Chapter 4
OWEN
Harlow had been dodging me for days, leaving me no choice but to lurk outside her classroom like a stalker waiting to have the most uncomfortable conversation of my life.
The classroom door swung open, and I sucked in a breath, straightened my spine, and tried to look like a guy who had his shit together.
A few students trickled out with backpacks slung over their shoulders and earbuds in their ears. Then a few more. A group of girls who were laughing about something, and a guy who looked like he had just woken up from a nap.
Harlow emerged, and my heart did a weird little flutter-squeeze that I ignored because it was Harlow. She was off-limits.
Her long, blonde hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, with strands framing her face. She was wearing tight, dark, ripped jeans, an oversized grey sweatshirt, and white sneakers.
She looked effortlessly beautiful.
She was smiling one of those bright, unguarded smiles that crinkled at the corner of her eyes. The kind of smile that was so contagious, I found myself smiling, and for half a second, I thought it was for me.
It wasn’t.
My stomach dropped as I followed her gaze to the tall guy walking beside her. He was over six feet, with dark hair that looked like it was styled to be messy, and an athletic build, not hockey, because I’d recognize him, but maybe a football player.
Jealousy hit me square in the chest and squeezed until I could barely breathe. I had zero, actually less than zero, rights to feel that way, but it didn’t stop the feeling.
“Harlow.”
Her head snapped up, blue eyes locked on mine. Her smile evaporated. “Owen?” She blinked once before her gaze shifted to Captain Perfect and then back to me, her expression passing through confusion, recognition, and ending in dread. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk.” My gaze lifted to the guy, letting every ounce of territorial bullshit I had no business feeling bleed into my stare. Get lost, dick.
He got the message.
“Uh, I’ll, uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck, giving an awkward laugh. “Catch ya later.”
He didn’t exactly run, but his departure had an abort mission quality to it.
“What do you want, Owen?” Her tone could’ve frozen the rain mid-fall.
“Like I said,” I stepped into her personal space. “We need to talk, and you’ve been avoiding me.”
“Gosh, I wonder why.” She turned on her heel, ponytail swaying, but I caught her arm, stopping her.
I pulled her close, lowering my voice. “We need to talk.” She jerked her arm out of my grasp, and I let her. “Do you want to do it here, in front of everyone, or somewhere more private?”
She glanced around at the handful of students still lingering in small groups under various awnings, waiting out the rain. “Fine,” she sighed, shoulders sinking in defeat. “The third floor of the library is always empty.”
I nodded, gesturing forward. “After you.”
The rain was coming down harder now, but the path from Harlow’s classroom to the library was covered all the way to the entrance.
She started walking, and I fell into step behind her, my eyes betraying every sense of decency by dropping to watch the sway of her hips.
Don’t be a creep. Don’t be a creep. Don’t be…
“Who was that guy?” I kept my tone casual.
She glanced over her shoulder, catching me mid-stare, and my eyes snapped up so fast I nearly gave myself whiplash. Her eyebrows arched. “What guy?”
“The guy you were, uh…” Smiling at her like he’d hung the moon for her. “...talking to after class.”
She stopped so abruptly that I nearly slammed into the back of her and whipped around. “Why do you care?”
I shrugged, going for nonchalant. “I just do.”
“Oh… Well, as long as you have a super specific reason.” She rolled her eyes as she reached forward and yanked the door open. “Let’s get this over with so I can move on with my day.”
The library swallowed us into its hushed atmosphere. We passed the circular desk, where a bored student worker scrolled through her phone, and climbed the stairs to the third floor.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked because apparently I was determined to win an award for the dumbest question ever.
She didn’t answer, just kept walking deeper into the library until we were cocooned between floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books nobody had checked out in decades.
She crossed her arms over her chest, cocked her hip against the shelf, and fixed me with a look that could have killed. “Okay. What is it?”
The defensiveness radiating off her was almost visible.
“Is what happened between us going to change everything?” I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Our dynamic?”
Her head jerked back like I’d just slapped her. “Dynamic?” A bitter laugh escaped her. “You mean the one where I’ve spent years pretending I don’t have feelings for you while you pretend I don’t exist?”
“You have a crush on me?” The question came out too hopeful, too eager, completely derailing whatever point I was trying to make.
“Had.” She practically snarled. “Past tense.”
A grin tugged at my lips despite the emotional landmine we were navigating. “You sure about that?”
“What do you actually need?” she snapped. “I have Professor Stambaugh’s Eco class in fifteen minutes, clear across campus, and she locks the door if you’re late.”
“Okay, but we’re circling back to the crush thing…”
“Owen.”
Right. The reason I was there. I rubbed the back of my neck. “I, uh, so the thing is…”
“Spit it out.”
“I don’t think we used a condom.” The words tumbled out in a rush.
Her eyes went wide, and all the color drained from her face as a mix of shock, horror, and ending with panic flickered across her features.
“I tore my room apart,” I continued, needing to fill the silence. “I checked everywhere. Twice. So I figured I should, you know, mention it. In case you’re, um…” I gestured at her midsection and immediately regretted it. “Not on birth control or whatever. Which you might be. Are you?”
She shook her head slowly, and my heart plummeted into my shoes. “But… I took Plan B the next day,” she added quickly. “Since I also couldn’t remember and didn’t want to, you know, have a crisis.”
“Oh. That’s… Smart. Really smart.”
“Yeah, well, one of us had to be.” She shifted her weight, arms still crossed. “So. Can I go now?”
“Harlow, I don’t want this to be weird.”
“I think it’s a little late for that because it’s definitely weird.
” She let out a long exhale. “We got black out drunk and had sex that neither of us can remember. I don’t even know if it was good.
Was it good? Don’t answer that.” She pressed her fingers to her temples. “This is exactly why tequila is evil.”
“I don’t think it was just tequila…”
“I don’t care if it was battery acid mixed with unicorn tears, the point is…” She stopped, regrouping. “Look, I think we should avoid each other for a while. Until you figure your shit out.”
The words stung more than they should have. “Figure my shit out?”
“Yeah. Your feelings. Your weirdly aggressive questioning about guys from my class and whatever’s made you stand in the rain for an hour to ambush me.”
“It wasn’t an hour.”
“Owen.”
“Right.” I swallowed hard. “What about the wedding?” Jax’s wedding was days away, and we were both in it. It would be hard to avoid each other completely.
“That’ll be…” She trailed off, huffing out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, that’ll be a nightmare. We’ll have to try to avoid each other without making it weird. So basically, we go back to normal. Where you pretend I don’t exist again.”
“That’s not what I want, Har.”
Her expression softened for a second before she reconstructed it.
“I need to go.” She straightened, adjusting her backpack. “Professor Stambaugh will lock the door soon.”
I nodded, stepping aside to let her pass.
She took three steps before stopping, her back still to me. “For what it’s worth…” Her tone was quieter now. “I don’t think it’ll ever not be weird. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe we were never supposed to not be weird.”
Then she was gone, her footsteps echoing down the stairwell, leaving me alone with hundreds of books and the growing certainty that I was completely, irreversibly fucked.