Chapter 25 Chapter 24
Logan POV
I don’t remember walking off campus.
I don’t remember unlocking the front door of the Ice House.
I just remember Cole’s stupid, steady voice echoing in my head:
You’re too wrapped up in chasing shiny, shallow things to see what’s real.
Like hell I am.
My fist hits the wall of my room before I realize I’m even moving. Not hard enough to break anything — just hard enough to feel something.
Pain’s clean. Simple. It doesn’t argue back or look at you like it expected better.
Unlike her.
I drag a hand through my hair, pacing like the ground might give if I stop moving.
Harper laughing with Ryan Brooks.
Harper saying don’t in the lecture hall like I was a threat, not a—
No. Don’t say it. Don’t think it.
Harper standing in my doorway last night, face open and raw before it shattered.
Then Cole.
Asking her out.
I taste metal. My jaw aches from clenching.
He has no right to—
I have no right either.
Right. Wrong. None of it matters because I can’t get enough air in my lungs.
I grab my keys just to feel them in my hand. Something solid. Something real.
From downstairs I hear, “Where the hell are you going?”
Cole. Of course.
“I need air,” I grind out.
“You need a therapist,” he mutters, standing, blocking my exit like he’s the damn captain. “You go storming over there right now and say something stupid, you’re going to make it worse.”
“Move.”
“No.”
We stare each other down. My pulse is a stampede. If he weren’t my best friend, I’d swing.
“I’m not doing something stupid,” I say. “I’m fixing it.”
“Fixing what? You don’t even know what you want.”
“I know I’m not letting her think—”
The words choke.
Her think what?
That I don’t want her?
That she’s nothing?
That Sophia meant anything?
Cole studies me like I’m a badly concealed secret.
“You’re embarrassed,” he says quietly.
My stare sharpens. “Excuse me?”
“You’re embarrassed to want her. Because she’s not your ‘type.’”
He air-quotes it like it’s poison.
“You’re so damn full of yourself you can’t admit the one girl who actually scares you is the one you want.”
“I don’t—”
“Shut up,” he snaps. “You do. Everyone sees it but you.”
Something in me breaks — not soft, not gentle. Violent.
I shove past him.
He doesn’t try to stop me this time.
Just calls after me, voice tired:
“At least don’t ruin her again.”
Too late. I already feel ruined.
⸻
The path to Alpha Chi blurs.
Wind in my face, heart in my throat, anger and something worse clawing under my ribs.
I’m barely halfway up the porch when the door opens.
She’s there.
Harper.
Hair pulled back. Hoodie. Leggings. And somehow she still hits harder than breathing.
Her eyes widen.
Her mouth parts.
And just like that — I’m freefall.
“What,” she says flatly, “do you want.”
I don’t wait. I step inside. The door clicks shut behind us like fate’s got a sick sense of humor.
“You didn’t answer me earlier,” I say. “About him.”
She laughs once — a sound with teeth. “Unbelievable.”
“You didn’t say no.”
“I don’t owe you a no.”
“I just—”
“What?” she snaps. “You think you get a vote? That because you kissed me you suddenly get jurisdiction over my life?”
“That’s not—”
“And how DARE you show up here,” she throws at me, voice rising, “when I spent the morning covering for you at the SPONSOR MEETING?”
I stop breathing.
“You never showed. I had to apologize to a national donor because you couldn’t bother to answer a reminder email.”
“I— shit, Harper, I forgot—”
“No,” she cuts, sharp as a blade. “You didn’t forget. You didn’t care.”
“That’s not fair.”
She steps closer — close enough to feel the heat of her anger, her hurt, her heartbeat.
“You want fair?” she whispers, shaking. “Fair is me admitting I went to your room because I still believed you might show up for me.”
My world tilts.
“And I walked in on—”
Her voice breaks. She swallows it down like acid.
“Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
“It doesn’t.”
She laughs a little — broken and fierce.
“Because I KNOW I’m not your type. Congratulations, Logan. I finally got it drilled into my skull.”
“That is not—”
“Stop.”
Her voice is a blade.
“Stop pretending I was ever an option. I’ve known since middle school. Since you kissed me in that closet and then pretended it didn’t happen.”
I feel like she slapped me.
“You think I don’t see the girls you go for?” she continues. “Tall, curvy, dark eyes, louder than life — girls who look like every music video you ever drooled over. I’m not that. I’ve never been that.”
She tries to walk past me.
I grab her wrist.
She whips around like she might set me on fire.
“You think I don’t want you?”
My voice is gravel, breaking.
“I think you don’t want to admit you want me.”
A beat.
A heartbeat.
A life’s worth of denial cracking.
She’s breathing hard. So am I.
“You scare the hell out of me,” I say. “You always have.”
Her eyes go glassy. Not weak — furious.
“I shouldn’t want you,” I go on. “You’re not—”
I choke on the rest.
Not your type.
Not safe.
Not casual.
Not replaceable.
“You’re not convenient,” I finish, voice raw. “But I still—”
And she snaps.
“Oh, shut up.”
Then she fists my hoodie and yanks me down into her mouth.
The kiss isn’t soft.
It’s a war.
Teeth, breath, heat, anger, years of not saying it crashing like two storms colliding.
She tastes like fire and heartbreak.
I’m kissing like drowning.
Her hand slides into my hair.
My palm finds her spine.
She gasps. I bite her lower lip. She moans into me like she hates herself for it.
We crash backwards into the door, breathless, wild.
Every time she pulls away, we snap back together like gravity forgot how to function without us touching.
When we break for air, foreheads pressed, her voice shakes:
“This changes nothing.”
I brush my thumb along her jaw, breathing her in like oxygen.
“It changes everything.”
She stiffens.
Hurt flashes in her eyes — old, deep, bone-level fear.
And she does what she always does when I get too close.
She walks away.
I let her.
Not because I want to.
Because if I don’t let her breathe, she’ll never come back.
And God help me —
I need her to come back.