Page 2 of Hard to Lose

“I’m not buying it,” I mutter, then get up and leave the pow-wow, a little less steady on my feet.

Regardless of how much I know his comment is, in fact, complete crap, it runs on repeat in my head.

Over and over.

I lie in my bunk, thinking of everything I gave up. The doubts, the what-ifs, the maybe I should’ve fought a little harders, eat away at me.

And then to think of what my mom found after I left for deployment. The voicemails from agents. The interest and belief in my talent.

All wasted now.

“Let it go, Ryan,” I mutter to the darkened ceiling. Tears burn in the back of my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut to force them away.

Maybe Dickman is right. Maybe holding on to hope is only going to cause me more pain. It’s not like the MLB will want me after my four years are up anyway.

Let it go, Ry.

Maybe holding on to a dream that’s already dead and gone is pathetic.

Let it go, Camden.

I sit up in my bunk, turn on the light, and grab a pen and paper. The easiest thing to do, for your own sanity, is to pick the one thing you loved the most and say goodbye to it.

Let it go, Gunner.

CHAPTER ONE

Chase

I toy with the corners of the envelope in my hand, half-listening to the conversation going on around me, half making up a history to the name and contents inside of it.

Who was he?

What’s his story?

Its edges are worn and tattered, the stamp all but falling off, and the ink so faded it’s barely legible.

But it’s the date on the postmark that catches my eye.

“And you’re not paying attention to a word I’m saying, are you, Chase?”

I glance up to find four sets of eyes staring at me. All curious. All expectant.

“What?” I ask with a quick shake of my head.

“Langley?” Dekker, my older sister, asks—or rather my eldest sister since all three of them sitting around the conference room table are older than me.

“What about Langley?” I ask.

My dad, Kenyon Kincade’s, chuckle fills the room. “Should I be worried about whatever new goal you’re so focused on, that you can’t concentrate on our meeting at hand?”

“Oh, Jesus,” Brexton mutters and earns a roll of my eyes. “Can you stop being the overachiever for once? I mean, the rest of us are sick of looking like slackers around you.”

“Oh, please,” I mutter. “Maybe if you stopped being so gaga over Drew you, too, could accomplish more like I do.”

“Little brat,” Brexton says with a grin, which should convince me that love just might be all it’s supposedly cracked up to be, and then tosses a paper clip at me. “I’m holding my own just fine.”

“In between lunchtime sex dates,” Dekker says, causing our father to bark out a cough in shock.