Page 126 of The Head Game

“I did though,” August said, looking over at Nico. “Jon’s right. I wasn’t impartial. In the end, all of the stuff that happened to you wasn’t my fault but the truth is, if you hadn’t had the seizure, at some point I might have made a bad call. I might have overreacted to someone going after you or pulled back on a call I should have made against you.”

Nico scoffed. “Auggie, you’d probably come down twice as hard on me to be sure you weren’t doing that.”

Jon chuckled.

“Probably,” August admitted. “But either way, that’s not me being impartial either. If you were playing in a game tomorrow, there’s no way I would trust myself to make the right call.”

Nico’s brow furrowed. “Okay, fine. That doesn’t mean you can never make the right call again though if it’s a team I’m not on.”

“I know. But fans, players … they don’t trust me anymore.”

“Exactly,” Jon said, and August blinked because for a moment he’d almost forgotten he was there. “It’s the appearance of this that matters. Yes, most people can understand a couple of guys falling in love. They’ll forgive that. That’s not the issue. The trust in August’s ability to make calls has been damaged though.”

“My reputation is everything,” August said. “And with that gone …”

Nico gave him a stricken look. “Auggie, I never meant—”

“I know.” August reached out and cupped Nico’s cheek, realizing he wasn’t as terrified as he once would have been. Years ago, he’d given up a shot at an NHL career and found a new path. He’d lost his fiancé and survived it. He’d deal with losing his officiating career. “Neither of us meant for this to happen. But it did. And I have to learn to accept that the future I thought I would have is going to look very different from what I expected.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They’d been at it for hours and Nico was exhausted.

God, and to think he used to play a full game, party until the sun rose, then make it to the rink in time for practice.

Right now he could barely keep his eyes open and all he’d been doing was sitting at the dining room table having a strategy meeting with August, his agents, and his parents.

It had been a week since August’s NHLOA meeting. He’d officially been suspended pending investigation.

August had taken the news grimly and without much emotion.

He’d gone off alone for a few hours then returned acting normal. Nico had tried to prod him into talking about it but he’d shrugged and said, “I knew this was coming.”

And sure, they both had, but that didn’t mean it was easy for him. But getting August to open up when he didn’t want to was impossible.

He was frustratingly good at changing the subject and turning it around to how Nico was feeling.

Nico’d had a follow-up appointment with a new neurologist here in Toronto but the doc hadn’t told him much. Nico’s scar was healing well, there was no sign of infection, blah, blah.

All great stuff but he wanted to know about playing.

Nico had been dutifully going to rehab. Along with the fiddly little hand exercises they had him doing to increase his grip strength and dexterity, he was doing something called neuro-optometric rehabilitation.

It was as boring as it sounded but it was supposed to strengthen the connection between his brain and his eye muscles. So far it hadn’t done shit but all of the people Nico was working with assured him it would take time.

He was so fucking sick of hearing that.

The team’s press release had gone out as well, causing another uproar. There were JockGossip articles flying and meetings Nico had to attend.

Although the one good thing about having had a brain tumor was that if you told people you weren’t feeling up to something, they bent over backwards to help you get out of it.

Nico suspected August was beginning to catch on though.

Nico was also suspended pending investigation, which was stupid because it wasn’t like he was playing now anyway.

But the league had to cover their asses and all that.

Nico was more or less ignoring his phone except to text Kate, Sky, and his teammates who’d just gotten back from a Western Conference road trip.

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