Page 33 of The Head Game

August was tempted to send him a message saying, “Fuck you I can totally get a guy like that. That was me in the article” but that defeated the purpose of keeping this whole situation a secret. And he was taking this to his grave.

Even from his twin brother.

Instead, August sent Julius a middle finger emoji.

August was probably going to look like a crazy stalker but he dialed Nico’s number one more time.

It rang. And rang. And rang.

The asshole wasn’t picking up. Of course he wasn’t.

God, why had August even tried?

August lowered his phone to end the call as a sleepy “‘lo?” came through. It was eight p.m. Was Nico sleeping?

That sounded highly improbable. Maybe he was resting up before a wild night out or something.

“Arents?” August asked, the phone slipping a little in his suddenly sweaty fingers as he lifted it to his ear.

“Yeah. Who is this?”

“August Manning.”

“Auggie!” Nico sounded much more awake and weirdly happy as he used that horrific nickname. No one wanted to be called Auggie. “Aww, and here I thought you were giving me the brush-off.”

“Well I was planning on it,” August snapped. “But we landed ourselves on the pages of JockGossip.”

“We?” Nico sounded amused. “I did. You were a vague, anonymous sidenote.”

“Yeah well, my brother recognized the coat. He thought it was a joke but if he put the pieces together, anyone could.”

“Geez, you’re wound up. It’s seriously not that big of a deal.”

August let out an annoyed huff. “How can you be so blasé about this? They’re going to figure it out as soon as I wear it again. God, I regret the day I bought that peacoat.” He rose to his feet, pacing the length of his small living room and back again.

“So … burn the damn thing,” Nico said with a laugh. “It’s not like it’s stylish anyway.”

“It’s a classic,” August argued. “And I’m not going to burn a perfectly serviceable winter coat. There are people in need and we just got snow. I guess I’ll have to donate it.”

“Wait, do you live here in Toronto?” Nico sounded surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

“I thought you looked up my Wikipedia page,” August countered.

“Well, I got the Coles Notes.”

As annoyed as August was, he nearly laughed aloud. “You would get the highlights.” He wondered if Nico had ever read an entire article or book in his life.

“Anyway, seriously, you live in Toronto?” Nico pressed.

“About an hour outside of it in Hamilton. Not all of us are willing to pay millions of dollars to live in a tiny apartment.”

Instead he’d paid hundreds of thousands to live in a tiny house. But at least he owned it. And a tiny sliver of land around it.

Nico hummed quietly. “I mean, my place is pretty spacious but … yeah. It didn’t come cheap.”

“Good for you. Now, can we focus? We’re getting derailed.” August pinched the bridge of his nose.

“And whose fault is that?”

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