Chapter 67 Chapter 66
Logan POV
Avoidance turns out to be harder than it sounds.
You’d think on a campus this size, with opposite schedules and opposite lives, it would be easy not to run into one girl.
You’d be wrong.
I switch entrances to buildings.
I start taking the long way around.
I leave classes early.
I show up late.
And still, every time I turn a corner, my chest tightens like she might be there.
Harper.
I tell myself it’s strategy.
Not cowardice.
Strategy.
Because this is simple. It has to stay simple.
What happened between us was… a mistake. Or maybe not a mistake, exactly. But it was one of those things that turns into a problem if you let it grow legs and start walking around your life.
And I don’t have room for problems.
I have a season.
I have scouts watching.
I have a draft that decides the rest of my life.
And a father who will finally, finally get off my back if I don’t screw this up.
The last thing I need is Harper Lane thinking we’re a couple.
The last thing I need is me starting to think that.
So I avoid her.
On purpose.
Which is how I end up hiding in the back stairwell of the student center when I hear her voice echo down the hall.
I freeze, one foot on the step, heart slamming like I just got caught breaking curfew.
She’s laughing.
Not the polite, social laugh.
The real one.
The one that does something stupid to my chest.
I wait.
Count to ten.
Count to twenty.
When I peek out, she’s gone.
Good.
I exhale and keep moving.
This is fine.
This is control.
⸻
The problem is, avoiding someone only works until you can’t.
And I can’t avoid the auction meeting.
Coach already made it clear: PR, sponsors, donors, the whole circus. I’m the face. She’s the organizer. We’re both required.
So I show up ten minutes early and take a seat as far from the door as possible.
If I don’t look at her, I don’t have to deal with her.
That’s the theory.
It fails immediately.
She walks in with Lila and two other girls from Alpha Chi, folder in hand, hair pulled back, looking like she slept fine and didn’t wreck my entire sense of balance two nights ago.
Something tightens in my chest.
She doesn’t look at me.
Not once.
Good.
Perfect.
That’s… perfect.
The meeting starts. Numbers. Timelines. Guest lists. Who sits where, who speaks when, which donors get what kind of attention.
I contribute when spoken to. I stay professional. Distant.
Cold.
I can feel Cole’s eyes on me from across the table, but I ignore him.
Then Harper speaks.
And I swear the room changes temperature.
She’s calm. Controlled. All business.
No tension. No emotion.
Like we’re strangers.
Like she didn’t fall apart under my hands.
Like she didn’t look at me afterward like she was trying to figure out what just happened to her life.
Good.
That’s good.
That’s what I want.
Except it isn’t.
Because every time she says my name in that cool, neutral tone, it feels like a small, precise cut.
“And Logan will arrive with the team at seven-thirty,” she says, not looking at me. “Then we’ll move straight into the presentation.”
“Fine,” I say.
Too sharp.
She finally looks at me then.
Just for a second.
Her eyes are unreadable.
Then she looks away.
The meeting ends without a scene.
Without anything.
And somehow that feels worse.
⸻
I don’t follow her.
I don’t talk to her.
I leave through a different door.
That night, my phone stays silent.
Good.
⸻
The next week becomes a pattern.
I avoid her.
She avoids me.
We orbit the same campus like two planets pretending gravity isn’t real.
Until it is.
It happens outside the library.
I step out the wrong door at the wrong time and there she is, three feet away, mid-conversation with a girl from her house.
She stops.
So do I.
For a moment, it’s just us and all the things we’re not saying.
“Hey,” she says finally.
Neutral.
Polite.
Like I’m a classmate.
Not a mistake.
Not a memory.
“Hey,” I answer.
Silence stretches.
Her friend looks between us, senses something, then excuses herself.
And suddenly it’s just us.
Again.
“I sent you the updated schedule,” she says.
Professional.
“I saw it.”
Another pause.
Her jaw tightens, just a little.
“Are you… avoiding me?”
The question is quiet.
Direct.
It hits harder than I expect.
“No,” I lie immediately.
She studies my face like she doesn’t believe me.
“Okay,” she says after a moment. “Then I’ll see you at the next meeting.”
She turns to leave.
Something in my chest twists.
“Harper.”
She stops but doesn’t turn.
“What?”
I hesitate.
Choose the wrong words.
“We should… keep this clean.”
She finally looks at me.
Her eyes are sharp now.
“Keep what clean?”
“This,” I say, gesturing vaguely between us. “Whatever this is. It doesn’t need to be complicated.”
Her expression shifts.
Not angry.
Not sad.
Closed.
“Right,” she says. “Of course.”
She walks away.
And for the first time, I realize I might have just said something I can’t unsay.
⸻
Cole finds me that night in the Ice House kitchen.
“You’re being an idiot,” he says without preamble.
“Good evening to you too.”
“You’re freezing her out.”
“I’m being professional.”
“You’re being a coward.”
I glare at him. “I don’t have time for this.”
“You don’t have time for her,” he corrects. “Big difference.”
I don’t answer.
He leans against the counter. “You’re scared she’s going to think this is more than it is.”
“And she shouldn’t,” I snap. “Because it’s not.”
He studies me for a long second. “Is that what you’re trying to convince her of, or yourself?”
I walk away.
⸻
The truth?
I don’t want her to expect anything.
Because expectations turn into:
Disappointment.
Drama.
Distraction.
And I cannot afford distraction.
I have a season.
A draft.
A father who only knows how to measure love in trophies and contracts.
I need to keep my head clear.
Even if it costs me something I don’t want to name.
⸻
Two days later, Coach calls me into his office.
“PR says you and Harper look like you’re about to file a restraining order against each other.”
I stiffen. “We’re fine.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” he says. “You’re the faces of this thing. You don’t have to be in love, but you do have to look like functional adults.”
“Yes, sir.”
He eyes me. “You got something going on with her?”
“No.”
“Then fix whatever this is.”
⸻
I tell myself I will.
I tell myself I’ll talk to her.
I tell myself a lot of things.
And then I see her across the quad laughing with someone else and feel something ugly and possessive coil in my chest.
And I realize the real problem isn’t that she might think we’re a couple.
It’s that some part of me is afraid of what happens if she doesn’t.