Chapter 30
Quinn
Quinn watched August sprint away from him, crashing through one of the lobby doors so hard he knew it had to hurt. The murmurs of excitement that had once filled the space turned to murmurs of disappointment as the NHL player disappeared in a flash, leaving Quinn to deal with the fallout.
He turned to Coach Perry, who stared after August with a frown, and offered his apologies. “August doesn’t like crowds,” Quinn explained. “He’ll come back when everyone clears out.”
Quinn didn’t know how he felt about Coach Perry’s feelings regarding whatever news had broken about him and August, but he didn’t want to snap at the guy without knowing the truth.
For all Quinn knew, the old coach could be worried about unconfirmed rumours putting pressure on what he assumed was an old student of his.
It didn’t have to be a homophobia issue.
Coach Perry nodded, saying nothing as he left for the locker room with the kids and the rest of the parents.
“Look,” said Bea, holding her phone up to Quinn’s face. “Some assholes brought up old trade rumours about August, and I kid you not, this shit dropped an hour later.”
Quinn flicked through the lines of allegations and pictures that showed him and August together, but none of it was bad. August hadn’t cared about being seen in public, but the nosebleed and the sheer panic of his reaction didn’t sit right with Quinn.
Something was wrong, but he was torn. Quinn wanted to go to him, but he didn’t know if he had the right when they were just friends.
Friends who might be in love.
“I can’t leave the girls,” said Quinn. “And August will return. He didn’t drive his car here, so unless he gets an Uber home, he’s stuck with me.”
August may have panicked because of the nosebleed, too. There had been plenty of parents and kids with their phones taking pictures, and one good shot of blood on a hockey player could start illness speculation, so it made sense.
Still, Quinn texted August the second that he sat on the cold bench beside Bea. He hated how shaky his fingers were as they stumbled over the letters, but if he didn’t check on August, he was going to have an anxiety attack.
Quinn: Are you okay?
He sent it and waited and…
Nothing.
Quinn: Do you need me to send Bea out to act as a bodyguard?
Quinn: If you’re too worried about coming back in, I could give you the keys to my car so you don’t get cold.
Quinn: Is your nose still bleeding? Do you need help? I think Eren left a shirt in my car that will fit if you need something else to wear.
That was stupid. It was the middle of winter, and August had been wearing a jacket, so a shirt would be pointless because he wouldn’t have any blood on it.
Quinn was too worried to think rationally, and his worry only continued to climb when minutes ticked by without a response from August, or even a sign that he had read his messages.
“Quinn, seriously,” said Bea. “I have the girls if you want to leave. I swear on my life that I’ll get them home safe.”
Quinn shook his head. “It’s fine. There are a thousand reasons why he’s too busy to answer me. His agent is probably freaking out and calling him, plus he’ll be too embarrassed to come back after scaring those kids with the blood. I’ll call him after practice.”
A thousand reasons. A thousand excuses.
But a nagging, singular thought kept repeating in his head that Quinn could not seem to shake.
What if it was because of him?
What if that was the first time that August had seen proof of their non-relationship with his own eyes, and it had scared him again?
Again.
Fuck, Quinn couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t lose him again. He couldn’t—
He really was a goddamn idiot. All the talk of not allowing himself to end up in the same position he was in ten years ago was pointless, because there he was, losing his mind over a guy who was ghosting him for the second time.
No. August wouldn’t do that.
Quinn refused to believe that August was cowardly enough to ditch him and run. Not after he had been trying so hard to prove Quinn wrong.
His phone buzzed, and Quinn ripped it from his pocket and held it up to see, but it was only Niko texting him.
Niko: August is home. He’s okay.
Quinn read the words five times before he managed a reply.
Quinn: Was it the blood? I feel bad for not following him, but I thought he would text me if he needed help.
Ten minutes passed.
Twenty.
An hour.
It wasn’t until Quinn had the girls in the car and was about to turn it on that his phone buzzed again.
