Chapter 29 Chapter 28
Logan POV
The clock on the wall says 3:08 AM.
The house is quiet — or it should be.
Everyone’s asleep.
Except me.
Except the ghosts in my head that won’t shut the hell up.
Harper’s name glows in the dark on my phone screen, the last message still sitting there like a bruise.
I hate this.
Me too.
But I don’t want to stop.
I should’ve stopped texting her.
I should’ve said goodnight and buried my phone under a pillow and gone for a run until the exhaustion drowned it out.
Instead, I’m barefoot, shirtless, and in the Ice House gym, punching the heavy bag like it’s my only way to breathe.
The sound is too loud for this hour — the slap of leather, the dull thud of each hit echoing off the concrete walls. Sweat drips down my back, my hands ache through the wraps, and still it’s not enough.
Every punch lands with a thought I can’t kill.
Harper’s face when she saw me with Sophia.
Harper’s voice when she told me off at the rink.
Harper’s mouth when I kissed her.
I swing harder, the chain above the bag rattling. My knuckles sting. I want it to hurt. Pain’s clean. It doesn’t argue or remember.
“Jesus Christ, Shaw—”
A voice cuts through the dark.
I spin. Marco’s standing in the doorway, hair sticking up, t-shirt twisted, one sock on. He blinks like I woke him from the dead.
“You’re gonna wake the whole damn block,” he mutters, rubbing his eyes.
“Go back to bed.”
“Not with that noise.”
Another voice joins — Zack, yawning so wide it cracks his jaw. He looks about as thrilled as a cat in the rain. “You hitting that thing or trying to kill it?”
I turn back to the bag and swing again. “Both.”
“Bro,” Marco says, stepping closer, “it’s three in the morning. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
Zack snorts. “Classic ‘nothing’ that sounds exactly like ‘everything.’”
“Drop it,” I grind out.
“Can’t,” Marco says. “You’re sweating like you just ran a marathon in hell. You look possessed.”
He’s not wrong. I feel it — all teeth and static and nowhere to put it.
The bag rocks with another hit.
“You gonna tell us what crawled under your skin,” Zack asks, “or should we just guess it has something to do with a girl?”
“Shut up.”
Marco whistles low. “It is a girl. I knew it. Probably that blonde from last weekend—what’s her name—”
“Not her.”
They both freeze a little.
Marco raises a brow. “So… not the usual rotation?”
I glare at him. “Drop it.”
They exchange looks.
“Hey,” Zack says, softer now. “If you’re gonna have a breakdown, at least don’t take the house with you.”
I rip off my gloves and throw them against the wall. They hit with a wet smack.
“I’m fine.”
That’s when the third voice cuts in, low and steady.
“No, you’re not.”
Cole’s standing by the stairs, barefoot in sweats, expression unreadable but his eyes sharp.
“Thought you were sleeping,” I mutter.
“I was,” he says. “Until the punching started.” He looks at the bag, then me. “Guess I know what woke half the neighborhood.”
“Go back to bed.”
“Not happening.”
He crosses his arms. “You’re lucky it was us and not Coach doing a surprise check-in. You’d be benched for psychotic cardio.”
Marco shrugs. “I vote we leave him to it. Maybe he’ll punch himself tired.”
“Yeah,” Zack adds. “Let the captain sweat the demons out.”
They start to leave, but Cole doesn’t move. He just watches me like he’s waiting for a fuse to burn down.
“You’re spiraling,” he says finally.
I bark out a laugh. “You think?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I think. And I think I know why.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m gonna anyway.”
I rip the wraps from my hands, toss them aside. “You always gotta play therapist?”
“Only when you’re acting like a dumbass.”
Marco turns around, wide-eyed. “Oh boy.”
Zack whistles. “Incoming truth bomb.”
Cole ignores them. “You’re mad because she makes you feel something you can’t box up and label. You hate that it’s messy. That it’s real.”
I snap, “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I do.” His voice stays calm — too calm. “You kissed her.”
