Page 36 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

“It’s the best I can do. Sorry.” I stirred it as it bubbled on the stove, but the timer dinged and I had no idea what it had been timing. I checked the microwave, where an apple pie was defrosting, then decided it had to be our turkey in the oven. I hadn’t gotten us a whole turkey. We’d never finish it. Instead, I just got the best parts. The gravy was off the shelf, too, so I didn’t have to make anything from a recipe. “Last year, I was all alone, and it was good enough. Can’t claim I got any better.”

“You were here last Christmas?” Cameron asked, concern touching his voice for the briefest of moments.

I wanted to challenge the accusation in his tone, but I couldn’t find any. It was strange. We hadn’t bickered in hours. Maybe days. “Yeah,” I replied simply. “I go home during summer, but prefer being alone than, you know, in a crowd where I’m invisible.”

Cameron said nothing and I felt like I had overshared. Damn my tongue. For a while, this silence left me to simmer. “This place is eerie when there’s no one around.”

“I like it,” I blurted.

Cam tilted his head to one side and examined my entire body, head to toe and back, while I filled the place with the scent of roasted turkey drumsticks and fanned the traces of smoke off the tray that I set on the kitchen island. “It would only get better if you wore less under that apron,” he said with complete seriousness.

I arched an eyebrow. “If you ask nicely.”

“Never gonna happen.” Cam laughed out loud and continued smiling when his laughter died down. It was infectious and I found myself smiling when I turned away and pulled the apple pie from the microwave. I had never enjoyed Christmas in my entire life. My family had piled guilt all over it, removing the childish joy I might’ve had if there had ever been any talk of Santa or gifts. Speaking of which, I had one for Cameron. It was up in my room and I reminded myself not to forget to give it to him.

We ate in the big dining area of the ground floor that was between the large sofas on one end and the kitchen on the other. Cameron was quiet, although he commented that it was the best Christmas dinner he’d had in years.

I didn’t buy it. “Just because you were alone in California, but I’ll take it.”

“Who told you I was alone?” he asked, his voice awfully suggestive.

My cheeks heated and I looked at his cheeky smile. “Er…I just assumed. I mean. Obviously. It doesn’t matter. I mean, it doesn’t matter if you were alone or had company. Or what kind of…company. Oh my god, please make me stop talking.”

“You’re rambling,” Cameron said gently, obeying my final request.

I wanted to fall through the floor. Jealousy was a treacherous thing. I hadn’t seen Cameron once in those three years. By all accounts, we were never going to see each other again. And yet, the thought of Cameron spending Christmas with someone else — even if they couldn’t prepare dinner as well as me, apparently — ate at me from the inside. “I just want to say, it’s cool. You can say shit like that.”

“I know I can,” he said confidently, playing games with me. Finally, he cracked a smile. “You’re so red, I can’t even keep my face straight. No, dummy, I wasn’t having Christmas dates in California. It was with just a bunch of teammates.”

I blinked a few times, licked my lips, and cleared my throat. “Sure. But…if you had Christmas dates, that would be totally normal.”

“Sure it would. And still, you turned into a Red Riley-icious.” He didn’t even crack a smile at that. Instead, he shoved mashed potatoes into his mouth while I wanted to spontaneously combust.

After we had so much pie that Gluttony went, “Bro… Bring it down a notch,” we washed it all down with a bit of cheap, bottom-shelf red wine while lounging on one of the large sofas downstairs. The decorative fireplace had a small pile of logs and twigs on one side and all the poking, dusting, and cleaning equipment you’d imagine on the other.

Cameron checked it out and asked if I thought it worked.

“We’ve never lit a fire in there,” I replied.

His ears perked and eyes narrowed in mischief. I knew that look. That look made me feel like a naughty teen. I didn’t even need him to gesture with his head or speak. I got up at the same time Cameron leaned into the fireplace and we both looked up its massive chimney. The thing was, you couldn’t see anything. But there was a good, drafty feel in the air. It was getting pulled up and sucked out of the house.

In no time, Cameron had found paper in his room and began piling twigs on the hearth. When he lit it with a candle that had been flickering on the mantel all evening, the fire seemed like it would fail. The suction of the chimney almost killed it, but a few sparks glowed bright and the twigs kindled. Soon, the twigs were burning at full blaze and Cameron was adding the dry pieces of firewood that had been on the right side of the fireplace since before I moved in.

While he did that, I retreated quietly to my room and pulled out Cameron’s gift from under the bed. As I made my way back, I felt dumber than a teenager in love. He didn’t want gifts from me, right? It wasn’t even appropriate. We were just fucking in order to play better as a team.

But the story he’d told me the other day had stuck with me and I was already standing behind him with a box wrapped in Christmas paper. Cam turned around from the fire, visibly pleased with himself, only to meet my cringing face. “Wh-what’s that?”

“I, uh, nothing. I got you something. It’s stupid.” Stop fucking talking, I barked internally. When hatred wasn’t on hand to use as a shield, I was a yapping idiot. I blew out a breath of air and thrust the box forward. “It’s okay if you hate it.”

Cameron wagged his finger. “Hold on a minute.” He hopped around me and practically leaped into his room, then hurried back. The red bag with elves dressed in green and thick white snowflakes was much smaller than the box I was holding, but the self-satisfying look on Cameron’s face beat mine by a mile. “I figured, since we’re all alone, I might as well get you a little something, too.”

He set the bag on the table and grabbed the box from me playfully. “I’ll go first.” We sat down and Cam placed the box in his lap. He ripped the wrapping paper without a second thought and I wished I could rewind time and make all of this never happen because he frowned at the box when it was revealed.

I should have known. Getting him a fucking thousand-piece Star Wars puzzle was the surest way to poke a wound that had never truly healed. What the hell had I been thinking? I wondered how long it would take me to freeze if I just walked the fuck out of the house right now.

I held my breath as Cameron finished ripping the paper from all sides of the puzzle. “Riley,” he said quietly, his voice deep and hoarse.

“Sorry,” I said, scooting away from him. “I wasn’t thinking…”