Chapter 26 Grayson
GRAYSON
Iget no sleep, but what’s new?
My body does that thing where it lies down and pretends.
Like if I keep my eyes closed long enough, my brain will get bored and wander off.
It doesn’t. It just circles the same drain.
The same handful of words that won’t stop repeating until the window starts to gray and I’m staring at the ceiling with that hollow, post-sleepless night ache behind my eyes.
By the time my alarm goes off, I’m already awake. Already tired. Already braced for impact.
I shower because it’s the closest thing I have to a reset button. Hot. Cold. Hot again. Like if I shock my nervous system hard enough, it’ll stop trying to build patterns out of everything.
It doesn’t.
The second I close my eyes, I see her.
Not the big moments. Not the hallway. Not the way my hand felt when her fingers slid into mine. Not the kiss or the moment she fully let go in my arms.
The small ones.
The way the little details finally lined up and clicked into place, so clean that it made me sick.
I know.
I know she’s LittleTooMuch.
I know I’m the one who keeps writing back in the dark like I don’t have a face, like I don’t have a name, like I don’t have a real life that’s inches away from colliding with hers.
After I get dressed and walk into the kitchen, I realize Kai has already left. If I’m late, he’ll kill me, and Coach will bag skate me until I want to die. At this point that would be less painful than telling her the truth.
Focus, Bennett. Hockey first. Everything else later.
That’s the rule. It’s always been the rule. The problem is it’s cracking right down the middle, and I’m standing on it like I don’t feel the split.
The rink smells like cold air and damp concrete and the kind of routine that lives in your bones.
Guys drift in with that usual energy that’s basically just Sunday’s hangover dressed up as effort. Weston chirps at somebody about their hoodie being “emotionally depressing.” Coleson walks in like he owns the oxygen. Asher looks annoyingly awake, stretching like his joints aren’t full of sand.
Kai is already here.
Of course he is.
Captain Mercer doesn’t show up late to anything. He shows up early so he can get mad at the universe in peace before anyone else arrives.
He’s at the boards with coffee, hood up, eyes sharp like he’s already watching film in his head. He doesn’t talk much before practice, but he sees everything anyway.
Including me.
His gaze flicks over my face like he’s taking inventory—eyes, posture, the tiny lag in my focus.
I pretend I don’t notice.
In the locker room I throw my gear on, focusing on the sting in my fingers as I tie my skates tighter than necessary. Most of the guys are on the ice already, so I grab my stick and try to lock in for the next two hours.
Coach Graves blows his whistle like he’s trying to punish air for existing. “Let’s go. No excuses. No slow starts. If you’re tired, skate faster.”
Weston mutters, “That’s not science.”
Coach somehow hears him. “Cooper, you want to talk, you can skate laps until your lungs divorce your body.”
Weston shuts up immediately.
We start with a puck-support flow drill—three-man weave out of the corner, into the neutral zone, then a quick give-and-go at the blue line before a shot in stride. Simple on paper. Automatic if your head’s where it’s supposed to be.
Mine isn’t.
My legs feel fine. Lungs are fine. Hands are fine.
My brain is the problem. It keeps drifting, not to the idea of two worlds colliding, but to her face. To what it’s going to look like when she knows. To the first thing she’ll say, because it won’t be said in anger.
Worse, it’ll be blame.
Was I stupid? Was this a joke? Were you just using me? How long have you known?
The thought hits hard enough that I fumble the next touch pass. The puck clips the heel of my blade and skitters away like it’s trying to escape me.
Coach’s whistle slices through the rink.
“BENNETT.”
I pivot fast, skating toward him. “Yeah?”
He points his stick like a weapon. “You sleepwalking?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, because that’s what athletes say when they’re not fine.
Coach’s eyes narrow. “You look like hell.”
I swallow. “Just tired.”
“Then wake up,” he snaps. “Your timing’s late. Your reads are late. You think scouts care if you’re tired?”
No. They don’t. And I don’t want to be the guy who gets in his own head and wastes a season because he can’t handle real life.
I nod once. “Got it.”
Coach blows the whistle. “Again.”
We run it again.
For thirty seconds, hockey drags me back into my body the way it always does. The cold bites my lungs. The puck stays glued to my blade. The world narrows into angles and timing and simpler choices.
Then my brain flicks to November 21.
And everything widens again.
Owen’s birthday sits in my head like a pain point you can’t stop pressing.
It’s coming, just like it does every year.
It always comes. It isn’t grief that scares me anymore—I’ve lived with grief for years.
It’s the way it changes shape around you without warning.
The way it turns an ordinary day into a trap.
The way it makes your chest feel too small for your lungs and your body too large to hide in.
And now her birthday sits tangled up in it, like the universe has a fucked-up sense of symmetry. Like it’s daring me to either heal or break.
I take a slow breath.
Not now.
Not here.
Coach switches us into special teams with almost no warning. “Power play. Units.”
Asher drops into his crease, calm as always, tracking pucks like it’s his own form of meditation.
Kai hops over the boards first, center spot, stick tapping once like a metronome. Weston takes the left half-wall. I slot in on the right side.
It should be muscle memory, and it is—until it isn’t.
Kai wins the draw clean, and we set up. Puck goes up top, swings down low, quick bump back to the half-wall, then a seam opens for a heartbeat.
