Page 90

“It was fine,” he said, turning away, his fingers curling against his thighs. “She was great. Hot. Funny. Easy to talk to.” He shrugged. “I just wasn’t feeling it, and neither was she, so …”

The knot in my gut unfurled, and I felt a small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. When I realized it was happening, I rolled my lips between my teeth to keep him from seeing it.

Mikey blew out a long breath and turned back to me, the earlier, determined expression wiped clean from his face. “What about you? How was your night?”

Terrible. Horrible. Better now that you’re home. Better now that I know you didn’t meet someone who will steal you away from me.

“It sucked.”

I thought I’d lost you. I wanted to throw up. My dad made me feel like shit.

“My dad called.”

Mikey winced. “How bad was it this time?”

I lifted my hand and teetered it back and forth. “Not as bad as it could have.”

He hadn’t hammered me on my lack of social media traction or gone poking around in my personal life, asking why I still didn’t have a girlfriend, so it was mostly just my pride he’d wounded.

I rehashed the conversation, conveniently leaving out the part where, once he hung up, I sat in the dark unable to make myself move. Feeling like I never wanted to move again.

“He did say one nice thing, though—about you.”

Mikey’s eyebrows shot up. “Me?”

I nodded, trying to inject some enthusiasm in my voice. For all that Mikey disliked my dad, the man was still an NHL Hall of Famer who knew the sport, even if his thoughts about how the Marauders should be using me came with some big fucking blinders.

“He said you’re wasted on the fourth line and belong on the third.” I felt the corner of my mouth tip up involuntarily. “You were the only guy on the roster he had anything nice to say about.”

Mikey sat up straighter, his chest filling out. “Holy fuck. I know your dad’s a dick and we hate him, but fuck. He really said that?”

“Cross my heart.” My mouth split into a full smile. “I wouldn’t let it go to your head though; he’ll probably take it back next week.”

“Too late,” he chuckled, then instantly sobered. “Why do you take his calls? You know it’s gonna suck, so why answer?”

I opened my mouth to tell him that was just how things worked with my dad and me, but closed it. Mikey didn’t understand. He couldn’t. And that wasn’t any sort of failing on his part.

I was glad he had a family who loved him, who didn’t see him as a commodity or an extension of their own fame. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” I said. “Just … not tonight.”

He looked at me for a long beat, then nodded, though I could tell he wasn’t convinced. “Yeah. Okay.” Then he yawned and stretched, and announced he was going to bed.

I watched him go, then closed my eyes and dropped my head back against the cushions. I stayed sitting there for about twenty more minutes before retreating to my own room.

Of course, I had trouble sleeping. Every time I felt my eyes start to grow heavy, my father’s critical, disappointed voice yanked me back from oblivion until eventually, some time after three, I finally succumbed to my exhaustion.

I woke up from the nightmare with a shout, sitting bolt upright in the dark, my t-shirt stuck to my back, my breath sawing in and out, and my heart racing like I’d just skated a three-minute shift.

It was the same version of one of the dreams I’d been having for years: my dad looming over me, saying things he’d never actually said to me in real life—things like, “you’re worthless,” “you’re pathetic,” and “what a fucking pussy.”

He didn’t have to call me a pussy when in Robert Callahan speak “You’re too soft; always have been” meant the same thing. He didn’t have to call me pathetic when “For Christ’s sake, Hunter. Grow a fucking pair,” existed. I didn’t have to imagine what he’d say if he ever found out I was who I was. He’d already said it plenty of times about guys like Stryker Bell and Ethan Harrison.

I collapsed back down onto the mattress, my hands fisted in the sheets. I tried to breathe through the panic, but the exercises that had been my lifeline for so damn long failed to calm me.

Why was I so goddamn broken? How in the world did I think I was strong enough to handle the goddamn pressure?

I let loose a loud sob, turning my face into my pillow to try and stifle the sound.