Page 9

“No, you won’t. And that’s okay.”

No, I won’t. He’s right. Should I be surprised that Lucas sees that about me? Probably not, but a part of me is. I expected that exchange to go down differently.

With a sigh, I take my suit jacket off, ball it up the way he did, and lie down beside him. The night is clearer than usual.The stars aren’t as bright as they would be somewhere else, not with the city lights and the smog, but they’re there, these dim, silver sparkles in a sea of blackness. I should say something to him, but I don’t know what, so I just lie here, looking upward with the brother of my dead boyfriend beside me.He’s not my boyfriend anymore. He hasn’t been for a long time.

Lucas and I were rarely alone together—just at random times, bumping into each other in the kitchen or me getting to their house earlier than Ellis a few times. But we didn’t spend time together without Ellis present. I don’t even know what to talk to him about, but the silence is uncomfortable against my skin, so I say, “I miss him.”

It takes Lucas a moment to answer. He smokes and maybe thinks. I’m not sure any of us ever know what’s going on in Lucas’s head. If Ellis ever did, he never shared it with me.

“He loved you…a lot.”

I wince because though I know that’s true, it’s the worst thing he could have said. Ellis did love me. There has never been a day that I’ve questioned that. We were so lucky that everything fell into place so we could meet. We were meant to be in each other’s lives, even if things turned out the way they did, but it hurts to think about him loving me, so I say, “He loved you too,” because I’m not sure if anyone has ever said that to Lucas. Not about him and Ellis. I know Abbie has said she loves him, and I assume Coach Blake has too. Ellis would have told him, but they also fought worse than most brothers, were complete opposites, and were never close.

“Yes. Ellis was too good not to love me, but he didn’t like me very much.”

“That’s not true,” is my knee-jerk response, but I think it is. Not that he hated his brother, but they never knew how to connect. To Ellis, who cared about being good at everything, it seemed like Lucas cared about nothing because he didn’tcare about football. Ellis didn’t know how to wrap his head around that.

Lucas laughs, the sound startling me, making my heart jump.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You, Hunter. My brother didn’t like me. We both know it. We don’t have to pretend otherwise. I’ve accepted my role in my family a long time ago.” There’s a finality to his tone, one that says he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore and that even if I tried for a hundred years to persuade him he’s wrong, he would never believe me. But then, I have things he or anyone else could never make me believe either, so I have no choice but to accept it, at least for now.

“Was your photography on display here tonight?” I ask, grasping for something to talk about.

“No. I didn’t want to take the attention from the other art. How could anyone look anywhere else if there’s a piece from the Lucas Blake collection?”

I roll my eyes and have to bite back a smile. “You’re so fucking conceited.”

“And you’re not when it comes to football? Why is it okay for athletes to know their worth and not others?”

I frown. “You have a point.” It does seem to be more acceptable for athletes. “I definitely know I’m good.”

He huffs, and we fall silent again. This is different, and I don’t know what to think about it. I can’t help feeling like I don’t belong here, that I have no right to be beside Lucas right now, but still I stay.

Even though he didn’t admit it, I know Lucas misses Ellis, and even though I could never admit it to him, I think we both have similar insecurities when it comes to Ellis—not feeling worthy of him, knowing we let him down, albeit in different ways.

“So should I not mention that fumble against Denver in the second quarter in the playoffs last season…”

I gasp, both annoyed he mentioned it and strangely pleased by the way he says it, as if it’s not the end of the world. “Fuck off. I played a decent game that night.” Decent isn’t good, though. Decent isn’t what I would have ever strived for before, but it’s what I have right now.

“Eh, it was all right,” he says, eliciting a surprised chuckle.

“You watched my game? You hate football.”

“I do, but sometimes it’s impossible to miss. People fucking love it. I don’t get it, and your face is everywhere I look. It’s annoying as shit.”

“My face is everywhere because I’m good.” It takes me a moment to realize I said that. I used to have more reason to be cocky, so I don’t do it as often.

“I was in LA. They sorta have to show you here. You’re their golden boy.”

I huff. I used to be, but not anymore. He knows as well as I do that I don’t play like I did before. “Depends on which day of the week you ask them.”

He shrugs. “There’s no loyalty in sports, even if people pretend there is.”

I sit up, and Lucas does too. “Sometimes it feels that way. Is it not that way with art?”

“I guess. They aren’t counting on me to win certain nights of the week, but…people are fickle, and they love you one time and hate you the next.”