Chapter 17 Practice
Practice
Harlee
My hand is on the doorknob. That’s the joke.
We’re standing in front of my very accessible, very unlocked-in-the-next-two-seconds apartment door like it’s the gates of heaven and I’m waiting for TSA clearance.
August is behind me. Close enough that I can feel him without him touching me.
The warm line of his body. The patience in his breathing.
The kind of restraint that makes you want to become a villain out of sheer spite.
Because here’s what nobody tells you about setting boundaries. Sometimes they feel less like a guardrail and more like a dare.
“Because your reputation matters more than my impulse,” he says, voice low. Serious. Controlled.
My throat tightens. I know what he’s doing. I know why. And it still pisses me off.
Because I’m not used to men who stop themselves. Men who don’t take the opening just because it exists. Men who don’t treat my silence like permission. August looks at me like he’s making a decision that hurts him.
My body is petty.
My eyes flick to his mouth before I can stop myself, like I’m trying to start a fire with nothing but audacity and a glare. He leans in. Close enough that my skin remembers him.
“Say goodnight,” he murmurs. “Before I lose the last shred of discipline I’ve got.”
I should.
I should twist the knob, step inside, shut the door. Do the responsible thing. That’s what the version of me who wants a degree, a future, and a clean exit plan would do.
But the version of me who has spent the last three weeks pretending I don’t know what his footsteps sound like in the hallway?
She’s still standing here. Feet planted. Choosing chaos in a cute outfit.
Church was the permission.
Not the kind you say out loud. Not the kind that comes with signatures and disclaimers.
Just the quiet, dangerous realization that I wasn’t imagining it.
That when Augustus James looked at me, there was weight on the other end of the pull.
Work, unfortunately, was the practice.
Because it turns out seeing him a few days a week is worse than not seeing him at all.
He’s everywhere. In meetings. In passing conversations. In the way the office subtly recalibrates when he walks through it.
And the worst part?
He doesn’t make it easy.
He’s calm. Grounded. Present. He doesn’t linger, but he doesn’t disappear either.
I’m starting to realize it’s not bad luck.
Between the Wilde Engineering program and my practicum requirements, we’re designed to overlap—executives, departments, projects. Exposure, they call it.
Which sounds great on paper.
In practice… there’s nowhere to hide.
He looks at me like a man who knows exactly what he’s doing by not doing anything.
Which, apparently, is my personal hell. I told myself I could handle it. That I was grown. That attraction doesn’t equal obligation. But attraction doesn’t turn itself off just because you asked nicely. It settles. It waits. It sharpens.
By the end of the second week, I wondered if the universe hated me.
By the third, I realized that — that wasn’t it at all. She just really like to used cosmic intervention like it was an wishlist.
He was everywhere and all consuming and every time we were in a room together he's jaw would tick like he hated me. But this afternoon I saw it. He didn't hate me at all, he in fact was restraining himself.
And once I saw that—once I felt the weight of it every time we passed without stopping, without talking, without acknowledging the thing humming beneath the surface—
I couldn’t unsee it.
So I called him.
Not because I didn’t know what I was doing.
Because I did.
Now he’s standing outside my building in October cold, black-on-black like a bad idea with a retirement plan, looking at me like he’s already lost the argument he’s about to make.
He offered me his jacket the second we stepped outside. Muscle memory. Reflex.
The leather still holds his warmth. His cologne. That clean, dangerous scent that makes my brain short out and my body start negotiating behind my back.
His gaze drops to where I’ve pulled the jacket tight around my waist, then drags back up my face. Slow. Controlled.
Like he’s trying not to touch me with his eyes.
“Cold?” he asks.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He huffs a soft laugh, the kind that says he heard the lie and decided to let me keep it anyway.
We stand there under a buzzing streetlight while the city does what it always does, indifferent to the fact that my entire life feels like it’s balancing on one stupid moment. Goodbyes already exchanged. I should be inside.
Why am I not inside?
I joke, because if I don’t, I’ll start confessing.
“Do you always hang out with employees after hours?”
His eyes flicker. That familiar, dangerous calm slides into place.
“No.”
I wait.
“Not employees, plural ” he adds, “just a particular one with a roommate named Wynter Maddox.”
I snort. “That’s specific.”
“It’s accurate.”
