Chapter 61 Chapter 60
Harper POV
I don’t plan to go to the Ice House.
I just… end up there.
It starts with me walking to clear my head. Then I realize I’m not heading back to the sorority. Then I realize my feet are very definitely taking me in one very specific direction.
And then I turn the corner and see it.
The Ice House is lit up like a stadium after a championship.
Music thumps through the walls. People are everywhere. Cars lining the street. Someone is yelling. Someone is laughing. Someone is definitely already drunk.
Of course.
They won.
They’re celebrating.
I stand there for a second, debating whether this is the dumbest idea I’ve had all week.
It probably is.
I go in anyway.
The door isn’t even fully closed — people are coming and going, carrying drinks, shouting over the music. I slip inside and immediately get hit with noise, heat, bodies, and the overwhelming smell of beer and sweat and victory.
The living room is packed.
Guys from the team. Girls I recognize. Girls I don’t. Someone is dancing on a coffee table. Someone else is chanting something that sounds like “CAP-TAIN, CAP-TAIN.”
I scan the room.
I don’t see Logan.
Good.
No — not good.
Annoying.
I weave through the crowd, dodging elbows and red cups, trying not to get pulled into any conversations. My eyes keep flicking everywhere, half-expecting him to just… appear.
He doesn’t.
I spot Zack near the kitchen, struggling under the weight of what looks like a full case of beer.
“Zack!” I call.
He turns, blinks, then grins. “Well, damn. If it isn’t the woman of the hour.”
“I am not—” I stop. “Never mind. Where’s Logan?”
He snorts. “Oh. Captain Killjoy?”
“What?”
“Mr. No Fun. Moody Broody. Walked out like twenty minutes ago.”
My stomach tightens. “Walked out where?”
Zack shifts the beer in his arms. “Upstairs. His room. Said he had a headache. Or a personality. Hard to tell.”
“Did he—” I stop myself. “Is he alone?”
Zack gives me a look. Then grins. “Yep. And if you’re here to fix him, I wish you Godspeed. He’s been acting like someone stole his favorite toy.”
“I am not here to fix him.”
“Sure,” Zack says cheerfully. “Second door on the right.”
I stare at him.
He just grins wider and disappears into the crowd.
Great.
I stand there for a second, heart beating way too fast for someone who is definitely here for purely rational, mature reasons.
Then I head for the stairs.
The noise fades as I climb. Not completely — the bass still pulses through the walls — but enough that the house starts to feel like two different worlds.
Halfway up, I hear a girl laughing somewhere down the hall. A door opening. Someone shushing someone else.
My chest tightens.
I keep going.
Logan’s door is closed.
I don’t knock.
I open it.
He’s lying on his bed, still in his practice clothes, one arm thrown over his face, a book open but clearly unread in his other hand.
He looks up when the door opens.
Freezes.
“Harper?”
“Nice party,” I say.
He sits up slowly. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I snap. “Your team’s downstairs. You know. Celebrating the game you almost threw.”
His jaw tightens. “We won.”
“Because they carried you.”
Silence.
He closes the book and drops it on the bed. “Why do you care?”
I laugh, sharp and humorless. “Because my sorority sisters are getting phone calls asking what I did to you.”
He blinks. “What?”
“Zack called Lila. Asked her what I did to ‘their captain.’”
Something flickers across his face. Annoyance. Guilt. Something darker.
“I didn’t tell him to do that.”
“Then why does everyone think I broke you?” I demand.
He stands.
Slowly.
Dangerously.
“You didn’t break me.”
“Then stop acting like you’re falling apart.”
We’re too close already.
I can feel him. Heat. Tension. Everything we should not be doing again.
“You were playing like you wanted to hurt someone,” I say. “And now you’re hiding up here while your team celebrates. And somehow I’m the headline.”
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“You also didn’t stop it.”
Silence stretches between us.
The music thumps through the walls.
His eyes drop to my mouth. Then lift again.
“Why did you come here?” he asks.
I open my mouth.
Close it.
Then say the truth. “I don’t know.”
He lets out a quiet, humorless laugh. “That makes two of us.”
“You don’t get to sleep with me and then act like I’m radioactive,” I say. “You don’t get to let everyone think I’m the reason you’re losing your mind.”
His eyes darken. “You think that’s what this is?”
“What else would it be?”
He steps closer.
I don’t step back.
“Maybe I’m just bad at pretending nothing happened.”
My heart stumbles.
“You’re very good at pretending,” I say quietly. “You’ve had years of practice.”
Something in his expression cracks.
“I’m not good at this, Harper.”
“At what? Being decent?”
“At wanting someone who can actually wreck me.”
The air between us goes tight.
“You don’t get to say things like that and then act surprised when I show up,” I whisper.
He’s right in front of me now.
Close enough that I can smell him.
Close enough that my body remembers everything.
“You should go,” he says.
“Make me.”
His jaw flexes.
“Tell me to stop,” he says quietly.
I should.
I don’t.
He kisses me.
And the party downstairs might as well not exist.