Chapter 10
August
If someone asked August what he was doing, he would say that he had no fucking clue. He could blame it on the sip of champagne for making him bold, but the simple answer was that he saw his stalker and took the chair beside him because he was a fucking moron.
Now the guy was glaring at him with impossibly green eyes, and August couldn’t decide where he wanted to look more: his weirdly plush-looking mouth or those vitriolic emeralds that kept drawing him in.
“We meet again, asshole,” the guy said with no effort taken to hold back.
A nudge to his left side had August breaking the stare off, and he turned to look at Niko.
“Dude, what are you doing?” Niko hissed, keeping his voice low so as not to draw attention. “Why are you being a dick?”
“I’m a dick?” August couldn’t believe this shit. Niko was supposed to be on his side. “He’s the one who called me an asshole.”
Niko also had green eyes, but they were a forest green so dark that the colour didn’t reveal itself until after studying them.
“You still in there, Buddy?” Niko asked, rapping his knuckles gently on August’s forehead. “You’re staring at me, and it’s starting to freak me out.”
August whipped his gaze away and muttered an apology, wincing when Niko laughed at his bizarre behaviour.
He was contemplating getting up to ask the staff if there was a medical team available to check him for signs of a stroke when Callahan joined their table, taking the empty spot on the other side of his stalker.
One look from his captain had August’s back straightening and his anxiety climbing. He knew Callahan was still angry about the collision with his friend, and he didn’t want to give him a reason to make things worse.
Callahan had been the only one who tried to help him, and August respected the hell out of him for that. The captain of the Bigfoots was only in his mid-thirties, but he felt like an adult compared to August.
Having a wife and two kids felt like a faraway dream for him, and that’s why Callahan felt so untouchable at times.
The stalker sitting on his right, whose name August couldn’t remember, was almost completely turned toward Callahan while engaging in small talk. They weren’t covering any interesting topics, so it was difficult to do recon on the guy, but he seemed…nice.
Nice when he wasn’t glaring at people.
August still didn’t know why he was there instead of Callahan’s wife—Rene? Emma?
“Do you know why Cap keeps bringing this guy around?” August asked Niko, curious to see if he had inside info. “Why hasn’t he brought his girl to any of our games lately? Did she have another kid?”
Niko, who had been taking a drink of his water, sputtered and smacked his glass onto the table hard enough to rattle nearby items.
August raised an eyebrow at the reaction, but his amusement faded when genuine fear shone through Niko’s crumpled expression.
“Gusty, Cap’s wife died last summer during the off-season. You didn’t know?”
The world dropped from under him, sending a horrible whoosh of terror through his body that chilled the blood in his veins.
“She…”
He couldn’t even say it.
Niko leaned closer, speaking quietly over the clinking of dishes as their dinner arrived. “She had cancer. That’s why we’re supporting Callahan tonight for the event. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
He should have known, and that was the devastating part about it. Callahan was his captain, and he’d had no fucking clue that he was going through this. Looking back on the locker room tension, it made sense now, but he couldn’t remember having a conversation about anyone dying.
Perhaps he had pushed so far away from his teammates that they never bothered to tell him.
“She was at the party after we lost the cup,” August murmured, mostly to himself, but he knew Niko heard him. “She handed me a bottle of water because I drank too much and told me to keep my chin up and win the cup next season. She didn’t look sick.”
Niko gave a single nod, and his eyes stayed locked on his glass. “Sometimes they don’t, and then they’re just…gone.”
Eyes burning, August followed Niko’s example and kept his attention on his mashed potatoes. He knew without a doubt that he had to talk to Callahan, but not tonight.
Tonight would be hard because of the memories and pain, but tomorrow, August would call him.
“The guy you were glaring at is her brother,” Niko added softly. “So please stop picking fights with him.”
August glanced at the back of his stalker’s head, and a strange déjà vu prickled at the base of his skull. It wasn’t just a passing familiarity—it was like a memory struggling to claw its way up from somewhere deep. Something half-forgotten and urgent.
He frowned, trying to place it. Instead of turning to Niko and making a fool of himself by asking questions, he slipped his phone from his pocket and opened Google.
Maybe if he looked up the name, something would slide into place.
But before he could even lift the screen, his stalker turned abruptly, his elbow catching August’s hand and sending the phone tumbling.
It landed with a muted thud beneath the table.
“Shit, my bad,” the man muttered.
He was already kneeling, reaching under the table before August could react. August’s first instinct was annoyance—but then the man straightened, phone in hand, and looked up at him.
Time stuttered to a stop.
Green eyes, sharp and unguarded, caught his own. The light hit them just so, making them bright, unflinching, and impossibly familiar.
August’s breath faltered.
He saw the small furrow between the man’s brows, the tension in his mouth, that scowl that had always come right before a smile—or something else entirely.
And then it clicked.
He wasn’t just a stranger on his knees in front of him.
He was Quinn Harlow.
The same Quinn Harlow who had once looked up at him from this exact angle, but the air between them at that time had been heavier, charged with something unspoken and terrifying.
For one dizzying second, August could almost feel that same heat ghosting through him again, the echo of a moment that had never really left him.
August’s pulse thundered in his ears. For a heartbeat, he couldn’t move. He stared down at Quinn while the rest of the room faded into a meaningless blur and hum.
Quinn’s scowl flickered, confusion rippling through it, and his lips parted as though he was about to say something, but he didn’t. He just stayed there, one hand braced against the floor, the other holding August’s phone out like an offering.
August took it automatically, his fingers brushing Quinn’s. The touch was brief and accidental, but it felt like grabbing a live wire. Every nerve ending lit up, hitting hard enough to make his vision go blurry.
Quinn stood in a small shift of motion, but August couldn’t stop staring at him. The eyes were the same, yes, but his Quinn had had black hair and piercings—and fuck, he’d been such a goth kid.
There was none of that now in the man he was looking at. He couldn’t remember seeing Quinn with brown hair, wearing no black eyeliner. It was as if reality had split apart, revealing a different version of the person he had locked away in his memories.
“You okay?” Quinn asked, his voice lower than August remembered.
August swallowed, his throat dry. “Yeah. Fine.”
The word came out too quickly, too roughly. He cleared his throat and forced himself to look away; to pretend his entire body hadn’t just reacted like it knew his damn stalker.
Niko said something, but August didn’t catch what. He was too aware of Quinn standing close, and the heat that hadn’t been in the room a moment ago now clinging to the air like static.
He had questions. A thousand of them. How long had Quinn been back? Why was he here? Was his sister—
Oh Christ, Quinn’s sister—
Quinn gave an awkward and short nod, then sat back down. “Didn’t mean to freak you out,” he said over his shoulder as he faced Callahan again.
August blinked at his phone; his eyes caught on the prints left behind by Quinn’s fingers. He set his thumb over the top of one of them, pressing hard against it until the screen lit up in alarm.
“Snow.” Niko shook him harder. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
August let out a laughing breath, ignoring the pain of his chest cracking open. “Yeah, you’re not wrong.”