I hesitate, just a fraction, but long enough for the lane to close.
Coach’s whistle shrieks again. “Bennett. Shoot the puck!”
Heat crawls up my neck.
Kai’s head turns just enough to find me, and while he isn’t angry, his expression sends a clear message.
Get out of your head.
We reset.
This time I don’t think; I shoot the second the lane appears. The puck rockets off my blade and snaps the net behind Asher’s shoulder.
Asher doesn’t flinch. He just looks over like he’s bored with all of us.
Weston skates past, bumping my shoulder. “There he is.”
I don’t answer, because if I open my mouth, the truth might fall out. That I’m not here, at least not fully. I’m holding onto a secret, and the longer I hold it, the more it feels like a choice, and the wrong one at that. I’m starting to hate the kind of man that choice makes me.
Coach cycles us again, harder now, quick resets, constant movement, no time to breathe. I move. I skate. I execute.
But the lag stays.
Because once you know something that could potentially ruin a relationship before it even begins, especially one you want so badly, you carry it everywhere.
And Harlow—
Harlow will feel the shift the second I’m near her again, and I hate the idea of causing her any pain more than I hate the idea of losing her.
Coach blows the whistle hard. “Line it up!”
We skate to the boards, sweat cooling too fast under our gear.
Coach’s gaze sweeps the line like he’s counting bodies. “Some of you look like you’re coasting,” he says, eyes landing on Coleson. “Some of you look like you think you’re above structure.”
Coleson’s grin doesn’t move. “All good, Coach.”
Coach’s eyes narrow. “You want to talk, Richards?”
Coleson shrugs like consequences are optional. “Just saying it’s a light day.”
Kai’s head snaps toward him.
Coach’s whistle hangs at his lips. “You want heavy, I can give you heavy.”
Coleson holds up his hands. “Relax.”
Kai’s voice cuts through, quiet and razor sharp. “Don’t tell him to relax.”
Coleson turns toward Kai, amused. “Cap—”
“Don’t,” Kai says, his voice holding steady, but his tone giving away that he is royally pissed off. “On this team, we respect our coaching staff. If you think you’re too good for that, I’m sure you can find a very comfortable spot on the bench.”
The line goes still.
Coleson’s grin falters a fraction, but he recovers fast. “Yes, sir.”
Kai doesn’t blink. “Good.”
Coach nods in approval and blows the whistle. “Back to work.”
We run conditioning.
My legs burn. My lungs scrape. My vision goes a little edge-blurry, the way it does when your body is close to its limit.
That part feels good.
Physical pain? I understand.
And the whole time, underneath it, the truth keeps pulsing through my chest like a second heartbeat—
I’m going to have to tell her.
After practice, I go to the training room and get taped for a bruise that shouldn’t matter. I sit there while the athletic trainer talks about hydration and rest, as if I don’t already know their spiel by heart.
I nod at the right places, but I don’t actually hear any of it, because my head is fully consumed by one image.
Harlow’s face when she realizes that I’m the guy she’s been talking to online since late August.
Not the moment she figures it out—she’s already close. I’ve felt her edging toward it in the way she would wait long periods between responses, in the way she’s been pulling back from the forum more and more, the way her words have become careful like she’s afraid to break something.
The moment she hears it from me, with all the weight that comes with a name and a face and the fact that I’ve been safe for her in the dark but also in the daylight.
I leave the training room and start walking across campus toward the edge, where it’s quieter, where trees seem to swallow sound, where there are benches and space and exits you can see.
The place I’d choose if I were her. Because if I’m going to tell Harlow the truth, I need to do it in a place where she can breathe through it.
Somewhere neutral. Somewhere public enough she doesn’t feel trapped, and quiet enough she doesn’t feel watched.
I sit on a bench and stare at my hands. They look normal, not like the hands of a guy who might be about to blow up someone’s safe place. They’re just hands.
And that’s the thing.
I didn’t mean to do this, but intent doesn’t erase the outcome, and now that I know for sure, now that I’ve put the pieces together and there’s no plausible denial left, every day I delay telling her becomes selfish.
I’m keeping the comfort, keeping the connection, keeping the door open in the dark while I reach for her in the light.
Owen would tell me to stop being a coward, and not gently. He’d make a joke. He’d probably steal my fries while he said it, and then he’d tell me the truth I’m trying not to face.
If she trusted you with the worst parts of her, you don’t get to protect yourself by hiding.
I pull my phone out, thumb hovering over the forum icon.
My chest throbs with a different kind of ache.
There’s a message waiting. The same way it’s been waiting for over a week.
I don’t open it, not yet. It’s not that I don’t want to, but if I open it, I’ll answer.
I’ll keep being him. I’ll keep being safe.
And then what? I’ll show up to tell her the truth and shatter her with my face.
No.
I slip my phone back into my pocket and take a few calming breaths.
I have to tell her today. Not tomorrow, not after I’ve spent the night running through the perfect things to say to at least attempt to make this better.
Today.
She deserves the truth, and she deserves the rawest version of the truth, led by whatever it is I’m feeling in that moment.
My legs are heavy and my mind loud, but it’s loud in a way that feels like forward motion instead of spiraling. The truth is coming, and I’m done pretending I can skate around it forever.
I’m just terrified that when I finally say it out loud, she won’t want me in any of her worlds.