002

August’s POV

A winning streak of five in a row was worth the celebration, and that was why I didn't oppose it when my team members suggested getting drinks. My dream of becoming a hockey player on the national level was gradually happening.

After our game, I'd received an email from the manager of the national team like he had promised, and in a month's time, I was going to meet with him. 

Perfect. This was just the beginning. 

“Hey Augie, should I fill your glass?" Tyler asked, clutching the vodka bottle. 

"Of course. He led us to victory today, so we have to spoil him the best way we can, don't you all agree?” Diego yelled, pushing his glass forward. 

Laughing heartily, we clinked our glasses and while they emptied the content of theirs, I shifted my gaze back to the window, but she wasn't there anymore. She had scurried off after I'd called her a ginormous asshole.

Dona McNair, straight-A sophomore student who was taking senior classes and topping them too. She was the typical example of beauty with brains. Of course, she HAD to think I, the hockey guy, was stupid. In her world, everyone who wasn't as smart as her had to be a complete idiot. 

She'd caught my attention the first engineering class I had taken after my transfer. She was damn good with school work, professors and her co-students, but it was a huge turn off for me. 

I loved my girls wild and social, but not dumb. If only she was a social bee.

The music inside the bar was loud, and it was scrambling my thoughts. The room was crowded, filled with the sweaty bodies of college students crammed together and drinks raised high in celebration. 

We had won the scrimmage at the very last minute and my teammates were already halfway to being wasted. 

There were cheers, laughter and too many people shouting my name. The cheerleaders circled us like moths to a flame but still, I didn’t feel a damn thing.

I was on my third glass of beer, watching the foam settle in my glass when my phone buzzed against the table. 

I picked it up, thinking it was someone important, but then the name that flashed across my screen made me freeze. It was my dad.

I stared at the screen like it was some kind of trick. I hadn’t heard from him in five years. That was half a decade of silence, and now, tonight of all nights, he decided to call?

My thumb hovered over the decline button. That man had no right to call me, but I had to hear what he had to say after five years. I swiped left and placed the phone against my ear.

“Yeah?” I grunted, pushing off the table and stepping away from the group. 

"So you snuck into Florida without telling me."

“Nice to hear from you too, Dad.” I rolled my eyes, leaning against the cold wall outside the bar.

“I had to find out from the damn TV!” he barked suddenly. “You show up at a school a few miles from my house, in a state I have lived for five years, playing hockey again like nothing happened!”

I laughed. “Why do you care now? I have been on TV several times, and I have played in twenty three different states, but you only discovered when I came to Florida, because it happened to be the state you're in too. You left me in Chicago, remember?"

"That was because I had to handle the funeral arrangements for your mum. She wanted to be buried in her hometown in Florida. That's why I moved here—"

"—and left your seventeen year old son all alone in Chicago, to live with relatives for five years. I didn't see you for five years, dad!"

“Boy, you better watch your tone—”

“Or what? You’ll stop calling? Hate to break it to you, but I’ve had five peaceful years of that already.”

We both fell into silence after that. It was always this way between us since the death of my mother. We were always aiming for each other's throats. 

“I’m not calling to fight,” he broke the silence, and his voice was very strained. “I need to meet you. I have a huge announcement to make." 

A pause. "I met a woman, and I am getting married to her very soon. I want you to meet her and her daughter."

"Wow!" I chuckled bitterly. "Who is the unlucky woman?"

“August....”

“Don’t call me that!" I snapped. “Just... stop trying to act like a father now. You lost that right long ago, so get used to it!"

He was quiet again, and for a moment I thought he had hung up, but then he murmured.

“I also want to show you your mother’s grave.” 

I gasped and straightened in surprise. "What? Mom's grave?"

“You’ve not had the chance to see it for years, since I buried her alone." He said. “And I have answers, but I’m not giving them to you over the phone.”

I turned away from the noise inside the bar, walking toward the alley behind it. 

“She’s been gone for five years,” I mumbled. “And now you want to take me to her grave? Why now?”

“Because you’re spiraling again, like you did when she died. Drinking, smoking, picking fights and skipping classes."

"The hell are you keeping tabs on me for?"

"I’ve been keeping track of everything, Augie," my father continued. "And now that you are back in town, you are coming back to where to belong. You're coming back to me. Like it or not, you’re still my son—" 

“You killed her!" I yelled, fist punching the air. “You fucking killed Mom! You didn’t pull the trigger, no, but your words and your temper and... They put her six feet under the ground.”

“August, your mother was sick."

“And who made her sick?" I growled. “I was seventeen, in case you have forgotten. I was not a dumb child. I saw everything, how you turned that house into a warzone. I watched you break her, day after day, until she didn’t even feel it anymore. But I did. I felt it, and I still do."

I heaved a broken sigh, “And then one day, she was gone, and you buried her without even telling me. Like... like she was a secret.”

“She didn’t want a funeral,” he muttered. “She didn’t want a fuss, that's what she told me. Do think I wanted her or you gone?”

“But you left and never looked back." 

Titling my head backwards, I closed my eyes, trying to regulate my heavy breathing. This conversation was going nowhere. The thought of seeing my mother's final resting place haunted me.

"Will you make it?" My father asked. "Come and see my new family, and I will show you where your mother was laid to rest."

“Fine.” I muttered, more to myself than to him.

“What?”

“I’ll be there.”

“Good. I'll text you the address." He hung up and immediately, I slid down the alley wall, my face buried in my palms as my heart thundered against my chest.

I'd wanted to help my mother, but she hadn’t let me. Even when things had gotten really bad, she kept insisting he was a good man. She made me promise not to call the police, leaving me to just stand there and watch it happen.

I hadn’t thought about her like this in months. I had spent years numbing it, pushing it down, covering it with girls, hockey games, drugs, drinks, whatever my hands could reach for.

But now, her ghost was back when I least expected it.

Burying myself further into the wall, I dragged my hand down my face. I didn’t want to go alone, not back to that life.

My father was up to something; I could feel it in my gut. A call from him was the least likely thing I thought would happen to me that day.

Then with a start, I remembered Kade, my cousin from my mom's side. I remembered his last words to me before we parted in Chicago, how he'd made me promise that I'd call when I needed help. And I needed his help more than ever now.

I pulled out my phone and dialed his number, waiting for the line to connect. His phone rang twice before he answered.

“Thought you were dead, Cousin." Kade said the moment he came on. 

I sighed and dragged a tired hand down my face. “Not yet.”

“So, what’s up?” He asked.

“You owe me one, it’s time to pay up.”