I wiggle the doorknob once more as my brother’s voice whispers in my ear. “She’s not yours to protect.”
I see the card on the floor while my ears ring with all those past comments.
“Mom, come on, she’s not okay, she…” Why won’t they hear me? Don’t they see the fear in those big pale blue eyes? Begging us to notice her. To help her with her demons.
“Jaxon, just leave her be, she’ll come around,” my mom assures. “It's just a phase, nothing to worry about. And besides, you're not the only brother she has. She’ll be fine.”
I put the pieces of the card together. “You won’t get away with this.”
She’s not yours to protect.
“Jaxon?” Hope asks. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“No,” I manage to choke out.
“Do you want to—”
“I’d really like to sleep,” I whisper.
It doesn’t feel like me talking. Too calm, too quiet, too exhausted for me to explode and throw the vase at the wall. So I don’t demand where these flowers came from or scream for answers.
“You have time for a nap.”
I freeze and turn to Hope.
That’s not the next line. The next line is an order to get up. It’s being told I’m lazy. That I want attention. That I’m wasting my time.
She gently takes the note from my hand and tosses it in the trash, then leads me out of the office. “I’m kind of exhausted too. I didn’t sleep well last night. We can nap together.”
Hope doesn’t understand and she shouldn’t. I won’t tell. It’s mine to shoulder. It’s my fault.
I squeeze Hope’s hand. But Hope is mine, right?
DIMITRI
“Jax, what the fuck?!” I demand as we huddle up between plays.
The other guys look at him. He’s been missing easy blocks because he’s going for the throat. He’s already gotten multiple flags thrown. He’s lucky he hadn’t been benched. We’re down because he’s being sloppy.
This isn’t him. I’ve seen him play with a stick up his ass. I’ve seen him dealing with plenty and he’s consistent.
“I’m handling it,” he growls.
“Yeah, handing them the game.” Knox hits his helmet. “Remember the plays. We need you solid. Take them out the right way.”
“We don’t want you hurt. We need you,” Ben agrees.
Jax grumbles something, then keeps talking to himself. I shake my head, but we go again. We need to gain more yards, push them back. We’re down by five and we need to recover before we hit the half mark.
I give Knox a look. He shrugs and turns his gaze to Jax too. This isn’t normal. Something is wrong and we don’t have a way to dive into it. Definitely not right now with a clock counting down. I don’t know what the hell could have changed since we went over plays, but it’s going to get him hurt.
The ball is snapped, Knox charges. All Jax has to do is block for him. Jax stands strong but doesn’t shift his weight. The tackle is rough. It’s punishment, not game play.
I hear a crunch and a whistle is blown. We wait for the refs, but I see Hope steadily moving closer past the field boundary. She wants to make sure he’s okay. She’s as anxious as I feel.
We’re awarded the yards Knox gained us, only ten from the endzone now, but Jax is still sprawled.
A ref motions us over and I hurry. He looks dazed. I reach down and grab his jersey. “Get your shit together. We’re doing this. It’s happening. It’s on you, Jax. Let’s fucking go.”
