He headed to the dining room to enjoy the team breakfast, greeting the staff and nodding to some of his teammates as he picked a table. He was stirring his coffee five minutes later when Niko came hurrying in. Callahan kept giving them confused looks because Niko wouldn’t stop elbowing him and stealing his food, and it got to the point where August had to step on his friend’s foot to put him back in his place.
At least Callahan hadn’t said anything passive-aggressive about people having private conversations in the hallway in the middle of the night, so August assumed he was in the clear.
Logan, who always seemed to be sitting on August’s other side these days, poked him to get his attention. “Gusty, you get laid last night or what?”
Well, there went that assumption.
“Whatdo you mean?” August asked. He kept his tone low in the hopes that Logan would get nervous and back off, but the idiot only grinned and poked him again, this time on the neck.
“This,” said Logan. “You either fucked someone, or you wrestled a horny octopus.”
August slapped a hand to his neck and ducked his head when several gazes at the tables around them turned in his direction.
What the fuck had he missed while he was looking at himself in the bathroom mirror this morning?
“Why does the octopus have to be horny?” asked one of their D-men—Tom Craven.
“Why else would an octopus manhandle someone as big as Gusty, Munchy?” Logan shot back. “I bet a shark would take a look at our guy and swim away.”
This started a debate about what aquatic sea animals August could kill, successfully drawing his teammates away from the topic of sex, which was usually a difficult task to accomplish.
“You got a big ‘ol hickey on your neck,” Niko drawled, touching adifferentspot from the one Logan had pointed out.
Just how many had Quinn left on him?!
“Shut the fuck up,” August muttered, grabbing his coffee so he could wet his dry throat. He had the cup pressed to his lips when he met Callahan’s gaze from across the table, and his first sip went down the wrong way when he saw how narrowed those blue eyes were.
August coughed and hit his chest, throat spasming as he tried to clear the coffee from his lungs.
He was dead. He would have to will Niko the house before he went missing on the way to the airport, and they found his body in a ditch somewhere.
He knew Quinn told him that he wouldn’t hide anything from Callahan, but he was hoping his captain wouldn’t catch on immediately after they spent the night together. Callahan seemed like the type of guy who needed a little warm-up first before he found out someone was fucking his brother.
Or…he had heard August running his mouth in the hallway last night and had put things together on his own. Quinn probably wasn’t awake yet, so the chances of him telling Callahan were low.
Niko not-so-subtly placed a hand on his shoulder. “It was nice knowing you, buddy.”
August stepped on his foot again, making Niko shout and jerk his leg up, smashing his knee on the underside of the table.
Callahan’s attention dropped to the cursing and scowling Niko, giving August enough time to abandon ship and retreat to the bus. Maybe once he was out of sight, Callahan would forget about him.
He picked a seat toward the back and removed his headphones from his bag. He had been listening to an audiobook on the way to New York and was eager to jump back in. Riding a dragon into battle against another bigger, eviler dragon sounded more fun than talking to Niko or dealing with his captain.
And yeah, he got so entranced while listening to the book and looking out the window that he almost didn’t notice when Niko sat in the seat beside him and tapped his arm.
“Haven’t forgiven you yet,” said August, batting the hand away. “You make me something to eat when we get home, and I’ll think about it.”
“You’re not abusing our newest teammate, are you?”
Shit.
August tore his headphones off and spun in his seat. “Cap—fuck. Okay, whatever you heard last night, I just want to say that I’m sorry.”
“Snow—”
“I know talking about sucking dick in the hallway isn’t professional, and I know it’s not the way you envisioned finding out about Quinn and me—”
Niko quickly came into his line of sight, shaking his head and crossing his arms to form an ‘X’.
