Page 32 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

Chapter Ten

CAMERON

Static energy filled the cold air of the rink. Chatter and cheers, as well as boos, ricocheted against the icy surface and the metal roof. The arena was filled with spectators, all of the avid fans of one team or the other.

The long awaited game that would open this season was finally on.

Though our training only felt like real practice over the last week or so, optimism had filled the locker room and the entire team was skating out with complete determination to take the win tonight.

“Alright, guys,” Riley had told us before we had left the locker room. He had only briefly glanced at me, as though prolonged eye contact would cause us to shed our clothes and reveal to everyone how exactly we had been smoothing out our differences. “I can feel the victory.” The team had clacked their sticks against the floor and hooted. “This season, we have the best team so far and you all know it. We’ve done our drills. We’ve had our scrimmages. It’s time to show those Blizzard wusses what it means to be an Arctic Titan.” The cheers had intensified. Riley, glowing with pride, continued. “If we win this one, we’ll win the rest of the season, boys.”

And while there had been no way to predict anything even close to that, the optimism had spread through the Titans. Now, we were still feeling electric as we readied for the game to begin.

Around me, it was all unfolding in a familiar way, but my attention drifted away from the ceremonies and to the guy I called my captain. His helmet covered his sun-kissed hair, but I could see it before my eyes if I only tried. I could feel its silkiness between my fingers and smell the lavender of his shampoo.

So when Jonah Hamilton, the Breakers’ captain, hard checked Riley close to the end of the first period, my vision narrowed and I discovered myself filled with rage. Riley was fine, but I observed a moment where Jonah grabbed Riley’s jersey and said something that made Riley pause for a moment too long. While he quickly returned to his senses, I filed the moment in my memory to discuss it later. I was busy, right now, chasing after the puck. Caden and Beckett, who seemed to be rolling their eyes at one another whenever their feet were on solid ground, played well as a team. The puck was sliding between them while I covered them from the enemy attacks, and Beckett scored the single point for our team in the first period, evening us out with the Breakers.

The intermission came as a relief. The strain of the first period of the first competitive match was durable, but the feeling that Riley had been unjustly threatened made my brain slow down just enough to give the enemy a slight advantage.

I skated across the rink to catch up with Riley, but Jonah reached him first, grinning like a cocky fool after he threw an arm over Riley’s shoulders. “Ever thought of studying hard and doing something you’re actually good at, Ry?”

Whiteness of my own anger blinded me and I reached Riley’s other side. I pretended I needed to speak to him as a teammate, so I slapped his right shoulder and carelessly pushed Jonah’s arm away. “Need a word, Cap,” I said. Riley was red after Jonah’s remark and I pulled him to a side. “The fuck was that all about?”

“It’s just Hamilton. He’s like that.” But Riley’s voice was tight with hurt.

A growl rose from my throat.

“Leave it, Cam,” Riley said. “He’s an idiot.”

“We’ll see about that,” I muttered, but Riley spun to face me.

“I mean it,” he said, his blue gaze intense, like he was looking into my very soul. “He’s an asshole, but I can put up with him.”

I shrugged. “Sure. Fine. He’s all yours.” But a desperate need to put that jerk in his place was welling inside of me. It was good to be off ice for the next fifteen minutes and get my head together. We hydrated and listened to Coach Murray lay out the plans for the second period. Riley absent-mindedly rubbed his shoulder, which had slammed against the boards when Jonah had checked him and I felt myself reaching a decision that was completely based on feelings and not even a little on reason.

The problem with me was that I carried rage deep inside myself. In California, I had excelled because I had been, as Coach had put it, surrounded with mediocre players. That rage had nowhere to go except in aggressive, meaningless hookups. But even before Santa Barbara, I had been a quietly angry person. I had carried this anger in me since I could remember. Anger at my parents and the flying fucking saucers that would smash against the walls. Anger at the smell of booze filling the house at noon. Anger at feeling like Riley was doing me favors when he let me in to hide from the Sunday shouting matches in my own house.

Years had helped me hide it better, but it had never truly gone away.

And Jonah Hamilton painted a big, red target on himself when he told Riley to do something other than hockey. I could take a hard check on ice. We had all signed up for getting physical and leaving the rink with bruises. But to prod Riley where it hurt the most… Not on my fucking watch.

The second period was a bloodthirsty battle all over the rink. Few got through without bruising and I found myself in the thick of it. We scraped the icy surface with our blades and chipped our sticks. We struggled and skirmished. Nobody would leave the rink without feeling like they had meandered uselessly during this period. For twenty minutes, sweat poured over our bodies, then cooled down with the freezing temperatures. Jonah evaded me, though I was coy about seeking him out.

Riley was gliding through the center, heeding Coach Murray’s advice, and matching each point the Breakers scored with one of our own. In this period, a true sense of kinship emerged among our entire team. It was something I hadn’t truly felt since high school. In California, it had been hard to develop a bond with the team where nobody had their heart really set on hockey. Not like these guys, at least.

When Riley and I charged, breaking through the enemy defenses, followed by Caden, Beckett, and Sebastian, all of whom supported us without a question, I finally found it. That which I had been looking for all these years. It came from a short glance Riley and I exchanged. A quick grin and a rising sense of adventure.

I felt like I finally belonged somewhere.

For a moment. A semester. A year. My place was here.

And while Jonah remained out of my reach for the entire second period, it was in the final five minutes of the last period that he triggered my full wrath. Breakers were leading with a single point, like most of the game, and Riley was scrambling to organize our offense while increasingly under attack.

Just now, in the heat of the battle, I was filled with unwavering loyalty to our captain, and the team felt as much. No discord or rift existed among the Titans when we focused on swaying the course of the game. I skated shoulder to shoulder with Riley when Hamilton went on the defensive and crossed Riley’s path.

I didn’t know what he wanted to do.

My tunnel vision only allowed me to be aware of Riley’s hurt feelings and the trigger of his life-long anxiety. When Hamilton yelled, “Just stop embarrassing yourself, asshole,” the beast in me was unleashed.