Page 54 of Hard to Handle

“With me, what?” I stare at him over the roof of the car, our breaths turning white with each breath.

“With you, he’s just different.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

HUNTER

Dad: Is that seriously all you had in you? Piss poor performance.

I STARE AT THE TEXT, at the blinking cursor taunting me, and fight the urge to hurl my cell against the wall opposite me.

It’s not his words that get me this time. It’s the sudden emptiness that follows them. It’s the hurt I felt when I looked up to the box between periods and didn’t see him there. It’s the knowing he never missed a single one of Jonah’s games, but he won’t take the time to make mine no matter how fucking effortless I make it for him.

I squeeze the phone and grit my jaw and struggle to control my temper.

Then I type.

Me: I didn’t see you at the game tonight, Dad. I had a ticket saved for you.

I hit send and lean back against the wall, my eyes closed, and my disappointment heavy.

But why, Maddox?

Why are you disappointed he wasn’t here? So he could criticize you face to face?

You need to stop wishing he might care as much about your game as he did Jonah’s. You need to stop thinking he’s going to be proud of you. You need to stop hoping for miracles.

I look down at my phone again as if he’ll respond, when I know he won’t, and then reread Dekker’s text again.

Dekker: Great game tonight. That first goal was tennis ball-throwing worthy. Heading to dinner with clients then to Sculler’s Jazz Club after with some of the team. Come celebrate.

I’m not sure how long I stare at the text before deleting it and heading toward what I know will be a clusterfuck.

Visiting my parents always ends in one.

It doesn’t matter that we won the game or that I’ve taken time out to visit my brother.

It doesn’t make a difference that we’re running down the playoffs or that my personal bests are beating past ones by miles.

Nothing does.

All that matters is that I’m not Jonah.

That’s what it all comes down to.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

HUNTER

I STEEL MYSELF WITH A deep breath before I walk into the house. Everything is the same—the flooring, the furniture, the curtains. It looks like time stopped the day of the accident and has never moved on.

It’s hard for me to breathe.

It’s difficult for me to think of anything other than how, already, I need to get the hell out of the house with its walls lined with images of a life Jonah and I never got to live together. Because that life—that future we always talked about—never happened.

Reminders of that life we used to have are plastered on every surface as if to remind us all how perfect it used to be.

As if to forget the accident ever happened.