Page 37 of Hard to Handle

“Like?”

“Getting to the playoffs? His future with the Jacks? Something,” I murmur more to myself than to him.

“So what are you going to do?”

I lean my hip against the back of the couch and eye the sandwich I brought back for a very late dinner and think for a second. “Make him fall back in love with the game somehow. He’s too important to the franchise and maybe he’s feeling the pressure.”

“That’s what I would do.”

Is it stupid that such simple affirmation from my dad still makes me grin ear to ear?

“Now to figure out what to do.”

“You’ll sort it out. You always do,” he says. “It’s getting late—”

“Not so soon, Kincade. Nice try. Now about you picking me to go after Hunter.” I purse my lips and wait for an answer.

“I promise you, it’s because I know you’re the right one to handle him.”

My mind flashes to the other night. To my hand wrapped around his cock and my tongue slipping through his lips. To how bad I screwed things up and how much Hunter called me on it.

My cheeks fill with heat as I fumble over what to say to my dad. “I’m not one hundred percent sure I believe you.”

His laughter fills the line. “Good. Then it’ll keep you on your toes. Night, Dekk.” Without another word, he hangs up on me.

All I can do is laugh into my empty hotel room and shake my head. The worst thing about my dad is also probably the best thing about my dad. I can never stay mad at him.

I’m spending too much time with my thoughts.

Way too much time.

But the one lingering thought remains as I eat my sandwich. If Lennox saw how I felt about Hunter when I rarely acknowledged that we were together, wouldn’t my dad have too?

That’s the million-dollar question.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

DEKKER

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DEKKER

“WHEN YOU ASKED ME TO take a ride with you, should I have known you were planning on kidnapping me?” Hunter asks from his place beside me in the passenger seat. “Or is this your attempt to finish what you started the other night?”

As much as I want to make a witty comment, I just flip the blinker and smile.

It took me half the morning to figure out how to make Hunter realize he was burned out. Even trickier is showing him without mentioning the words.

Athletes are superstitious. They don’t shave if they’re winning. They don’t step on lines when they walk on the field. They wear the same, but washed (hopefully), undergarments if they had a great game in them. And they never speak aloud certain terms: no-hitter, perfect game, burnout, etcetera.

So I had my work cut out for me to show and not tell.

Even more so, I don’t know if Hunter even knows he’s burned out so if I did tell him, I’m assuming he’ll fight me on it.

And fighting me is exactly what I don’t want.

When I asked him to take a ride with me, I’d already made the promise to myself that no matter what he did or said to antagonize or irritate me, I was going to smile and let it go.