Niko: Yeah, he’s good. He has a headache, but he’s taking a nap.
The nausea gripping Quinn’s stomach settled after reading Niko’s words, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to relax until he saw August for himself. He had a few hours to kill before Eren returned home to take the girls, but that would give August enough time to nap off his headache for a visit.
“Quinn, where’s Snowy?” Alara asked, looking around the car as if six-foot-seven August could be hiding under one of the seats. “Did he watch us skate?”
“He did,” Quinn lied because he was fucking flustered. “He was pretty impressed, but he had to leave for a Bigfoot thing, so he couldn’t stay long.”
That had his nieces squealing and kicking their boots against the front seat.
“Daddy has a team dinner tonight,” Emira announced. “He’s probably going to that early so he can eat the most food.”
Right. The team dinner.
Not only was Eren not coming home early, but August also wouldn’t be around if Quinn showed up at his house.
He took a deep breath to settle his nerves and tightened his hands on the steering wheel.
August was okay. Niko told him he was okay.
Quinn had two girls who were depending on him for food, homework and nighttime routines, so now that he knew August was fine, he had to do his job.
Besides, he would see August play against Toronto the next night, so he wouldn’t have to wait long to talk to him.
Quinn could handle one night of not talking to August. He wasn’t completely hopeless.
He turned in his seat and smiled at the girls. “Do you guys want to order pizza and watch movies?”
Excited cheers solidified his plans for the rest of the night, so Quinn sighed and surrendered.
Tomorrow. He would see August tomorrow.
August wasn’t there.
He wasn’t at the game, and Quinn didn’t know what that meant.
He had asked for two seats behind the Bigfoot’s bench for him and Bea so he could at least see August during the game, but he hadn’t come out with his team.
Quinn was left sitting on his own until Bea showed up, and by then, his heart was pounding in his ears so deafeningly that between that and the cheers from the spectators, he could barely hear himself think.
The moment Bea appeared, Quinn sent her a pleading look, begging her to tell him what she knew.
Her answering frown said everything he needed to know.
“He’s off for personal reasons,” said Bea. “Logan doesn’t know a lot, and the guys don’t like to gossip about their teammates. I know he’s okay, but he might be gone for a week.”
A week?!
“He’s still not answering my texts,” said Quinn. “And I tried calling him, but he won’t pick up the phone.”
Bea touched his arm, and Quinn didn’t miss how her gaze flicked to Logan on the bench. “Maybe it’s a family thing. You said he looked at his phone before he ran, right? What if someone he knew passed away?”
That was also a possibility, and Quinn would accept that with no issues if it were the case, but the way August was avoiding him didn’t feel right.
He had gotten used to the daily conversations with August, even if Quinn couldn’t respond right away because he was in class or his hands were covered in paint.
Since Toronto, August had made a point of sending him messages about artwork he found interesting, thrift stores he wanted to visit, and, of course, hockey.
August always seemed happy to hear from him, and he always texted back soon after Quinn messaged him. So, to go from that to being left on read for hours meant something was wrong.
To make matters worse, Niko had ignored him during the warm-up and was refusing to meet Quinn’s eyes. He had tried waving to the younger player, but Niko kept his head bent during a nail-biting first period against Jett, and he showed no signs that he was willing to communicate.
“I have a really bad feeling,” said Quinn.
“Quinn—”
Quinn was on his feet and squeezing past Bea before she could stop him. He didn’t know where he was going, but the first period buzzer was about to go off, and he needed to talk to Eren—to Niko—
To anyone.
Frantic waving from the Toronto bench made Quinn pause his mad dash, and he ignored the grumbling of the man whose seat he was standing in front of as he locked eyes with Jett Killinger.
His blond curls were flattened under his helmet and dripping with sweat, and the younger man looked panicked as he waved and pointed to the chute his team was about to go through.
Meet him. Okay.
