August would never look at ornaments the same way again—not without thinking,if it doesn’t have a flared base, then it can’t go up your ass.
His head was throbbing, but only a tiny bit. The high he had felt after fucking Quinn was slowly ebbing away, leaving him feeling mentally drained in ways he thought only hockey drills could achieve.
The bath had helped. And Niko’s cooking, delivered during his hour-long soak, had also helped. August feltbetter, but he knew he still had a while to go before he could heal from this—from the damage his parents had inflicted on him.
Sex with Quinn brought more memories back, mostly the ones of the first and last time they’d fucked, but it wasn’t enough. Something waited in the shadows of his mind, restless and hungry, ready to rip him apart the moment he let his guard down.
The unknown terrified August because he was scared of what it meant. Had there been more? What if something happened to him that wasworsethan his father’s beatings and religious hate?
His phone buzzed, making August jump so hard he nearly flung it out of his hand. He didn’t bother checking the name on the screen before he answered it.
“H-Hello?”
Fuck, his heart was pounding. To say his nerves were shot was an understatement.
“Heya,” said Jett’s teasing voice. “Neeks told me you were home, so I wanted to call you now while we both have a minute.”
August groaned and flipped around, yawning loudly. “We really don’t have to—”
“Don’t,” Jett interrupted, his tone so firm that August’s mouth snapped shut. “Harrison is here, and we want to help you. I know you’re grumpy about me sending Sandford after you to ask for a friendship bracelet, but Niko says you won’t talk to anyone, and Harrison and I have…experience in this.”
Trauma. They were talking about trauma.
August didn’t mind taking their help, but he also didn’t want to dredge up things that Harrison and Jett were healing from. That wouldn’t be fair to any of them.
“I can hear the hamster running in overdrive,” said Jett. “Grumbles and I arefine. Please, just talk to us. We all know what pressure can do to guys in our profession, and more than anything, we don’t want things to take a bad turn when we could have prevented it.”
“Let’s talk about us first,” said Harrison’s deep voice, and August imagined they were curled up on their couch together, being stupidly cute. “Niko gave us the rundown, so we can take as much time as you need to get personal.”
August swallowed, his mouth suddenly tacky now that they were getting intense. “As long as it won’t fuck you up…go for it.”
There was a pause and muffled fidgeting before Jett spoke.
“Did it surprise you when I came back so soon after the attack?”
August had to stop and think because, at the time, he was so focused on winning the cup that it hadn’t truly registered until the moment he went up to Jett during their last game.
“Past me thought you were a badass,” August confirmed, awkwardly tugging his hair because fuck, this was weird.
“I couldn’t remember most of the attack,” said Jett. “Even now, there are parts that are…fuzzy. But during the playoffs, I was in fight-or-flight mode because I kept feeling like something was chasing me, but I didn’t know what it was. I knew I had been attacked, and I understood the basics of what happened, but it felt like it wasn’tmethat it had happened to. It was like the Jett that had been through that awful event was a separate version of myself that I didn’t recognize.”
Memories of a blinking red light made August go rigid, breath catching in his throat—but when nothing else happened, he brushed it off.
“So you were walking around with those scars, and you couldn’t remember how you got them?” August asked.
Jett’s chuckle made everything feel less tight. “Yeah, no. I had no fucking idea how I’d hurt them. They found my blood around the hole in the ice where Harrison fell through and told me that I must have cut myself while I dragged him up. That’s the one thing I still can’t remember, but the doctors are probably right.”
Harrison grunted. “I couldn’t remember dick-all because I got clubbed on the back of the head. I’m still suffering from migraines—and the nightmares.”
Nightmares?
August hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but he must have, because Harrison was answering him.
“Nightmares of drowning—and of hands trying to drag me under the water. Nightmares of Luca and Taylor telling me that it wasn’t my time to die, and no matter how much I try to bring them back with me, they refuse to follow.”
Luca and Taylor were names August didn’t recognize, but knowing Killinger’s past, he guessed that they were the two people who died in the same car accident that ruined his leg.
“And obviously, we’re still working on shit,” Jett added. “A year of therapy don’t mean much after almost being murdered, but it’s a good outlet, and it can help you organize your thoughts.”
