The hope I had that he might hear me drains away slowly.
I throw my hands up in a shrug and surrender whatever else I can’t express. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t. My dad sent me here to win you over to the agency because you’re you, and any agent would be crazy to not want you on their team. Now that I’m here, I don’t know that I can follow through with it. I know you’re struggling with something, and I would do anything to help you through it. But if I offer you that, you’ll always be wondering if it’s because I’m personally invested or because I want to profit off you professionally. The answer is I care, when it seems you don’t want anyone to. So you tell me, Hunter, what am I supposed to do?”
The first tear slips over and I shove it away with the back of my hand as I stand before him, intentions exposed, emotions on the line, waiting for him to respond.
“I’ve got to get to practice.”
He turns his back on me and walks toward the entrance.
And I watch him.
Every single step.
But this time through the blurred tears.
I now have my answer.
He walked away.
Decision’s been made.
He left me.
I’m done.
It’s time to go home.
CHAPTER FORTY
DEKKER
I STARE AT THE MEMO and wish I could add more, but I can’t.
I’ve failed. My dad had faith in me, and I blew it.
I look at it one more time, and then I hit send.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
HUNTER
Dad: Worst game I’ve seen you play all year. Why isn’t your head in the game, son? Think of everything we gave up for you to be there and prove you deserve it.
Me: Fuck you.
I STARE AT THE TEXT. At those two hostile words. At the cursor flashing. The pressure is mounting. I feel the exhaustion everywhere. Just. Fucking. Everywhere.
The suicide drills and the endless shooting challenges he made me perform until late into the night.
No breaks.
No sympathy.
Only the weight of the world on my shoulders. Only the knowledge that I’m the reason Jonah left that night. I was the catalyst who put him in the car and robbed them of his spectacular career.
I’m the mediocre brother forced to live out the dream Jonah no longer could.
Because living for Jonah is the only other thing they have. Even though I’m still alive and have dreams of my own.
And living for someone else is so exhausting, so daunting, so goddamn frustrating.
The cursor blinks.
The same two words I’ve wanted to respond with after every game I’ve ever played professionally.
Two words.
They say so much.
I’ll never fill his shoes.
I’ll never be as good as he would have been.
But I’m me. Fucking me. A man who rose to the challenge and have lived my every moment so that Jonah knows I’m sorry. That I’m so goddamn sorry for what I did that night. For how I lied. For not being responsible. For not being the one who took the keys.
The guilt is why I’ve always deleted those two words.
The guilt is why I’ve never thought I deserved anything—the praise, the accolades, the love.
The guilt is why I punish myself.
But hell if walking away from Dekker yesterday didn’t shoot that all to shit.
Fuck if looking up in the owner’s box and not seeing her there—as I have the past three weeks—wasn’t a blow to my concentration. I thought of the ten other things I should have said to her instead of the one sentence I did.
The hurt in her eyes when I didn’t acknowledge a fucking thing she said.
“You good, Mad Dog?” Callum asks as he walks by. I lean back against my locker, dropping my phone in my lap.
“Yeah. Just . . . that was a brutal fucking game.” I glance at the bag of ice Saran-wrapped to my knee and shake my head.
“It always is. The Bandoliers are fucking thugs.”
“Not going to argue.”
“You were an animal out there.”
I nod and replay the game in my head in the flash of time. All I can see are the shots I missed, the times I was stripped, the bullshit fouls called.
“Meh. I beg to differ, but it’s not worth the argument.”
He checks the bottom of his skates and busies himself before turning to look at me, eyes intense. “She leave?”
He doesn’t have to say who she is, and I’ll save him the bullshit of pretending I don’t know who he’s talking about. I have more respect for him than that.
“Not sure. I don’t keep tabs on her.” But I was looking. I was wondering.
“Huh.”
“You got something to say, Withers?” I ask.
“Nothing you’re going to listen to,” he says. “Shit. We finally get to go home tonight. My bed is calling me.”
“I’m listening,” I say, ignoring his color commentary.
He pauses, stuffing his gear into his bag and stares at me. “She’s obviously under your skin.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, I’ve never seen you give a fuck about anything other than hockey and your family . . . but you give a fuck about her.”
I blink and try to hear him—really hear him—and then like always, play it off. “I think that punch you took to the head tonight was harder than we all thought.” I chuckle to sell the lie.
“You’re indifferent with women. They’re a dime a dozen to you because they’re everywhere you go—”
“Whatever.”
“But Dekker challenges you.” He hefts the bag over his shoulder and walks a few feet toward me.
“Your point?” I ask.
“It’s a good thing she does.” He reaches a hand to my shoulder and squeezes. “She’s a good person, Mad. She deserves to be treated right. Whatever happens, just remember that.”
And without another word, Callum walks out of the locker room to our transport waiting to take us home for the first time in what feels like forever.
But I sit in the empty locker room. There are a few guys still in the trainer’s room getting worked on and their laughter filters out to me, but other than that I’m alone.
So goddamn alone.
The worst part? The only time I haven’t felt lonely is when she’s around. Fucking Dekker.
Closing my eyes, I think about what Callum said. About Dekker and what she deserves and wonder what I’ve never allowed myself to wonder. About me and what I don’t deserve, but hell if the moments spent with her haven’t made me want. An us. About the opportunities I’ve passed up, the dreams, the happiness I told myself weren’t merited.
Christ.
So fucking alone.
But this time when I stand to head to the bus, I don’t delete the text like I normally do.
This time, I hit send. Finally.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DEKKER
“IT’S MIDNIGHT. WHY ARE YOU here?”
I laugh as Brexton props her shoulder against the doorway of my office and debate how much I should tell her. “I guess the same could be said for you,” I respond.