Page 45 of Hard to Handle

“Isn’t an admission of what? You don’t think I know millions would kill to be in my shoes? You don’t think I know how fucking crazy it sounds for me to complain about living the dream? Who the hell needs a break from the game or thing they love? Who the hell says fuck you to the thing that has defined and saved them?” He walks a few feet the other way and the low, guttural chastisement he emits is heartbreaking. “I’m thirty-two years old and every goddamn day is a grind. Every day is me chasing a ghost I’ll never surpass in certain eyes. Each day is me faking it for the fans that I’m the person they think I am. Christ. How many days will it be until they see I’m a fraud? Until they realize I’m smoke and mirrors and only trying to live up to the expectations others have of me?”

He’s saying things I don’t understand now, but I don’t interrupt. I close my mouth and let him rant on things I can only partially comprehend but emotionally can fathom.

He’s like a little boy. One who hears the truth but rejects it on principle.

“Hey.” My voice is calm and soothing as I step beside him. My hands itch to pull him into a hug, to touch him somehow, to calm him. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I really need you to. I understand everything that you’ve said. The why. The how is it possible. The what an ass I would be to feel this way. And all of that’s valid to someone on the outside . . . but you’re on the inside looking out, Hunter, and what you feel is valid too. I mean, isn’t that why you’re struggling? The how can you complain or be sick of it when it’s most people’s dream job . . . but it’s just that, a job. You can be the best in the world at something, be on top of your game, and still burn out. It’s human. It’s—”

“And I’m sure you have the cure for it, right?” Gone is the emotion etched in the lines of his face. His mask has been put back on, feelings under lock and key. The anger replaced by sarcasm. The confusion traded for denial.

It takes everything I have not to grab his shoulders and shake him to make him listen to me. I’m frustrated and hurt that he’s shut down.

“I don’t have any answers. All I can say is that you need more balance. You need to be Hunter Maddox, the guy who likes to watch movies or cook or I don’t know what it is you might like to do, but you can have an identity that’s outside of hockey while still being Hunter Maddox the hockey star to everyone else.”

“Oh, don’t look now, but here comes Detailed Dekker and her perfect answers for everything to the rescue. Well, news flash, I don’t need to be saved. I don’t need them or their pressure. I don’t need fucking anyone, and I sure as hell don’t need you.”

His words hit me one after another. Most making sense, some not, and I concentrate on who he means by them, but refrain from asking.

His shoulders heave with anger as our eyes hold. The white smoke from his breath disappears.

When I speak, my voice is the antithesis of his. It’s calm, even, unemotional. “That’s not what I was trying to do. All I was—”

“Save it, Kincade. Fucking save it.” He waves a hand at me and shakes his head. “I’ve had enough of this shit. Thanks for ruining tonight when I told you to let it go.”

Without another word, he turns on his heel and heads to the entrance of the hotel.

That whole conversation was a disaster. Total and utter disaster.

And I’m not a single step closer to figuring out what it is that weighs so heavily on his shoulders.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

HUNTER

“WE DIDN’T GET A CHANCE to speak to you after the other night’s game, any comment on the marked difference in your performance or were you just having an off night?”

The game feels like light years ago already. What was it? Only three days? Four? Fuck if I can remember.

Through the blinding lights I can just make out my agent, Finn Sanderson, at the back of the press briefing room. His arms are crossed over his chest, his back is against the wall, and it seems like his eyes never leave me.

Management called in the big guns to control me. Jünger must be worried I’ll let him down and not heed his threats.

Hell, maybe they were smart considering we’re in my hometown and avoidance is at its finest.

“Everybody has an off night. Apparently that game was mine,” I say, giving the company line Sanderson drilled in my head right after his numerous threats about how if I keep my shit up, I’m going to be benched or suspended and lose him as an agent. While I’m pretty sure his warnings about losing endorsement deals are a load of crap said to instill fear in me, the benching me part might be true enough. “Let’s hope I can shake off the bad juju and get back into the groove tonight.”

“Are you worried how that loss is going to matter to the Jacks in the standings?”

I move the microphone back and try to find who asked the question but have a hard time seeing through the lights.

“Every game matters. Every win, every loss. I’ve been playing in this league long enough to know a one-goal loss in the first week of the season can be the determining factor to how your season ends when you never realized it. Lucky for us, the Nomads lost too so we had an even night on paper.”

You’re burned out, Hunter—fucking fried.

Dekker’s words replay in my head for the millionth time since they passed her lips, and I try to shake them off. I know it’s true. Obviously, she knows it’s true.

But goddamn it, the reason why is something I can’t fix.

I’ve tried.