Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
HARRISON
Idon’t even remember getting home.
One minute I was in the shower, knees on wet tile, chest caving in like someone took a sledgehammer to my ribs. The next, I was in my truck, hands shaking on the steering wheel, staring at the concrete wall of the parking garage like it owed me answers.
Now I’m in my living room. Duffel bag dumped somewhere between the front door and the kitchen. Practice jersey half out of the washer. A pair of my skates sitting on the damn counter like a psychotic centerpiece.
I can’t focus.
Can’t breathe right.
I can’t get the image of Harper’s face out of my head.
The way our eyes met.
The way she looked at me like she’s seen me a million times over the last ten to eleven years.
The way she pretended not to know me.
The way her eyes begged me not to ask about Connor.
Ten.
The kid is ten.
My hand is still shaking when I tug my laptop across the counter and open the Pucks & Blades youth league portal I probably shouldn’t have access to. Being the founder has its perks. I’ve signed so many sticks and jerseys for these kids that I barely think about it anymore.
But tonight?
Tonight, I’m digging through the parent contact spreadsheet like a man possessed.
There he is.
Connor Richardson — Age 10
And there it is, right next to his name:
Parent/Guardian: Harper Richardson.
Address: Anaheim, CA.
I stare at the address for a full ten seconds before the thudding in my chest drowns out everything else.
She lives ten minutes from me.
Ten fucking minutes.
I grab my keys without thinking.
Ten minutes later I park across the street from a beige apartment building near the marina. It’s nothing fancy but it looks safe enough. A quiet neighborhood. The kind of place I might choose if I wanted stability for a kid.
A kid who might very well be mine.
Honestly, at this point, if he’s not mine, I might be equally as devastated because that would mean she was with someone soon after we split.
Call me naive but I just don’t see how that’s possible knowing the Harper I knew back then…but then again, maybe that’s why she left me in the first place.
Fuck.
The streetlight buzzes overhead as I sit in my truck, engine ticking, my hand frozen on the door handle.
I could walk up there right now.
I could knock.
She’d answer the door, she’d see me, and I could finally ask the question clawing through my chest like a wild animal.
But instead, I stay in the truck, my forehead pressed to the steering wheel, breathing hard and trying to calm the ache in my chest.
Because I’m a coward.
Because I’m still that twenty-two-year-old kid who watched the girl he loved walk away.
And suddenly I’m right back there.
The window is open in my dorm room, warm air drifting in with the smell of cut grass and the hum of students celebrating the end of finals across campus.
It should feel like a good night. A hopeful night.
Instead, Harper is standing in front of me holding a half-zipped duffel bag, her shoulders tense, her expression carved out of something that looks like heartbreak wearing determination’s mask.
She won’t look at me.
That’s the first sign everything is about to go to hell.
“Harper…” I say softly. “You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
She swallows, jaw tightening like she’s bracing for impact. “I can’t stay, H.”
That nickname.
The one only she ever used.
It hits like a punch because it sounds like goodbye.
I step toward her, but she backs up a single inch, enough to gut me from the inside out.
“What do you mean you can’t stay?” My chest feels too tight. “We’ve got the whole summer. You’re supposed to come with me to the lake house after graduation, remember?”
Her eyes flick shut, pain flashing across her face before she forces it away.
“This summer is already spoken for.” She reaches for something on my desk—the folded letter I’ve been carrying around like a passport to the rest of my life.
The NHL Draft Combine Invite.
“You leave for Buffalo in three weeks,” she says quietly. “You’re about to get drafted. Everything you’ve worked for since you were a kid is happening, H.” Tears dripping down her sweet cheeks. “I can’t be the reason you stay behind or second-guess anything. I won’t do that to you.”
“Stay behind?” I step closer. “Babe, I’d go anywhere with you. I…I don’t give a shit about the draft. I can play hockey anywhere…anytime.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t stay.” She presses her hand over her eyes, trying to swallow back tears but failing miserably.
“I don’t want to be the thing that clips your wings before you even take off.
Hockey is your dream, H. And you deserve everything you can gain from the draft.
A whole new life. A better life. A happy life. ”
“Jesus, Harper.” My voice breaks. “You’re not clipping anything. I want you in my life. You are my happy life. You are my better life. I want it all with you.”
