The drive to the rink was quiet, but none of them were in the mood for conversation with the anxiety climbing so rapidly the closer they got. It was hard knowing that after Quinn dropped them off, August couldn’t see him until after the game. This would be the first time they separated in seven days, and hockey was his life, but he had fallen in love with the glimpse of domestic comfort that came with having Quinn close.
Quinn, who wouldn’t give him an answer on their relationship status, and who hadn’t said anything more about love since the night he hinted at it.
August was trying not to pout, but he couldn’t shake the irrational feeling that Quinn would disappear the moment he let him out of his sight.
Even so, he kept a neutral expression when Quinn pulled up to the door, and August gave him a short but sweet peck on the corner of his mouth before exiting the car.
Niko didn’t bother waiting because he didn’t want to intrude on their goodbye, and August was grateful for the kid’s intuition.
Quinn leaned across the passenger seat so he could look at August, lips tugged in the smallest hint of a frown. “If you need to tap out, tell Eren. He’ll be watching you, so don’t try faking it because you know he’ll come straight to me.”
August knew Quinn wasn’t fucking around, so he nodded and smiled. “I’ve listened to you so far, haven’t I?”
The frown deepened, and Quinn crinkled his nose. “You have, which is suspicious, but I have no choice but to trust you.”
August tapped the car and straightened. “I’ll look for you behind the bench,” he said.
He couldn’t see Quinn’s reaction, but he heard the scoff clearly before the door shut, and he headed inside to join his teammates for breakfast.
The pain of losing Quinn became quickly overshadowed by the eager faces of his teammates and the excitement about his return. He endured several slaps on the back and hair ruffles before August purposely shoved into the chair between Niko and Haas, just so he could have backup.
“Nice to see you, Snow,” said Haas, shaking his red curls out of the way so he could get a good look at him. “Niko missed you a lot. It was getting kind of exhausting to listen to him cry about your absence.”
Niko would have jumped over August to beat up their rookie if he hadn’t held an arm out to stop him. “Seriously, Sauce? I did fucking not.”
The conversation quickly turned into an argument, so August did his best to keep his head down and avoid getting stabbed by a fork. They were loud, but the bickering was normal, and normal was what August needed right now.
The meeting after breakfast gave time for food to digest before they hit the ice, and August stayed for as long as he could before he had to meet up with the doctor. The appointment took an intense twenty minutes, but he wasclearedwhen he left the room, and the wave of relief was instant.
One more bit of normalcy. One more—and soon other moments would follow until he hit a point where he finally felt in control again.
August was beaming when he went to the locker room and geared up with the boys. He was so excited for practice that he forgot his stick on the way out and had to turn around, only for Niko to pass it to him with a shake of his head.
“Sauce wants you to fire a good luck shot at his head,” Niko said as he glided beside August, sounding exasperated. “Goalies are fucking weird, man.”
An arm suddenly swung over August’s shoulders, but the height difference was too much, and he had to lean forward or risk straining his neck. Logan Bradshaw grinned at him before knocking their helmets together.
“Gusty, I fucking missed you.” Logan grabbed Niko by the jersey to stop him from escaping and pulled him into a three-man hug. “We are going to kick Washington’s ass tonight. I’m so stoked—they’re a bunch of hosers.”
And it was no secret that one of Logan’s old teammates from the AHL was on the Washington Eagles, and the two of them beat the shit out of each other every time they played.
August frowned, unsure of why he remembered that now when he hadn’t cared to think about it before.
His head throbbed dangerously, and August wiggled out of the hug so he could pick up a puck. Haas was in the net, so he played along and shot the puck at his helmet, not hard enough to break it, but hard enough to ring his bell a little.
Haaswhoopedand jumped up and down, shaking off the hit like it was nothing and laughing while he did it.
“You know, when you got in Park’s face during that game against Ottawa and growled at him for hitting me, I felt a tingle,” said Haas.
August circled the net, scooping up another puck to shoot at the top left corner, but it was blocked.
“Just a small tingle,” said Haas, breathless. “But it was enough to make me think that romance might not be dead, you know?”
August snorted and found another puck. The rookie was weirder than most goalies he had dealt with in his career, but at least the kid was adorable.
“Sauce, if you’re going to hit on anyone, hit on Niko,” said Callahan as he slid to a stop beside August. “At least he’s single.”
Technically, August was single, too. It wasn’t for lack of trying, either.
