Page 72 of Hard to Hold

I want to hate this fucking IOU—a complicated punch I wasn’t ready to receive. Anger. I’m so fucking angry.

“Rush.” A shrug. A sigh. “I don’t even know what to—”

“Do you love her?” It’s the one question I need an answer to. It’s the one thing that matters.

“Ah, Rush McKenzie. Who knew you were a romantic at heart?”

“Cut the crap, Ror. This isn’t funny. You’re fucking with my life. I don’t care if you or your dad think my career can handle the consequences, it’s total bullshit. Complete fucking crap. And if you think for one second you’re going to be prancing around like Prince Charming while I’m—”

“She’s the love of my life, mate.” Rory looks at me, eyes huge, an apology written in everything about him—posture, expression—before he nods. “She made me want to live again. She—”

“What do you mean she made you want to live again?” I laugh in disbelief. “You have all of this.” I hold my hands out to the massive house we’re standing in. “A football career—”

“Barely.”

“A family who loves you—”

“Duty and love are two different things,” he says. “I assure you there is no such thing as a perfect son, as I can attest to that.”

“Rory,” I sigh. “I’m not following you right now. I’m taking the damn fall for you, so forgive me if I want some answers.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” He gives a frustrated grunt as he paces into the next room and I follow. “My dad. Constantly living in the ‘why can’t you be more like Rush?’ shadow that my dad demands. Never living up to what he wanted of me.”

“Bollocks.” Fuck, I could use a drink. There’s a dull pounding behind my eyes, and I don’t think it will be going away any time soon. “What does any of that have to do with Esme? How does you fucking Seth’s wife have anything to—”

“When I tell you she made me want to live again, I fucking mean it,” he shouts.

“You’re my oldest mate. Doing this—” And that’s when it hits me. It’s now that I really hear his words.

“Rory?” My voice falls as I struggle to comprehend. As I look at a man, and question how I didn’t know he was so debilitated he’d want to take his own life. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“How would a guy like you understand?” he says and rubs his temples.

“I’m not in the mood to be fucked with, okay? Don’t throw implications like that around if you don’t fucking mean it.” I’m in his face in a second, looking at the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother, and I know it’s true. I know . . . “Why?”

He shrugs as shame worries into every line etched in his face. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me.” His voice is barely a whisper, and I grab onto the back of his neck and force his eyes to meet mine.

“I don’t care what’s going on in that world out there,” I say and motion with my free hand. “I am and always will be here for you, brother.” I don’t move, can’t. All I can think of is what if? All I can wonder is how he could ever think he was alone.

Because when I say he’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother, I mean it. He could have thrown me under the bus a million times when we were younger. When I was trying out for the academy, he could have told the guys I wasn’t just picking up their rubbish to be nice, but was saving the bites of protein bars left in their wrappers so I could have something to eat for dinner. He could have said I was the one who “accidentally” picked up the wrong jacket after training and took it home with me so I’d have a little warmth in that freezing cold shed only to return it the next day and apologize for grabbing the wrong one. He caught me doing both and didn’t say a word.

He could have raged and told his parents not to include me in their lives, because why should he?

But strangely, he let me into his family instead.

We talked shit. A lot.

We talked women. Even more.

We talked football. More than anything.

So how did he get here?

More importantly, how did I not know he had?

“I am always here for you,” I reiterate.

“I know.” His voice is hoarse as I grab him and pull him into a hug. My mind reels. How have I been so selfish with my own life that I didn’t realize he was floundering? How have I been on the pitch, in the changing room, and not seen it? Sure, there were the drugs I knew he dabbled in here and there, because Archibald confessed knowing about them to me, but not this. Not suicide.