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Then Drew’s voice shattered the silence.

“Okay, someone needs to explain what the fuck just happened, because I feel like I blacked out and missed an entire season of this show.”

“You two are dating?!” Liam said, sounding genuinely bewildered. “Since when?”

“Oh, please, I saw this coming from a mile away,” Ava said before taking a drink of her wine.

Harry’s hand was still on my back. Steady and warm and reassuring.

“We should probably talk,” he said quietly, just to me.

Yeah. We probably should.

Because in the span of ten minutes, my quiet, under-the-radar, fake-it-till-you-make-it life had just exploded. And now I was going home with a fake boyfriend who looked at me like he could see every crack in my armor.

What could possibly go wrong?

TWO

I’d gotten so good at pretending everything was fine that sometimes I almost believed it myself. But Jordan showing up tonight had threatened to send my very carefully built house of cards careening around me.

My hands moved on autopilot, pulling clothes from my closet and tossing them into the open suitcase on my bed. It didn’t matter what I packed—I just needed to do something with my hands before I completely unraveled.

Harry stood near the door, arms crossed over his broad chest, watching me with that infuriatingly calm expression. He hadn’t said a word since we’d come upstairs, leaving the chaos of questions and confused looks behind us. Even now, his presence filled the small room like he belonged there, solid and steady while I felt like I was one wrong move from shattering.

Sometimes I was jealous of how sturdy he always was. Unflappable might’ve been a better word. Nothing ruffled his feathers, and unlike me, I didn’t think it was an act.

It was just him.

I yanked a pair of leggings from a drawer with more force than necessary. “Why did you step in down there?” The question came out sharper than I intended. I didn’t look at him—couldn’t look at him—because if I did, I might actually have to confront what had just happened. “Aren’t you supposed to go to Connecticut for Christmas?”

A huff of sound, almost a chuckle, escaped him. “I should be thanking you for getting me out of Christmas with my family.”

That made me pause. I finally glanced over my shoulder, catching the slight lift at the corner of his mouth. Harry wasn’t exactly known for his sense of humor, but there was something self-deprecating in his expression that I recognized.

I knew a deflection when I heard one. Takes one to know one, right?

“Well.” I turned back to my suitcase, shoving in a pair of pajamas I didn’t remember grabbing. “Glad my family trauma could be of service.”

The joke landed flat, even to my own ears. Because it wasn’t really a joke, was it? My family trauma was the whole reason we were in this mess. Except he didn’t know the extent of the trauma or what he was actually walking into.

What was I thinking, agreeing to this?

What was he thinking?

I abandoned the suitcase and walked to my window, staring out into the dark, the twinkle of stars faint in the sky. My heart felt like it was beating so hard I was sure he could hear it.

“I don’t know if I can do this.” The admission slipped out before I could stop it. I met his eyes in his reflection on the window.

Harry’s gaze sharpened. He didn’t move immediately—that wasn’t his style. He assessed, calculated, like he was reading a play on the ice. He was the best goalie Clark Fork University had ever had, and right now I felt like a puck in his crosshairs.

Then he was crossing the room, his footsteps barely audible on the carpet, until he stood right in front of me.

God, he was big.

I’d noticed it before, obviously—you didn’t live with someone built like a Greek god and not notice—but having him this close, his broad shoulders blocking out everything else, made butterflies flutter low in my stomach. His body was strong and solid, radiating a kind of safety I didn’t deserve to feel.

When he tilted my chin up with one finger, I forgot how to breathe.