Page 108 of Cut Off
30
The Fight is On
JONAH
Driving to my lawyer’s office to prep for the upcoming hearing in eleven days, my hands are cold and my blood’s hot.
I grip the wheel tighter. Every stoplight is a fight to not punch the horn. Every turn, I cycle through the lines I want to say, the ones that’ll help her help me. The court needs to know I’m not just another father chasing a headline then quitting when it gets ugly.
Not a fuckup.
I run them in my head—stories of Eli, stories of staying, stories of the fight. Run them so hard my jaw aches. It’s not nerves. Not even fear, not really. It’s that playoff edge, the one you get before your body knows what’s coming. Hunger and terror.
I’m halfway to the door—literally, I’ve got one foot on the brake, the lot in sight—when my phone goesoff.
Buzz, buzz.
I glance down, ready to hate whatever’s on the screen. ESPN alert? Some team shit? More tabloids chewing me up?
No.
It’s him.
The text is so simple it hurts worse than skates on bone:
Eli:I miss you. I want to come home.
Five words. That’s it.
The whole world, boiled down to five words.
I read it once, twice, fifty times in three seconds. I can’t even breathe. The ache behind my ribs is so fucking real I have to press my hand to my chest just to make sure my heart hasn’t stopped.
I screenshot it, thumb fumbling, because I know if I ever lose this, my brain will rewrite history and pretend it never happened. I tuck the phone away, screen down.
I’m not supposed to contact him without supervision.
Just get through the meeting, Holt. One shift at a time.
The office is clean, mean, and not for show. Frosted-glass door, nameplate so crisp you could shave with it. No plants, no photos. Just a desk, some black chairs, and Olivia Gardner already at work, eyes on a legal pad.
She doesn’t look up.
Not at first.
I feel like a middle-schooler called to the principal’s office. My hand is still on my phone, the text burning through my pocket. I don’t fidget. I don’t clear my throat. I just stand, waiting to be noticed, because Gardner’s time is high-dollar and she wants you to feel it.
She finally looks up. Sizing me, not with suspicion—she’s past that—but with the flat, hard evaluation of someone who’s been lied to by hundreds of men exactly like me.
That’s what it is. It’s not even personal. It’s just: prove to me you’re doing the work. Prove to me you’re not going to bail now that this got hard.
She puts her pen down. Leans back—doesn’t offer a seat, doesn’t smile, just waits for me to say the first word.
Fuck it. I can play this game.
I drop into the chair across from her, plant my elbows on my knees, meet her gaze head-on.
“Let’s get started,” I say. Voice low, not angry. Just—set.