Zack blinks. “Wait—what?”
Marco’s mouth drops open. “Hold up. Harper? Harper Lane?”
My jaw tightens.
Cole doesn’t blink. “I told you this would blow up. You didn’t listen.”
“Shut up.”
Marco grins like he can’t help it. “You kissed the sorority queen? Damn, Shaw, didn’t know you had it in you.”
Zack shakes his head, almost impressed. “That’s ballsy, man. Dangerous, but ballsy.”
“It’s not funny,” Cole says sharply.
They quiet.
He turns back to me. “This is exactly why I stopped you last night. Because I knew you’d go too far and not know how to handle it after.”
My voice cracks like thunder. “I didn’t plan it.”
“Yeah?” Cole says. “That’s the problem. You don’t plan anything that matters. You just act and hope it hits right.”
I shove past him. “You don’t get it.”
He grabs my arm. “Then make me.”
“Let go.”
“Not until you stop pretending you don’t care about her.”
“I don’t!”
The word tears out of me louder than it should. The whole house seems to hold its breath.
Zack mutters, “Could’ve fooled me.”
Marco murmurs, “Bro’s losing his mind over a girl he ‘doesn’t’ care about.”
“Shut the hell up,” I snap at them, voice ragged. “All of you.”
Cole doesn’t move. “You’re not mad at us,” he says quietly. “You’re mad at yourself. You think wanting her makes you weak. You think admitting she means something makes you less than the version of yourself you built — the untouchable captain with no heart, no strings, no weakness.”
He steps closer, drops his voice even lower. “You’re wrong.”
My hands shake. My throat burns.
“You’re so damn full of yourself,” Cole goes on, “you can’t admit that the one girl who’s always been real with you — the one who doesn’t play your games — might actually be the one who could keep up.”
“Stop,” I warn.
He doesn’t. “You’re embarrassed. Not because she’s not your type. Because she’s not the kind of girl you get to have and still be the guy everyone thinks you are.”
Something inside me snaps.
“I kissed her!”
The words slam into the air like a gunshot.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Marco and Zack exchange looks — shock, disbelief, maybe a little awe.
Cole just nods once, calm, like he expected it.
“I kissed her,” I say again, quieter this time, like it’s a confession and a curse. “And I can’t stop thinking about it. I can’t stop seeing her. And I hate it. Because she’s not supposed to be—”
I break off, teeth gritted, heart pounding.
Zack steps forward, voice cautious. “Not supposed to be what?”
Marco folds his arms. “Not your usual? Not easy enough?”
They’re not being cruel — not exactly. But it hits anyway.
Cole sighs. “He means not disposable.”
I look away. “You done?”
“No,” Cole says. “Not until you stop running from your own damn heart.”
“Cole,” Zack warns softly.
He ignores him. “You’ve got this wall built up so high no one can see over it. But you kissed her because for one second, you forgot to hide behind it.”
He meets my eyes, steady. “You think that makes you weak. But that’s the only thing that makes you human.”
The room goes quiet again. The air feels too heavy to breathe.
Marco scratches the back of his neck. “Well,” he mutters, “this is officially too deep for 3AM.”
Zack nods. “Yup. I’m gonna need a drink or an exorcism after this.”
They both start backing toward the door.
Cole stays a second longer, gaze cutting into me. “She’s not your distraction, Logan. She’s your wake-up call. Try not to screw it up worse than you already have.”
He turns to leave, then pauses. “And get some sleep. You’ve got practice in four hours.”
When the door finally shuts behind them, the silence comes back, thick and alive.
The punching bag hangs still now, swaying slightly from all the hits it took.
I stand there staring at it, chest heaving, hands raw, heart somewhere I can’t find.
Cole’s right.
They all are.
And for the first time in a long time, I don’t know how to be the version of myself that isn’t broken over a girl who was never supposed to matter.
The lights buzz overhead, dim and cold.
I pick up my gloves, drop them into the corner, and let the weight of the night sink all the way in.