Jett blinked. “What?”
“Why can’t I carry the weight of Chase’s sins on my own? Don’t tell me we’ve reached the point in our lives where you start seeing me as a weak, old man who needs taking care of.”
Jett lowered his head and bit his lip. He could never think of his dad in that way—he would always be strong enough to lift a mountain in his eyes.
“My knees may creak and crack when I go up the stairs,” said Robert, letting out a laughing shrug. “But my shoulders are still sturdy enough to carry both of our problems, Jetty. You were a child, son. And in some ways, you always will be to me. So, you need to stop wallowing in this and put effort into moving past it.”
How the hell could he move past this? He felt like he had been fighting his whole late adolescent life trying to avoid being labelled as the hockey player with a mass shooter for a brother. It would have been easier if he hated Chase, but that was the worst part—he didn’t.
It was like he had separated the two versions of Chase in his mind, and now he didn’t know how to force them back together long enough to grieve what had been lost. And it wasn’t just Chase he had to grieve because it was all the other people that he gunned down in cold blood along with him.
Robert clapped his hands on Jett’s shoulders and gave them a firm shake. “You need to talk to someone, and I don’t mean your boyfriend, I mean a therapist.”
“I have a therapist,” said Jett. “Its name is tequila.”
His father’s brows furrowed. “You don’t even like alcohol, let alone shitty tequila. If you’re going to aspire to be a drunk, at least pick something manly like rum or whiskey.”
Jett cracked the tiniest of smiles. “Dad, alcohol doesn’t have a gender.”
“I don’t know about that.” Robert gave him one last shake and then gestured toward the kitchen. “Let’s get some food into you. We need to feed all those muscles of yours.”
Nodding, Jett opened his mouth to reply, but Harrison chose that moment to come barreling out of their room in the most dramatic way possible. He barely had time to open his arms before he was being crushed against Harrison’s firm chest and squeezed until he lost all his oxygen.
“Fuck—Jett, what the hell? Why did you leave me?”
The side of Jett’s face was plastered to Harrison’s bare chest, but he got an uninterrupted view of his father’s lopsided grin as his gaze flickered between them.
“He left your room, son. He didn’t go to war, for Christ’s sake.”
Harrison’s eyes glanced at his dad, but they immediately snapped back to Jett as he took his face into his hands, searching him for signs of distress.
“I’m not okay,” said Jett, because he couldn’t lie to Harrison. “I’m figuring things out.”
That was all Harrison needed. His posture relaxed, and he let go of him, stepping away to give them both room to breathe. Jett knew that Harrison wouldn’t let go of him at all if he had the choice, but his dad was nearby, and they needed to eat.
Harrison looked down at himself, as if noticing for the first time that he was only wearing boxers. “I’m going to get dressed.”
Jett had never seen the man look so rumpled and lost. If the circumstances had been different, he would have teased Harrison about how adorable he was acting.
But instead of teasing him, Jett let himself fall back onto the couch and put his head in his hands. Maybe hunger could wait another day—he would rather go back to bed.
“Jett. Food.”
He might be able to get away with it if it were Harrison, but not his dad.Neverhis dad.
Sighing, Jett stood and went to the kitchen, trying his best to feel normal again.
Jett
“We know there’s a lot of speculation going around about the situation involving Jett Fraser,”Ryan said into the microphone. He looked friendly enough, but Jett could spot the contained fury hidden behind his smile.“We want to make our position on the matter clear. Jett Fraser was fourteen years old when Chase Fraser committed that horrible act. He not only had nothing to do with the event because he was in a different country, but he was also too young to have any say in what happened. The comments suggesting that Jett had anything to do with his brother’s crime are not only incorrect, but it’s also cruel to blame someone who was a child at the time.
“As for why this story suddenly broke—the information was sold to a media outlet by a man that Jett Fraser and Arlo Killinger currently have a restraining order against due to threats and harassment. So not only are people listening to someone who clearly has it out for Jett and wants to sabotage his career, they’re also giving that narrative power—amplifying it, feeding it, turning it into something far bigger and uglier than it ever should have been.
“Any sleuth could have found out this information without having to dig. Jett never once hid his past from anyone. He was trying to move on from the tragedy that affected him and his family, and they are still struggling to cope with it today.
“I think what most of us want is to focus on the reason we’re here for, and that’s the sport. Fraser is one of the best players this game has seen in a long time, so if you want to watch some damn good hockey, let him do his job so he can remind you why you love it.
“Thank you.”
