Page 7 of The Head Game

The photo on Instagram showed Daniel Townsend grinning as he stared into a mirror and knotted his tie. The social media post was captioned: So excited to be marrying the love of my life tonight!

August swallowed thickly. Funny, he’d thought he was the love of Daniel’s life.

Apparently not.

Apparently, it didn’t go both directions.

That was supposed to be him.

The guy marrying Daniel today was supposed to be him.

It had been planned out and everything had been right on schedule.

August and Daniel had met through mutual friends, hit it off, and started dating. They’d had a handful of nice dates, decided they had the potential for something serious, slept together, agreed they were compatible, dated six months, then moved in together.

After a year, August had picked out a ring and made reservations for their favorite restaurant. He’d planned a stroll along the waterfront in Toronto after dinner and had written down everything he was going to say, then … Daniel had blown up their perfect life.

And now, a year later, Daniel was marrying some prick named Kent Parsons. He was an actor.

August shuddered.

Good luck with that, Daniel.

But they looked happy. They grinned at each other, madly in love, and that was supposed to be him.

“Manning!”

He lifted his head to see Ross Hansen, one of his fellow referees, staring at him.

“Yes?”

“Game time.”

“Shit.” August scrambled to his feet, tucking his phone in his bag. He smoothed down his striped uniform, slipped a whistle onto his finger, then grabbed his black helmet. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, kid.” Ross looked amused. “You don’t always have to be the first one ready.”

But August always was.

He didn’t like being late, didn’t like feeling like he was a step behind.

He’d like to blame Daniel for it tonight but it was no one’s fault but his own.

Daniel certainly couldn’t be expected to schedule his wedding around August’s games.

He’d hated making plans around August’s work when they’d dated. Why would he care now that they’d been broken up for a year?

They’d tried staying friends.

That whole experiment had lasted until Daniel began dating Kent and August realized he was fooling himself. He was never going to be okay being friends with the man he’d planned to marry. He was never going to be okay watching him marry someone else.

“You okay tonight?” Ross asked kindly as they waited to go out onto the ice a few minutes later. “You seem a little off.”

August cleared his throat. “I was a bit distracted but my head’s in the game now,” he said firmly.

Ross gave him a searching look, but he nodded and glanced away.

Ross was a nice guy. Unlike some of his fellow officials, he didn’t treat August like a kid, even if he did call him that.

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