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.
Havinga 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.”
Heshouldhave 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’tlooksick.”
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.
