Page 223 of Off Limits: The Firsts

“Use mine,” he says, pointing to the bed.

I’m distracted when I open it and it takes a second for me to believe what I’m seeing. The top of the iMessage screen says Dad, but there’s no way in hell the messages on this phone could be from his father.

In just the static screen in front of me, there’s word after word of negativity. Comment after comment of cruelty.

“Dekk? What is it?” Hunter asks, but when I’m so abhorred by what I see, I just look at him and hold out his phone.

“I didn’t mean to. It was there when I opened it,” I fumble. “What the hell?”

His sigh sounds like resignation and defeat as he takes his phone and tosses it right back to where I found it.

“I’ll never be good enough for my dad.” It’s all he says. It’s pained and raw and it rips my heart out.

“You play in the goddamn NHL, Hunter. You’re the captain and have records and . . .”

“And I’m not Jonah.”

Our eyes meet and hold, and so much is exchanged. So many emotions I think he’s afraid to show come through loud and clear.

“Is it like that after every game?”

He nods. “I don’t care. It doesn’t affect me.”

That has to be the biggest lie I’ve ever heard, because how can you play at the top of your game and your father, the man he probably craves approval from, not approve?

“You never respond to him. There’s nothing from you back to him.” At least not on the screen that I see.

“I did one time. I didn’t get the satisfaction I thought I would from it, so I don’t anymore.”

I hate this. I hate seeing this the night before he’s leaving for his first finals game. I hate that this is even a thing in his life when he deserves so much better . . . so much more.

“Why don’t you block his number?” I ask, knowing it’s much more complex than that. His parents are his lifeline to Jonah. If he cuts them off, he’s cut off from his other half. It’s complicated to say the least, but even harder is listening to his stoic tone when I know the words on these texts have to wreck him inside.

He chuckles. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

He shakes his head, but I know he’s going to tell me. “You know how you get used to something and it becomes a habit?”

“Yeah,” I say, but I don’t know how that can play into anything that’s healthy for him.

“It’s kind of become that thing I do. After I play a game, I walk in the locker room and look at my texts before I do anything else.”

“But the comments are brutal. I mean, you played one hell of a game the other night and that’s what he said to you?” My voice is rising as I realize so much of the turmoil inside him, of his long-term mental health, has to be affected by this. “My blood is boiling just thinking of it.”

“But he’s watching.” And there’s something in the way he says it that stops the next comment on my tongue. It’s sadness mixed with resolve, but it’s something so much more. “It’s sick and it’s twisted and it makes no sense to anyone but me, but those texts at least tell me he’s following me. It’s not much.” He stops when his voice breaks and another piece of me dies inside. “But it tells me he’s still watching.”

A scrap.

That’s all Hunter wants from his dad. A scrap of love, of praise, of attention . . . anything from a father still hung up on a life that can no longer be lived the same.

I hate seeing him like this. I hate seeing him accept so much less than he deserves.

I tighten my ponytail and try to follow Hunter’s logic, but God knows it’s not normal. “He’s watching but he’s tearing you down. He’s watching because he’s trying to see if you measure up to your brother who hasn’t played in fifteen-plus years.” I get up from the bed and move from one side of the room and back, unable to shake the anger that’s eating at me. “This is bullshit. You need to tell him that. But you don’t need to because he can see it on his precious TV when he watches his son, the goddamn hockey star, score goal after goal.”

But somewhere during my rant, the distress in his expression morphs to a soft smile. He’s standing there with his shoulder against the wall of his armoire with amusement in his eyes, and it stops me in my tracks.

“What?” I ask.