Quinn left August standing with his mouth open while he went to tell his nieces about their father. But even as he explained their upcoming visit to the excited six-year-olds, he couldn’t stop his gaze from drifting back to the man watching them, and smiling when August smiled back.
Chapter 38
August
“You gonna ask me for permission to marry him, or are you just going to continue watching him like an idiot?”
August blinked and looked down at the man lying in the hospital bed beside him. The man who sometimes forgot who he was talking to and where he was, and who was slurring his words so badly that he was hard to make out.
And yet—Eren Callahan still had enough energy to torture him even if he was only two weeks into recovering from a traumatic brain injury.
Eren had asked for a minute alone with August once his very short visit with his daughters was finished. They had been watching him through a window all week, and today had been the first time they were permitted inside the room.
The girls had been quiet but very brave as they took their father’s less usable hand and hugged it with all their strength. They didn’t cry, but that was okay because August had done enough crying for both of them.
August had stayed with Quinn to keep him distracted as the scene unfolded, and he had comforted the girls when they looked to him for strength. It was so much easier to help other people compared to helping himself, so he focused on the task entirely during the emotional ten minutes.
Eren had shot him tired glances throughout the visit, but August hadn’t thought much of it because it was hard to tell what Eren was looking at sometimes due to his poor coordination. He spent most of his days sleeping and recovering, and he was still so weak that he couldn’t push himself into a sitting position on his own yet.
August had been surprised and slightly terrified when Eren asked him to stay while Quinn and the girls waited and waved at him through the observation window. He didn’t know what he had expected his captain to say, but it wasn’t random shit about marriage, that was for sure.
“You’re good—” Eren paused, taking his time to swallow and breathe before he started again. “Good with them. Emira—Emira loves you. Alara loves you. Quinn loves you.”
Great, now August was tearing up.
Eren sighed, and August could tell he was getting tired.
“May loved you, too. Said you were an adorable cur-cur—” Eren scowled, though one side of his mouth did it weaker than the other. “Fuck—fucking grumpy. She said you were grumpy. She liked it.”
August tightened the laces around his hand, forcing a smile past the pain. “Yeah? I do remember Esme during that last party. She held my hand while I cried about not having a girlfriend.”
Eren snorted and squeezed his eyes shut, like he thought the darkness could help him remember better.
“That’s right,” he said. Eren opened his eyes and stared at August, and the seriousness of the situation came back into full swing. “Marry him. Make him happy. I need to know he’s—okay. I need him to not be alone if anything bad happens…to me. And I need—”
Tears were in Eren’s eyes, and he tried to lift his weak arm to wipe them away, but got tired halfway through the motion and dropped it back to his side.
August leaned in and brushed them away with his thumb, not stopping until the tears were gone and Eren’s fierce expression had softened.
“I need you to be there for my girls, too. Need you to teach them how to skate—how to be kind—and how to eat all their damn vegetables so they grow up tall like you.”
August’s throat was spasming painfully, and he had to swallow several times before he could speak again. “You’ll be able to do all that on your own, Cap. The doctor said with enough physio, you’ll walk again. He said you have a super brain, remember? Don’t count yourself out yet.”
“Walk, yes,” said Eren. “But not skate.”
August frowned at the same time Eren smiled.
“The ironic thing is—I was going to retire after we won the cup.” Eren shook his head, and soft laughter spilled from his lips. “I wanted more time with my girls. Didn’t want them to grow up without a mother or a father…”
August took Eren’s good hand and held it. He tried not to think about how frail that hand felt because he knew that would break him, but it was hard to see the man who had led him since his rookie year so vulnerable.
“We both know I could drop dead any time,” Eren said in quiet acceptance. “If that happens, and I hope it doesn’t, but if itdoes—I wantyou to raise my daughters with Quinn. If Quinn has his way, they’ll be in art school instead of knocking bodies into boards. Can’t have that.”
August scoffed and squeezed Eren’s hand. “You’re saying that to one of the few players who doesn’t play rough.”
Eren shook his head, groaning when the movement hurt him. “Naw, leave the rough stuff to their Uncle Niko, since you idiots are a package deal.”
August was beginning to see the vision Eren was painting of the future, and it was so impossible it was funny. “If you’re saying it’s up to me totellQuinn that he needs to keep the girls in hockey, then you may as well give up. I’m not the one in charge at all.”
