August grinned because he didn’t mind when people hadthiskind of reaction to his size. Arlo wasn’t treating him like he was a freak of nature; he was envious of him. Only athletes understood how much work he put into his body when they looked at him, and he appreciated the attention.
“Thanks,” said August. “Sorry for that hit last year. You were faster than I was expecting, and I checked you too hard.”
Arlo punched him gently on the chest, barely making August sway. “Don’t worry about it. I should have kept my head up.”
“Arlo!” Robert shouted from the kitchen. “Get over here, son! I need me a hug.”
“Coming, Pops!” Arlo smirked at August, making him bump fists before he sprinted to the kitchen.
Étienne approached the moment Arlo was gone, introducing himself with a handshake and a polite smile.
“Thanks for watching out for Niko,” Étienne spoke softly, so he wasn’t overheard with the multiple conversations going on. “I think Jett has been worried about him since the trade, but he’s too proud to say it.”
“I could be doing a better job,” August admitted.
Étienne was only a year older than him, but his presence was soothing in the same way that Robert’s was. And even though August was taller than the Montreal captain, he felt like a kid compared to him.
“Then do it,” said Étienne, his smile making the sliver of grey in his eye seem brighter. “And also, welcome to the family. You will never know peace again.”
August believed him.
Étienne left to greet Jett, Harrison and Jin, and August sat down, suddenly starving again.
He had an entire piece of pizza shoved in his mouth when Niko nudged him, making him spill a cookie off his plate.
“See? We’re not so bad.”
No. They really weren’t.
August had never cared for Christmas because all he knew was what he grew up with, which was a string of miserable days filled with religious bullshit and yearly beatings, but it wasn’t like that here.
He wasn’t being starved for his sins. Food was so abundant that he nearly made himself sick a few times as the days passed by.
He wasn’t forced to repeat verses of a book that held a more important position in his family than he did. However, he was forced to sing Christmas songs he didn’t know the words to.
He wasn’t hit, slapped, punched or locked in the closet because he had asked for a drink of water. Hugs, high-fives, and roughhousing were his constant companions until the moment he and Niko got on the plane and flew back to Vancouver.
And he wasn’t made to sit in silence alone and pray to an invisible man who must have hated him, because he did nothing to stop the hurt. But when Niko dropped him off at his house, and he was faced with the silence that awaited him behind closed doors, he didn’t hesitate to turn and offer something he had never offered anyone before.
“Are you interested in renting a room?”
Chapter 8
August
The Christmas break changed everything.
Spending time with a group of people who smiled, laughed and spoke so freely helped drag August out of the mental fog he often found himself trapped in. How could he have time to brood when his phone kept buzzing with hilarious messages for him to read?
Jett was the one who texted him most often, even outside of the group chat. The guy had no filter and would tell him about the weirdest things that made no sense, or switch the topic three times before August could respond.
Being this social should have exhausted him, but August found that it had the opposite effect. He was sleeping better, performing better, and the constant tightness in his chest that had always felt so heavy was slowly lifting.
When he and Niko started showing up to practice together, no one questioned it at first. But by the third day, after a few too many curious looks, Niko had shyly admitted that he’d moved in with August.
For some reason, that small confession seemed to shift the rest of the tension between him and his teammates. After that, the guys started talking to August casually, like it wasn’t strange anymore.
August had been apprehensive about having a roommate for all of five seconds before Niko began wooing him with healthy but flavour-packed meals, playing video games with him, and working out with him.