The laugh loosens something in me, and I hate how much I needed it.
“This is…” I gesture between us. “Weird.”
His mouth twitches.
“It didn’t have to be,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “We made it weird.”
“We didn’t make it weird,” he says quietly. “We made it… quiet.”
My throat tightens at the way he says it. Like quiet was a choice. Like he chose it every day and carried the weight without dropping it at my feet.
“Okay,” I say. “Quiet. But it still feels like there’s this invisible line taped across every hallway at work, and if I step over it, the whole building explodes.”
His gaze flicks to my mouth. Back to my eyes. “Harlee…”
I lift my chin. “What?”
He exhales through his nose, the sound almost a groan. “This isn’t fair.”
My pulse jumps. “What isn’t?”
“You standing here in my clothes,” he says, voice rougher now, “looking at me like you want to see if I’ll break.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
I take a step up, forcing him to step with me. Cold stings my cheeks, but it can’t compete with the heat under my skin.
“Just tell me what we’re doing,” I say. “Because avoiding each other for weeks like we’re in a middle school breakup? That part was weird.”
He closes his eyes. Just for a second.
When he opens them, his voice is controlled, but his honesty isn’t.
“I’m trying to forgive you without turning it into a lesson,” he says. “And you keep making it difficult.”
My throat tightens. “By calling you?”
“By pushing the line,” he says. “By making me stand on your doorstep and pretend I don’t want to ruin my own life.”
I swallow. Because… yeah.
“I called you because it's been fucking hell actin like you don’t exist,” I say softly.
His eyes flicker. “That’s not what you’re supposed to want.”
“I didn’t say it was responsible,” I whisper. “I said it was true.”
He watches me for a beat, then nods once—like he’s accepting terms to a war he didn’t start, but fully intends to win.
“Okay,” he says. “Here’s what we’re doing.”
I hold my breath.
“We stop making it weird,” he says. “We can be cordial. There’s no rule against that. I keep a certain level of rapport with my team—there’s no reason you should be the exception.”
A pause.
“You’re at James Wilde to work,” he continues. “And I’m there to teach you.”
My chest loosens—then tightens again. “And the attraction?”
His mouth quirks.
Not a smile.
Something more deliberate.
“We’re not pretending that’s gone,” he says. “We’re managing it.”
Of course.
Because men like August James don’t ignore tension.
They organize it.
I let out a small, shaky laugh. “Managing.”
“Managing,” he repeats. “Because if you think I don’t know exactly what’s happening here—what we both feel—you’re wrong.”
His voice drops, just enough.
“So we don’t feed it.”
A beat.
“Inside those walls, the rules don’t change. I’m still your boss—even if it’s indirect. And I’m not putting you in a position where that gets questioned.”
I swallow. “Is that because you’re my boss?”
His gaze sharpens.
“No,” he says quietly. “It’s because if you keep applying pressure like this…”
A pause.
“I don’t know how much longer I’ll keep choosing restraint.”
My stomach flips.
Harder this time.
“And because of that,” he adds, steadier now, “I’m going to make sure you get through this program untouched.”
Jesus.
Why does he keep making boundaries sound like a promise?
I nod slowly. “So we can agree to be friends?” he asks.
“Friends,” I repeat, testing it.
It doesn’t sound like safety.
It sounds like a setup.
He glances toward the building, then back to me.
“Good,” he says. “Then as your friend, let me get you inside before you catch a cold.”
I narrow my eyes. “And you walking me upstairs is… what? Part of being friends?”
His gaze drops to my lips. And he licks his, like he's about to bless them with mine again. Then back to my eyes. Slow and intentional.
“No,” he says.
A beat.
“That’s me taking advantage of the last few minutes I get alone with you.”
I freeze.
There it is.
Not a line drawn in the sand.
This isn’t going to be simple. It’s going to be controlled.
Drawn out. Careful. And somehow worse because of it.
By the time Sunday rolls around, Chicago has officially entered that weird October mood where the sun is out but the air is petty.
Cold in the shade. Windy for no reason. Pun intended. The kind of weather that makes you dress like you’re confused on purpose.
Wynter is dressed like the forecast personally offended her.
And I’m trying to pretend I didn’t spend all week replaying the way August said don’t like it was a love language.
Wynter’s G-Wagon unlocks with a chirp that sounds like a flex.