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Something in his face broke a little. “I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”

“I’m not.” I squeezed his hand. “I’m just realizing you’ve been carrying things too.” For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Slowly Lane leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine.

“I don’t care what he thinks.”

My heart hurt at the certainty in his voice.

“But I do,” I whispered.

His eyes opened. “Why?”

“Because he’s your dad.” For a moment, something flickered across his face—not anger, not hurt exactly, but the kind of pain that comes from wanting someone to understand a wound they’ve never seen.

“And you’re you,” he said.

The simplicity of it made my chest ache. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe in us. But a tiny piece of doubt had slipped between us, quiet and unwelcome, and neither of us looked at the phone on the coffee table again.

Fifty-Three

Lane

My fist slammed into the heavy bag. The resulting muffled thud ricocheted off the walls and drowned out the memories that kept trying to creep in.

Again.

And again.

“What’d that bag do to you?” Jonah’s voice came from behind me.

I didn’t answer. Didn’t bother turning around. He knew better. We were wired the same way. Sometimes the bag untangled the mess in our heads before words ever could. The hum of fluorescent lights and the faint pulse of someone’s music bled through from the cardio room.

Jonah leaned against the squat rack, arms crossed. He waited. That was the thing about him; he never rushed meaningless words. Knew exactly when to push and when to wait.

“What?” I asked.

One eyebrow lifted.

“You don’t get here before sunrise and try to beat up a heavy bag unless something happened that you need to process.”

A slow breath. The gloves rested against the worn leather. The lie rose automatically. Swallow it. Say it was nothing. Say practice was stressful. Say anything except the truth. That had always been easier.

Keep it small. Keep it quiet. Pretend it didn’t hurt.

Back then, there was always another fire to put out. Looking after Jonah and Landry. Then came the shell shock of losing Abel—Soren’s brother. There had never seemed to be room to casually mention that Bryant Massey became a different man once the front door closed. No one got to see that side of Bryant Massey except for my mom and me, but she was gone now. She’d had enough of his shit and left. Sometimes the question still surfaced: Why hadn’t she taken me? But I knew the answer. Bryant would’ve hunted her down—not because he couldn’t bear to lose me, but because he couldn’t stand losing something he believed belonged to him.

A possession.

A trophy.

Another achievement displayed for the world, while no one had any idea how far he was from being the father everyone thought he was.

I never blamed Jonah or Soren for missing it. Their own lives had been splintering apart, yet they’d still managed to become brothers in every way that mattered. They’d quieted the darkest parts of my adolescence without even realizing it. The rest of the world saw the golden boy in expensive cleats and championship photos. Everyone thought they wanted to be me. They didn’t know I’d spent years wishing I could be anyone else.

“Cali saw a text.”

Jonah just looked at me. “What text?”

A swallow scraped down my throat. “One from Bryant.”