“You want me now,” she whispers. “But what happens if I get a job far away from you? What happens if I can’t follow you long-distance? Different states? Different coasts? Competing schedules? You’ll resent me. Or I’ll resent you. Or we’ll break later when it hurts even worse.”
She shakes her head adamantly, like she’s reminding herself of a decision she has already made. “I’d rather it be now,” she says, voice trembling. “Before you become someone everyone wants a piece of. Before I get left behind anyway.”
Left behind.
The words slice straight through my ribs.
“You’re not being left behind,” I insist. “You’re the one walking out.”
She flinches like I hit her, then steps forward and cups my face in both hands. Her touch is warm, familiar, desperate.
“I love you,” she whispers, mascara smudging beneath one eye. “God, I love you so much it scares me.”
“Then stay.”
She shakes her head again, tears spilling now.
“I can’t.”
I wrap my fingers around her wrists, holding on like that might anchor both of us. “Harper—”
She kisses me.
Deep and shaking and fucking heartbreaking.
A kiss that tastes like memories and endings and my future slipping straight through my fingers.
When she pulls back, she’s crying openly.
“Goodbye, Harrison. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
She grabs the duffel bag, wipes her cheeks, and walks out of my dorm room while the world outside keeps on celebrating.
And she doesn’t look back.
And by the time I chase her to the stairwell she’s already gone.
I gasp so hard it feels like my lungs seize. The windshield is fogged with my breath when I lift my head. Ten years, and I still feel that moment like an earthquake in my bones.
I can’t knock on her door tonight. Not like this.
So, I put the truck in drive, gripping the wheel until my knuckles ache, and force myself to go home.
But I barely sleep.
I’m early.
Like, way early.
The rink is the one place I go where I can find solace to work out my emotions.
It’s a place that doesn’t judge who I am or what I do.
I’d planned on getting on the ice before the guys showed up, if for no other reason than to burn the anxiety out of my muscles.
But when I step into the rink, someone’s already here, sitting on the bench pulling his skates on.
Connor.
That mop of dark brown curls.
Those wide, excited blue eyes.
My stomach drops straight through the damn floor.
“Hey, Coach Harrison!” Connor grins up at me, like seeing me just made his whole damn day, and something inside me splinters.
I force a smile. “Hey, bud. You’re pretty early.”
“Mom had a meeting nearby,” he says, tugging his skate laces tight.
“I told her she could drop me off early so I could get some skating in before everyone else got here. It’s cool, isn’t it?
” he asks, looking around and taking in a deep breath.
“How quiet everything is in the morning when nobody else is here? The ice looks so big when I’m the only one on it. ”
Fuck me.
Spoken like a thirty-two-year-old professional hockey player.
“There’s nothing like it, Connor. It’s my favorite time of the day.”
“Oh, really?” His brows raise and his baby blues bulge. “Am I interrupting your practice time?” He hitches his thumb behind him. “Because I can go sit down and wait and—”
“No, no, no,” I assure him with a shake of my head and a light chuckle. “There’s no practice for me today. Just preparing for all you guys.” My heart kicks against my ribs as I walk closer, trying to breathe.
“Need help with that?” I ask, nodding at his skate.
“I got it,” he says proudly. “Mom says I’m stubborn like my dad.”
Every nerve in my body goes still.
“Yeah?” My voice is barely steady.
“Yeah. She says he was good at hockey too.”
My vision blurs for a split second and I swallow hard.
“That so?”
He nods happily. “She won’t tell me anything else though. It’s annoying.”
A breath shudders out of me.
“Your dad doesn’t live with you then?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. It’s just me and mom. I’ve never met my dad.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I tell him softly, shoving my hands in my pockets. “Must suck sometimes not having a dad around, yeah?”
He bobs his head as he thinks about his answer.
“Yeah. Kinda. Mom skates with me sometimes and she helps me with hockey but…” He bows his head.
“Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be on the ice with my dad. My friends all practice baseball or football with their dads.” He lifts his head and shrugs his shoulder.
“But my mom is awesome and at least she knows how to skate.” He leans over and whispers to me, “Just don’t tell her I said this, but she’s not very good. ”
I tip my head back in laughter, visions of Harper trying to skate when we were together floating through my memories. She wasn’t very good then either.
But she tried.
And that was enough to have me eating out of her hand.
And…other parts of her.
Fuck, those were the days.
“Well, points to Mom for trying, right?”
“Yep.” He smiles and then looks out at the ice.