Page 162 of Hard Pass

He glances over at me, raw pain flickering briefly before it disappears. “Then I spend the next hours, days, trying to prove him wrong.”

That explains so much. His drive. The pressure he carries into everything he does.

“I know it makes me a weak idiot for not standing up to him. For—”

“Weak is the last word I’d use to describe you, Cole. In fact, I’d say quite the opposite.”

“It doesn’t make sense from the outside. I know that. I see that. Fuck, it’s frustrating even for me.” He starts moving again. “But I wouldn’t be where I am without him. Everything I have . . . this”—he gestures vaguely and I read it to mean football and success—“came from pushing me.” He drops his head and says quietly. “And because . . . he’s my dad.”

Those three words are a gut punch. They’re raw. Unfiltered. Vulnerable.

And he just trusted me with them.

“Cole . . .”

He turns his back to me, and I swear he’s shoving tears off his cheeks, but when he turns around, the wall is back up . . . and he’s moved firmly behind it. Because he’s had years of practice. Years of shoring up those walls and accepting his father’s abuse as . . . normal. Acceptable. “He’s my biggest shame and my biggest motivation. And I’m fucked up enough that I still want to make him proud.”

My chest aches.

“Cole, you have to know that’s not true. You were a kid—”

“And now I’m a man and you saw that I still put up with it.”

Because it’s all you’ve ever known.

Because all you want is for him to be proud of you.

It would be so much easier if he was angry. I’d much rather hear anger vibrate in his voice than the shame that currently coats it.

“Come, sit with me. Please?” I ask, needing to touch him somehow. To let him know I don’t think any less of him than I did before he just poured his secret out for me to see.

He shakes his head, but it’s not at me. Confusion etches the lines of his face. Uncertainty might be there too. “Doc Hawley keeps trying to get me to go here. To unpack this.” He scrubs a hand over his face. “Fuck, man.”

“She might be able to help. A nonpartial person who might give you a different perspective.”

“Fucking hell, Dublin. It’s hard enough telling you this.” A humorless laugh follows. “Why the hell would I want a stranger knowing what I’ve allowed? What I’ve put up with?”

“You didn’t allow it,” I say quietly.

His gaze flicks to mine. “I didn’t stop it either.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

He doesn’t argue, but he doesn’t agree either.

He stands there, shirtless, barefoot, hair sticking up every which way, and eyes pleading with me not to look at him any differently than I did when we woke up this morning.

I don’t.

I respect him even more.

But he won’t hear that if I say it right now.

So I do the only thing I can that I know will tell him it.

I hold my hand out to him.

He looks at it for a beat and then comes to me. I move to sit against the back of the lounge, and I motion for him to sit between my legs, his back to my front.