Quinn got out of the way before people started piling up behind him for intermission bathroom breaks and jogged up the stairs to the main floor. All it took was a flash of his visitor ID and an elevator ride to the lower levels, where only staff and players were permitted.
Quinn hurried in the direction of the visitor locker room and stayed out of the way as the Toronto team marched off the ice. They were shouting triumphantly about their two-goal lead as they clapped each other on the back and removed their gloves and helmets for their break.
Quinn felt extremely guilty as Jett branched away from his teammates to stroll over to him, handing his gloves to one of the equipment managers and flashing them his golden boy smile.
The smile faded as he reached Quinn, and Jett gently steered him into a side hall to give them privacy.
“Harrison is with August,” said Jett. “Neeks almost refused to come to the game tonight, so I had to think fast, and I didn’t have your number to text you. August said he didn’t want you there, but I think that’s bullshit.”
A loud thump from Quinn’s chest told him that his heart was beginning to have palpitations.
August…didn’t want to see him.
“Niko is scared,” Jett continued, fidgeting with his hockey stick as if the movement kept him calm.
“I tried to tell him to ignore August and call you over, but he won’t do it.
And when I asked him for your number, he shut me out.
I don’t think August is refusing to see you because of something you did—I think he doesn’t want you to see him… at his lowest, if that makes sense.”
Quinn tried to nod, but the muscles in his neck felt like they were seized. “So, I should leave him be.”
“No!” Jett smacked his stick to the floor with a loud crack. “You have to show up and try. Even if he pushes you away, at least give him the option of taking your help.”
Jett made it seem so simple, like August would open the door and fall into his arms while confessing his woes, but that wasn’t real life. August wasn’t his boyfriend, and Quinn had no right to push himself into the situation if he wasn’t welcome, but waiting felt impossible.
“He’s a lot like Harrison,” said Jett, who had caught onto Quinn’s silent turmoil.
“August is quiet in his suffering. He believes he’s unbreakable because of the way people perceive him, but being tall and having broad shoulders doesn’t mean he can carry the weight of the world’s problems. That also means that he doesn’t know how to accept help when he’s piecing himself back together after reaching that breaking point. ”
Quinn curled in on himself, arms crushing his chest like he was scared of falling apart, too.
“I don’t know what you are to him,” said Jett. “But when he told me that you’re the only one who makes the pain hurt less, I believed him. And if Harrison disagreed with me, he would have told me to leave you out of it instead of asking me to convince you to go.”
There was no convincing needed because Quinn was going to August; he just needed a second to breathe before he got behind the wheel of his car.
“Give me your number,” said Jett. “I want to add you to the group and have a way to contact you. I just have to grab my phone.”
Quinn took his out of his pocket and froze when he saw a text from Niko.
Niko: Please go see August. I’m so worried about him that I want to cry, and then he’ll punch me for losing the game…especially since it’s against Jett.
Quinn huffed quietly and told Niko to send Jett his number so he didn’t have to take anymore of his break time away.
“Niko will text it to you,” said Quinn, doing his best to smile so Jett would stop worrying. “Get back in the game, and I’ll take care of August, so you guys can do your hockey rival stuff when you play each other again.”
The corner of Jett’s mouth quirked upward.
“He says hockey stuff like his brother-in-law isn’t the captain of the Bigfoots, his nieces aren’t hockey royalty, and he’s not going to be dating one of the best NHL players in the league.
You can’t escape your fate, Quinn Harlow—might as well lace up a pair of skates and come join us. ”
Quinn waved his hand in front of his face, mostly to test how shaky he was, but also to brush Jett off. “Sorry, Fraser, the smell doesn’t agree with me.”
Jett’s smile fell.
“It’s Killinger.”
Quinn shrugged and pushed himself off the wall. “Nah, it doesn’t have the same ring,” he said as he walked away.
Loud sputtering answered him before Jett shouted, “You’re starting to sound like him!”