Chapter 14
HARLOW
Who the hell did he think he was?
The question had been rattling around my skull like a pinball ever since I peeled out of the parking lot, knuckles white on the steering wheel, jaw clenched.
He didn’t want me, but he didn’t want anyone else to have me either. Letting out a loud, frustrated growl, I slapped my steering wheel. He was so freaking frustrating.
I hadn’t talked to Owen since the night I walked away, leaving him on the dance floor. He had made it very clear that I was only an option when he was drunk and only for one night. He wanted me to be his secret, and I wasn’t interested in that type of relationship.
It had been a month, and I was still angry. I knew he was sorry, but I didn’t care. I wanted to move on, and I thought I had a real chance to do that this year since Jax was gone and Owen didn’t want me. I was wrong.
I swerved into Greg’s parking lot and cut the engine, staring at the neon Budweiser sign flashing in the window. The bar was a dive, but it was cheap, close to campus, and most importantly, it was where Owen’s teammates were.
The truth was I wasn’t really interested in any of Owen’s teammates, but when he told them I was headed home like a possessive boy… No, like a possessive brot… That wasn’t right either. Owen lost the like a brother title when I spent the night in his bed.
He was acting as if he had some claim to me and what I did. He didn’t, and I was going to walk in there with my head held high and prove to him that he didn’t control me. That I was perfectly capable of having a good time without his permission.
The anger carried me across the parking lot and into the bar.
I scanned the room.
Owen wasn’t there yet. Maybe he wouldn’t show up.
I spotted his teammates clustered around a high-top near the dartboard, laughing about something, beers already sweating rings onto the table. I squared my shoulders, smoothed down my hair, and walked over.
“Hey, guys.”
Four heads turned in my direction.
“Oh.” Stanley’s eyebrows lifted slightly, as if he were surprised I actually showed up. “What’s up, Harlow?”
He looked away before the words finished leaving his mouth, suddenly very interested in the label on his beer bottle.
Brandon and Ryder mumbled something under their breath that might have been a greeting, but their gazes slid past me like I wasn’t even there.
Logan at least attempted a smile, but it was tight and uncomfortable, lasting only half a second before he returned to what he was doing before I arrived.
It was the complete opposite of the vibes he was giving me at the rink.
The silence stretched.
I stood there, arms crossed, waiting for someone, anyone, to acknowledge my existence.
Nothing.
Stanley cleared his throat. “So anyway,” he said, turning back to the group, dismissing me, “like I was saying about Coach’s new drill...”
The conversation resumed without me. I might as well have been invisible. Except this was worse than being invisible. I was being ignored.
My stomach sank.
This was Owen’s fault. Whatever he’d said to them after I left, whatever threats he’d made, they’d taken it to heart. I wasn’t fair game anymore.
Anger twisted in my gut, but I wasn’t ready to walk away.
I grabbed an empty stool at the end of the bar and ordered a Coke because getting carded right now would be the final humiliation.
Minutes crawled by.
The door swung open, letting in a gust of cold air and the unmistakable sound of Owen’s voice.
He was mid-sentence, talking to someone behind him, but his gaze swept the bar, looking for me, I realized when our eyes met.
Something flickered across his face, relief, maybe, or satisfaction, before he started walking toward me.
“Thanks for that.” I slid off my stool, throwing a five-dollar bill on the table for my Coke.
His brow furrowed. “Thanks for what?”
“For isolating me even more.” I brushed past him, my shoulder clipping him hard enough to make a point, before I pushed through the door into the parking lot.
The night air hit my face, and I sucked in a breath, trying to keep the stupid tears from falling because I refused to cry over this. Over him.
The door banged open behind me.
“Harlow.” Owen’s footsteps crunched on the gravel. “Hey. Stop.”
I kept walking toward my car, fishing my keys out of my pocket. I wanted to get in my car and drive away before the tears broke free. This was all too much.
“Harlow.” His hand closed around my elbow, spinning me to face him. “What the hell are you talking about?” His brows raised. “Isolating you?”
I yanked my arm free, and he released me. “Don’t play dumb. This is what you wanted, right?”
“I’m not playing anything.” Frustration bled from every word. “I have no idea what you’re…”
Anger radiated off me. “Your teammates,” I shouted, anger radiating off me as I gestured at the bar behind us.
“The ones you threatened so they barely looked at me when I walked in. The ones who made me feel like I had the plague because God forbid anyone talk to Harlow Cruz without your written permission.”
His jaw tightened. “I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?” I laughed, but it came out bitter. “From having friends? From having a conversation?”
“From guys who would use you and throw you away.”
I huffed out a humorless laugh. Says the man who slept with me one night and the next day instantly regretted it, but I didn’t say that. “That’s not your call to make.”
A car drove by on the main road, headlights sweeping over us before disappearing into the dark.
“You don’t get it,” Owen said, running his fingers through his hair. “Those guys…”
“Are the only people on campus who still talk to me.” The words ripped out of me before I could stop them. “I thought this year would be different since Jax was gone.”
He flinched.
“Everyone left.” Something splintered in my tone, and I hated how weak I sounded, but it was as if everything had finally come to a head, and I couldn’t stop it from exploding now.
“Do you get that? Everyone. Jax and Kaia moved. Syn went with them. Trystan and Cam are on tour, gone for months, and I’m stuck here taking economics and anatomy classes that I don’t even care about. ”
The words kept coming, the dam finally breaking as a hot tear streamed down my cheek.
“My dad is traveling with Liz, and I’m happy for them, I am, but…
” I wiped away a tear with the back of my hand.
“I’m alone in that house. That huge, empty house with all those bedrooms and no one in them.
I eat dinner by myself. I watch TV by myself.
I fall asleep to the sound of nothing because there’s no one there. ”
The parking lot was quiet except for my heavy breathing and the thump of bass from inside the bar.
“Everyone left me.” I dropped my hands, forcing myself to meet his eyes. “And now you’re making sure no one new can get close. So thanks. Really.”
Owen stood frozen, his expression shifting through something I couldn’t read. His cocky arrogance had disappeared.
“They left me, too.”
Standing there, I stared at him, something inside me twisted painfully. We were just two people who were left behind, standing in a dive bar parking lot, finally seeing each other clearly.
“I really am sorry.” Owen stepped into my space, and I didn’t move away. “For the wedding. For the bar. For being such a colossal asshole about everything.”
“Owen…”
“I know I’ve made a mess of everything, but… you’re not alone. You still have me.”
The hope that flickered in my chest was almost painful.
I wanted to believe him so freaking badly it was like a physical ache, spreading through my ribs and settling somewhere near my heart, but I’d been burned before. By him.
I shook my head slowly.
“That might have been true.” My voice came out quiet. “If we hadn’t gotten drunk and slept together.” I swallowed hard.
His face crumpled. “Harlow…”
“I have to go.”
I turned and walked to my car, gripping my keys so hard they bit into my palm. The lock clicked open, and the door groaned on its hinges.
“Harlow, wait.”
I ignored him and slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and pulled out of the parking lot without looking back. In my rearview mirror, I could see him standing there, watching me drive away to the house that would be dark, empty, and silent when I got home.
The complete opposite of what it had been my entire life, and it sucked.