Page 35 of Hard to Love

Instead, it’s of when I ran to Finn after the match, needing to thank him somehow for believing in me when even I didn’t. For egging me on so I didn’t give up and make an ass out of myself on national television. For having the guts to say what he said when I’ve been nothing but a bitch to him over the past week.

The image is when I’m in Finn’s arms and we’re looking at each other, our faces inches apart.

To anyone on the outside who doesn’t know our history, it looks like we’re gazing lovingly at each other. A couple celebrating victory.

Knowing our history—the banter, the fighting, the being stuck together—I’m not exactly sure how to feel about the portrayal or implication.

I know I hate that my throat feels like it’s closing up as I study the two of us. As I take in his dark eyes and smile that is equal parts pride and happiness. As I study the way he’s looking at me—as if there is more there than an angry agent forced to be with a punk client.

His look stirs things inside of me that I’m not sure I want stirred. Lust is fine. Using sex to feel in sensations is all that I was looking for originally when it came to him.

But looking at this photo, looking at the way we’re staring at each other, a part of me wants him to look at me like that all the time rather than just in a snapshot of time.

I shake my head to clear the stupid thought and try to remember the many reasons I’m supposed to hate him. The problem with that train of thought is after tonight, after he believed in me when I didn’t even believe in myself, it’s a lot harder to shake them than it was before.

“Did you read the article?” Hayley asks.

I scroll down and grit my teeth when I see the words to the story. “New relationship.” “Love interest calms Lancaster.” “A calming force to the hurricane.” “Who is Stevie’s new man?” “Is Finn Sanderson the one who made the difference?”

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.

“At least it takes the spotlight off your other . . . ventures of late.”

I snort in disgust and she startles. “Yeah, but it implies that he’s the reason I won. That I need a man at my back—or in their eyes leading me—to succeed. Fucking pricks.”

“We can respond with something similar, minus the fucking pricks part, if you’d like,” she says.

“Yeah. Sure,” I murmur, glancing back at my phone and getting lost in the picture again.

My eyes go blurry and I sniff the tears away as I stare at the two of us. A man more than sure of himself and a woman who didn’t realize until just now, how lonely she is.

That’s what that was. The running over to him. The hugging him. The trying to tell him without words how much his belief in me meant.

It was the fact that after every match, I’d always shake my opponent’s hand over the net and then go hug my dad.

Always.

And tonight, when I played the first real match since his passing—when I won—I was a little lost with where to go and what to do. As much as I resent and respect my dad in equal measure, he was still my best friend.

With him gone, I’ve lost my harshest critic, my biggest believer, and my closest friend.

STEVIE

“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED LAST night?” Carson asks.

“I won,” I say into my cell with a glance toward the closed door of Finn’s room in the suite. The same door I looked at last night when I came back after the press junket, wanting to talk to him, to explain away the hug and the crazy rumors he was going to wake up to, but figuring I better leave well enough alone.

Does he know yet that the world thinks we’re a couple?

God help me when he does. I mean, if the man rejects my kiss, he’s going to hate the world thinking we do so much more.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” he grits out, and I suddenly stiffen when I realize what I thought was excitement in his voice actually sounds like anger.

Jesus. What now? Can’t I do anything fucking right?

“I don’t understand, Carson. I thought—”

“After all that . . . and then you. Then he . . .” He says something that sounds like a curse. “I deserve answers.”