Chapter 36 Chapter 35
Harper POV
By the time I reach my room, I’m shaking.
Not from anger. Not from the cold draft sneaking through the cracked window.
From him.
From the way his voice dropped when he said it’s been you.
From the way he kissed me like we were both starving.
From the way he looked at me right after—like he wasn’t sure whether to pull me closer or apologize for existing.
My hands won’t stop trembling.
I shut the door quietly behind me and lean against it, eyes squeezed shut, trying to breathe through the chaos still burning under my skin.
The smell of vanilla candle wax and old perfume fills the air. My bed’s half-made, my notebook open on the desk beside the vase of white tulips, petals glowing soft under the lamplight.
I stare at them for a long time.
Perfect. Beautiful. Wrong.
He said he didn’t send them.
Which means someone else did.
And somehow that feels worse.
Because for one small, foolish second I thought they were an apology. That maybe he’d remembered what my favorite flower was. That maybe he cared enough to try.
Now they just sit there like evidence of how easily I read meaning into nothing.
A knock breaks the quiet.
“Harper?”
Lila.
I drag a hand through my hair, swipe at the corner of my eyes even though I’m not crying, not really. “Not now.”
The door creaks open anyway. “Too bad.”
She slips in, closing it softly behind her, holding two mugs of tea like peace offerings.
“You want chamomile or whatever this green thing is?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She hands me the green one. “Thought so.”
I take it, fingers curling around the warmth, the silence stretching between us until she finally says, “You want to tell me what the hell just happened downstairs?”
I set the cup on my desk, next to the tulips. “You saw.”
“Yeah, but I only caught the part where you looked like you wanted to either strangle him or kiss him again.”
“Accurate,” I mutter.
“So?” she prompts.
“So nothing.” I pace toward the window, away from the flowers. “We argued, he said a bunch of things that don’t make sense, and then he kissed me like we were in a movie that should’ve ended two seasons ago.”
Lila whistles low. “And?”
“And I let him.”
Her brows rise. “Oh.”
“Oh,” I repeat flatly. “Then I told him off. Again. So technically, growth.”
She crosses her arms, studying me. “You look wrecked.”
“Thanks for the observation.”
“I mean it, Harp. You look like you just walked through a hurricane.”
“That’s exactly what it felt like.”
I sit on the edge of the bed, palms pressed to my knees. “He says it wasn’t just a kiss. He says he didn’t know about the auction. He says he didn’t send the flowers.”
“Wait—he didn’t send them?”
I shake my head. “Apparently not. Which makes zero sense because who else would?”
Lila glances toward the tulips, thoughtful. “You sure he wasn’t lying?”
“Honestly?” I let out a breath that’s half laugh, half despair. “I don’t know anymore. I can’t tell where his truth ends and my hope begins.”
She sits beside me, her voice gentler now. “Hey. Whatever this is—it’s messing with you. And you’ve worked too hard to let a boy, even a hockey god, derail you.”
“I know.”
“Then why does it look like you’re still standing on the tracks?”
Because he kissed me like I was the only person he’d ever wanted to remember.
Because for one insane heartbeat, I wanted to kiss him back forever.
But I can’t say that.
So instead I murmur, “Because I don’t know how to un-feel something I never meant to feel in the first place.”
Lila nudges me with her shoulder. “You’ve liked him forever. You don’t just shut that off.”
“I thought I did.”
“Maybe you just got good at hiding it.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “Apparently not good enough.”
Silence again—soft, heavy, safe.
Then Lila asks, “You want me to get rid of the flowers?”
I glance toward them, that stupid perfect arrangement glowing on my desk. “No.”
Her brows lift.
“I just…” My voice thins out. “I need to figure out why they’re here before I can throw them away.”
Lila tilts her head. “Maybe they’re not even for you.”
That thought hits harder than it should. “What do you mean?”
She shrugs. “Could’ve been for one of the girls downstairs. Delivery mix-up. Happens all the time.”
I blink. “Then I yelled at him over someone else’s flowers.”
“Maybe.” She sips her tea. “Or maybe someone actually sent them to you and doesn’t want you to know who.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
“Not if it’s the right person.”
I shoot her a look. “Do you know something?”
She smiles a little, too knowingly. “I know a lot of things.”
“Lila.”
“Relax, Sherlock. I don’t have secret flower intel. I’m just saying—sometimes good things show up when you least expect them.”
I roll my eyes, but my lips twitch. “You’ve been reading too many romance novels.”
“Please. You live in one.”
I fall back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling where the glow-in-the-dark stars still faintly shimmer. “Feels more like a cautionary tale.”
“Maybe tonight,” she says. “But the story’s not over yet.”
Her voice is calm, certain—the kind of certainty I can’t afford right now.
I turn my head, staring at the tulips again. “They’re beautiful,” I whisper. “And I wish I could just appreciate that instead of wondering who they’re meant for.”
Lila stands, collecting the mugs. “Then start with that. Forget who sent them. Just… let them be pretty for a night.”
She pauses at the door. “And Harper? Don’t let Logan Shaw make you doubt who you are. He’s still trying to figure out who he is.”
When she’s gone, the silence swells again.
I roll onto my side, eyes tracing the faint starlight across the ceiling. My mind replays everything—his voice, his hands, that kiss.
It shouldn’t matter.
It shouldn’t still feel like gravity.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand. Just a notification from the group chat, nothing important, but the sound makes my pulse jump anyway.
I stare at the screen until it fades to black.
The tulips sit there quietly, catching the soft glow of the lamp.
For the first time all night, I wonder if Lila might be right.
Maybe they’re not from him.
Maybe they were never meant for me at all.
Or maybe, for once, the universe is trying to tell me something I’m too afraid to hear.
I don’t reach for my phone.
I don’t look at the unread text still sitting in our thread.
I just whisper to the dark,
“Please let tomorrow make sense.”