Chapter 57 Chapter 56
Logan POV
My room is too quiet.
That’s the first thing I notice after Harper leaves.
Not the door closing. Not the echo of her footsteps on the stairs. The quiet.
The kind that presses in on your ears and makes your thoughts louder.
I sit on the edge of my bed and stare at the floor like it might explain how the hell my life went sideways in under twenty-four hours.
She didn’t cry.
That’s worse.
Harper Lane doesn’t cry. She locks things away. Builds walls. Gets cold and precise and distant.
Which means I didn’t just hurt her.
I changed how she sees me.
That realization sits in my chest like a brick.
I reach for my phone, then stop.
What am I going to say?
Sorry I’m emotionally defective?
Sorry I don’t know how to want someone without panicking?
Sorry I keep proving every bad assumption you ever had about me?
I drop the phone back onto the mattress.
A knock sounds on my door—then it opens without waiting.
Cole.
Of course it’s Cole.
“Go bother someone else,” I mutter without looking up.
He smirks and steps inside anyway. “Marco’s busy trying to beat a twelve-year-old online in that Diablo game and Zack’s currently screwing a puck bunny, so that leaves only you.”
“Lucky me.”
He takes one look at my face and exhales. “Wow. You look like someone just got hit by a bus emotionally.”
“Go away.”
“Nope. House policy. When the captain looks like he just detonated his own life, someone intervenes.”
He comes in and drops into my desk chair, spinning it around and straddling it.
“So,” he says. “She came here to yell at you.”
“Yes.”
“And you made it worse.”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re sitting here pretending this is fixable if you ignore it.”
I glare. “You’re really cheerful about this.”
“I’m efficient,” he corrects. “Also, before you start—don’t bother lying. I know you slept with her.”
I tense.
He lifts a hand. “Relax. You already told me. Remember? In your very eloquent ‘I fucked up’ spiral last night.”
Right.
I scrub a hand over my face.
“She’s not built for this,” he continues. “You know that.”
“I know.”
“And yet you still did it.”
“I didn’t plan it.”
“That’s worse.”
I don’t answer.
He studies me for a long moment. “So what are you going to do?”
“Nothing.”
He snorts. “Classic Shaw strategy.”
I look up sharply. “I’m not starting a relationship.”
He arches a brow. “No one said you had to.”
“She’s not—” I stop, jaw tightening. “She’s not my type.”
There it is.
He stares at me like I just said something profoundly stupid.
“Here we go.”
“She’s not,” I insist. “She’s not a Latina. She’s not—she’s not what I usually—”
“Oh my God,” Cole says, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re actually doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Hiding behind the ‘not my type’ excuse like it’s a bulletproof vest.”
“It’s not an excuse.”
“It’s absolutely an excuse.”
“She’s structured. She’s intense. She plans everything. She—”
“She’s real,” he cuts in. “And that scares the hell out of you.”
I scoff. “That’s not it.”
“Yes, it is. You’re so damn pigeonholed into ‘I only hook up with Latinas’ like it’s some personality trait instead of a pattern.”
I bristle. “It’s a preference.”
“No,” he says flatly. “It’s a shield.”
I stand. “You don’t get to psychoanalyze me.”
“I do when you’re self-destructing in high definition.”
I turn away, pacing. “She’s not built for how my life works.”
“Neither are puck bunnies,” he fires back. “But you don’t seem to worry about wrecking them.”
That hits.
I stop moving.
He stands too now. “Here’s the truth, Logan. Harper isn’t your type. She’s worse.”
I laugh bitterly. “Worse?”
“She’s the type that matters.”
I shake my head. “You’re full of shit.”
He steps closer. “You don’t get rattled by girls you don’t care about. You don’t play like garbage. You don’t punch walls. You don’t spiral. And you sure as hell don’t look like you’re about to throw up just thinking about her walking out that door.”
I open my mouth to argue.
Nothing comes out.
“Guess what?” he continues. “It seems Harper is your type. So deal with it.”
My phone buzzes on the bed.
I ignore it.
It buzzes again.
Cole glances at it. “You gonna get that or keep pretending your life isn’t on fire?”
I grab it.
And freeze.
Dad.
The name alone tightens something ugly in my chest.
Dad:
Ryland called me. Said you’ve been distracted. Care to tell me why I got that call?
Of course he did.
Of course Coach Ryland went straight to him.
I close my eyes.
“Let me guess,” Cole says. “Former Penguins legend?”
“Yeah.”
He whistles low. “That’s a special level of pressure.”
I text back:
Logan:
It’s under control.
The reply comes almost instantly.
Dad:
If it were under control, he wouldn’t be calling me. You’re playing like you’re carrying something. You know what that costs at the next level.
My jaw tightens.
Another text:
Dad:
Don’t make the same mistakes I did.
That one lands like a punch.
I drop the phone onto the bed.
“Great,” I mutter. “One more damn thing.”
Cole watches me carefully. “You gonna tell him?”
“No.”
“You gonna fix this?”
“I don’t even know what ‘this’ is.”
“Yes, you do,” he says quietly. “You just don’t want to say her name.”
Silence stretches between us.
“She’s not a one-and-done girl,” Cole adds.
“I know.”
“Then why did you whip your dick out for her?”
I flinch.
He doesn’t apologize.
“Because that’s what you do,” he continues. “You want something, you take it, and then you convince yourself it didn’t mean anything. That works with girls who don’t care. It does not work with Harper.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“You always mean not to. That doesn’t change the result.”
I sink back onto the bed, elbows on my knees.
“I can’t do relationships,” I say finally. “I can’t afford it. I need to be focused. I need to be clean. I need—”
“You need to stop using hockey as an excuse to be emotionally unavailable,” he snaps.
I look up.
“You think Crosby didn’t have a life?” Cole continues. “You think Malkin lived in a cave? You think being great means being alone?”
I don’t answer.
“Your dad didn’t mess up because he loved someone,” Cole says quietly. “He messed up because he ran from things.”
That hits too close.
“So what,” I mutter. “I just go grovel?”
“I think you start by not treating her like a regret.”
I close my eyes.
Because the worst part is…
She isn’t.
She’s the problem because she isn’t.
My phone buzzes again.
I don’t pick it up.
“Logan,” Cole says, softer now. “You’re not losing your edge. You’re just finally playing something that scares you.”
I laugh once, humorless. “Great. That’s exactly what I want in the middle of a season.”
He claps a hand on my shoulder. “Welcome to being human, Captain.”
He leaves me alone after that.
The house noise filters back in. Marco yelling at the TV. Zack laughing somewhere upstairs.
Normal life.
Mine doesn’t feel normal anymore.
I stare at my phone.
At my ceiling.
At nothing.
For the first time in my life, I don’t know how to fix something I broke.
And the scariest part?
I don’t know how to walk away from her either.