Page 33 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

I changed course in an instant, crossing paths in front of Riley and slamming Hamilton against the boards. It gave the Titans a good chance to slide through the Breakers’ defenses and score the point that evened us out, but it also gave me a chance to press my forearm against Hamilton’s collarbones and stare into his eyes. “Don’t you fucking dare speak to him like that again. Don’t even fucking look at him. Do you hear me?” I shoved the guy once, hard, against the boards and then pushed him away. When Jonah snarled at me, I slowed down and faced him.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he demanded.

“You are.” The bark left my throat as my anger stalled the game.

“You’ll fucking pay for this,” Hamilton said and skated away.

I turned to meet Riley’s gaze. He was looking at me questioningly, although around us mess and mayhem were intensifying.

I sneered and shook my head. “Only I get to call you ‘asshole.’” My gaze remained locked to his.

Riley gave it a moment, the corners of his lips ticking up ever so slightly, and nodded. His airy voice came as if he was in awe. Or too exhausted to fight me. “Okay.”

After that, we parted to the opposite sides of the rink, employing every trick we could think of to score the leading point before the end of the period. It would make for a clean victory that would open the season and set our spirits high for the rest of this year.

It would also look great on our record. I knew how quickly a year could pass. In no time, scouts would be swarming the rinks and looking for talented players like me. Or Riley, for that matter.

It didn’t need to be a competition between us. Not if playing together for the win opened more doors to a brighter future.

But, as that thought crossed my mind, another followed. In eight months, we would be looking for our individual futures. There was no guarantee our paths would cross again any time soon. Worse still, the likelihood of us going in different directions was almost a given. How else would this story end? How else, if not with me and Riley going to different sides of the country, never standing a chance against geography?

The thought of this undefined, unnamed, and unexplained thing we had ending flooded me so much that I was almost numb to the rapturous cheers that filled the rink when Riley scored the winning point, with the help of his loyal assistant captain and the guy who held this team together while Riley and I took pleasure in hating each other this past month.

But seeing the glowing pride on Riley’s face when he removed his helmet and was surrounded by most of our team that hailed him the winner, made my heart pound faster and louder. It grew in my chest and such warmth filled it that I needed to look away or the jig would be up.

I would congratulate him in a way he understood best. Later. Unlike all of them, practically lifting Riley to their shoulders, I knew what our captain really wanted. I knew what filled him with joy.

I had been doing it every other night for a week and I had no plans of slowing down. In fact, all I could see myself doing was luring Riley back to my room and throwing him a celebration party he couldn’t resist.

As we left the rink, I spotted the wary stare of Jonah Hamilton, sulking over their defeat and glaring at me like I was enemy number one. It was fine by me. If I occupied the top spot, he’d be too distracted to meddle with Riley’s sense of worth. And that was a victory of its own. He was skating away from his team and nearing me, so I slowed down.

“What do you want?” I growled at the fuckface.

He pretty much skated into me, stopping at the exact moment our bodies touched. “I want you to remember this face, asshole. ‘Cause you’ll be seeing a lot of it.”

I grabbed his jersey with all the strength I had and pulled him closer, our helmets nearly slamming into one another. “Not around Riley Brooks, I won’t.”

Jonah snorted with a truckload of contempt. “We’ll see about that.” The look of mischief in his eyes told me to watch out for the fucker.

I pushed him away, nearly tipping him out of balance. He rubbed the spot on his chest where my hand applied the most pressure, then turned away from me, muttering profanities.

While tonight we partied as a team, I treated Riley to his private party the next day. Two days later, he returned, frustrated by his history professor, and took the fight to me until I shut him up the only way I could. Days were passing swifter than I could keep track of them and Riley kept returning to me much like the way I had been coming to him, all those years earlier.

Nothing else changed. We never spoke of what this meant or where it was leading us. When the quiet knock came to my door just before midnight every few days, it never startled me. It was always the moment when my mind blanked and I allowed myself to dive into the hours of pleasure without considering the consequences.

Just for a little while, nothing else mattered. Especially not when we kept winning. And even when we lost a match, we would give the opponents hell.

Though I knew good things couldn’t last — like peace in my childhood household or the thrills of sharing Sundays with Riley during our senior year of high school — I was adamant about never questioning this one good thing. We enjoyed those moments which we could steal away. Outside those little bubbles of an alternate reality, Riley and I behaved much like any other pair of teammates. And if there was a disagreement, we both let it go, filing it as something to resolve the next time he visited.

We did little resolving when we were alone, though. Much like our reluctance to talk about the meaning of these encounters, we rarely talked about the issues we ran into. There was only me, Riley, and the heat that burned brighter with each encounter.

And for a few weeks of this fall, it truly felt like a truce.

Chapter Eleven

RILEY

The final days before the winter break found us licking our wounds and hurrying to pass the end-of-semester exams. We played the last game of the period in Chicago and returned to Detroit with broken hearts and low spirits.