching his lips once more and his head tipping toward the door slightly. I was almost gone when he called out softly, “And, Harley?”
I turned, waiting expectantly. He was going to change his mind… or worse, tell her. It couldn’t be this easy.
“Be safe, please,” he said softly. The tension in my shoulders eased slightly as I nodded and escaped while I could.
After the way I left him, I knew Maverick wouldn’t be at home—not if he could avoid it. I could only guess how the conversation with his brother had gone, but I knew Aidan had likely left Maverick scrambling for a safe place. That place was the beach. His spot.
He sat with his bare feet shoved in the sand, and his knees were pulled to his chest so his chin could rest there.
The wind off the water lifted his hair and pushed at his shirt.
If he cared, he didn’t show it. That tortured gaze of his was hard-focused on the still water.
Something in my chest twisted to see him like that.
He looked small, smaller than I’d ever seen him.
I sank into the soft sand next to him, kicking off my shoes and trying to get comfortable. The restless anxiety surging through me made that task impossible. I dug my fingers into the sand, looking for something to do, while my pulse thrummed uncomfortably loud in my ears.
I knew what I had to do. I just didn’t want to.
We said nothing and just sat there, two people broken by our own circumstances.
There was a kinship in that. It was always like that with him.
I couldn’t explain it, but the quiet felt safe with Maverick.
Not empty. Not awkward. Just… comfortable, like we were both allowed to exist there without pretending the world was fine.
“Are you okay?” I asked finally as I glanced at him. There wasn’t a mark on him, thankfully, but Aidan’s backlash wasn’t always physical. The psychological scars were worse in most ways.
“I’ll be fine,” Maverick muttered. I waited for him to say something more, but he offered nothing. My heart cracked open while I worked up the nerve to say the words I had to say. The ones that would change everything. The ones I didn’t want to say.
But I had to.
“I’m leaving,” I told him, the words falling out of me.
His head tilted in my direction as he watched me closely.
That look on his face only made it all worse.
“My mother… she’s making me move to the city with my grandfather…
I’m not… meeting the expectations put on me.
I have to do better. Be better… I have to go. ”
Saying it out loud made it permanent, ripping apart any idea of a future we had together.
A painful silence stretched between us, tension constricting my chest. The expression on his face was unreadable, which was somehow worse than him being angry with me.
Every breath stuck to my lungs, and I struggled to maintain my composure.
The seconds dragged on slowly, each one a slow assault on my anxiety.
“What if you stayed?” Maverick asked softly.
“What?” I stared at him, dumbfounded, his words tumbling through my head on repeat.
“I mean it,” he whispered. “What if you stayed? I know it’s not… the mansion life, but we could figure it out… just you and me.”
What if I stayed?
For just a moment, something reckless surged to life inside me. I pictured it without meaning to—a life where every moment was mine to define. No expectations. No suffocating under the weight of my family’s reputation. A life that was just me and Maverick and whatever we built for ourselves.
I sucked in a sharp breath as breathing became practically impossible.
A million and one questions tumbled through my head.
What would staying look like? Would I go to school?
Work? Where would we live? How would we live?
I wouldn’t have any money, and neither did Maverick. How would we figure it all out?
And my mother…
How would she take it? That singular thought made my blood run cold. How would I explain it to her? Make her understand? I could already hear her voice in my head, ripping me apart for just having such thoughts.
I just…
“I can’t do that, Maverick,” I said. I didn’t know how. I watched how he shut down, the light fading behind those haunted eyes, and he turned away from me. Something inside me followed suit, breaking a little as I hurt him. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t,” he interrupted, his voice tense. “Just… have a nice life, Harley.”
“You don’t understand…” How could I make him understand?
“I understand enough,” Maverick snapped and fell silent.
It was final, leaving no room to discuss this further. My heart lodged in my throat. I didn’t want that with him. I didn’t want that for him. I wanted to close the distance between us and tell him that it’d be okay. That we’d find a way to make this work.
That I could be brave enough for him.
But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to be.
Instead, I just sat next to him, hugging my knees to my chest, as I stared out at the water with him. In the silence, my heart fractured, leaving little pieces of me scattered on the beach I didn’t know when I’d return to. And the worst part was knowing that I’d done it to both of us.