Golden

✶ chapter six

Sunday was his least favorite day in the week.

The return to school and work loomed in the distance, and without practice or a game to distract him, that weight became much heavier. Sundays were his busy days.

Without having to worry about the team, Aiden instead worried about his schoolwork. All of his readings for the week were pushed into that one day, and Aiden made sure to find a quiet place to study at the crack of dawn before buckling down.

He had been in a spare study lounge in his old dorm building since nine that morning. He had just finished meeting up with one of the freshmen, Evan Accola, twenty minutes ago. The new player had expressed how overwhelmed he was feeling during a practice earlier that week, and Aiden had offered to meet up with him over the weekend. For the most part, all of Evan's worries stemmed from the overwhelming rush that syllabus week tended to induce for new students, and after reviewing his schedule for the month, it was easier to convince Evan that college and practices would become more manageable with time.

If he was being honest with himself, he understood that overwhelming feeling now.

As his eyes strained to understand the PDF he'd downloaded on his computer, it was almost a relief when his phone started to vibrate on the table, his mother's name flashing across the screen.

Megan Collins was a formidable woman, and that was putting it lightly. His father wasn't in the picture and hadn't been for some time, but his absence had only made Megan's devotion to her two children stronger. She'd given Aiden all of the opportunities she could afford him, and even though he felt like he'd grown up faster than most, his mother was a constant force in his life.

His scholarship was a godsend, even though Megan had never voiced it out loud. The money he received for playing at Briarcliff both allowed him to do what he loved and gave his mother a much-needed cushion to finance the rest of his education. He wouldn't ask for more beyond that.

His DPT would come out of his own pockets.

"Hi, Mom," he greeted. Since the door was shut, there was no need to lower his voice. He wasn't in the library. There were no regulations on volume.

"Hellooo," she drawled. "Where are you right now? Can we FaceTime? I miss you."

"Sure," Aiden said. He tapped the button to request a FaceTime call and propped his phone up against his laptop as he waited for her to accept him.

Megan's warm face filled the screen then, the camerawork shaky as she held her phone at arms length in front of her. Her brown-eyed gaze softened at the sight of her only son. (Their eyes had never matched. It was one of the obvious features he'd inherited from his biological father: clear, green eyes.)

"Hi, Aiden," she repeated. "Where are you right now?"

"The study lounge." He indicated the room around him with his pencil before letting it fall onto the desk. "I've just been working all day."

"Oops! Am I interrupting you?"

"It's a good interruption." His smile was weary, the clear indicator of a long day spent between the pages of books. "I could use the break. How are you?"

"I'm good—great."

"How's Hannah?"

It had been too long since he'd spoken with his only sibling, his younger sister. He hated that it had taken him this long to reach out—and technically, it had been through his mother's will, not his—since he had a habit of calling every other day. Even though most college students could go weeks—months, even—without contacting their families, Aiden had never agreed.