Page 99 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

“Ah, so you noticed that,” I said, then pushed that can of worms aside and focused on the timely problem. “I don’t know what to do. And I need you to swear you won’t speak a word of this to anyone.”

Avery crossed his heart. Footsteps thudded on the stairs and hallway outside the room.

“I feel like we’ve been sneaking around for too long,” I admitted. “It’s for his own good. He’s, uh…” Damn. There was no subtle way of putting it, but I tried. “He’s not like us, Avery. He doesn’t screw around.”

“I don’t understand,” Avery said. “You want a boyfriend who screws around?”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “No. I don’t want him to be my boyfriend.” Because that will just get him stuck with his first guy, and he’ll miss out on all the things I had plenty of. “He’s too inexperienced for a relationship,” I said, agitation rising. “It’s too soon. He’s definitely not ready for something like that. Hell, I don’t even know if I’m ready. Or if I’ll ever be.”

Avery sucked his teeth. “That’s a tough one.”

I glared at him. “‘That’s a tough one?’ Is that all you have to say after dragging it out of me?” I wanted to sit with Noah and gaze at the night sky and make wishes. I wanted the sweet, relaxed evenings in the company of a guy who made my heart dance like mad. I wanted…ah, I wanted what was best for Noah. And tangling him into the confines of a relationship wasn’t right.

“I’m thinking,” Avery said. He blinked once, then nodded. “You need to tell him.”

And pressure him into wasting the years meant for exploration on me? “Out of the question.”

“I don’t see another way,” Avery said.

I shrugged. I really wanted to just sit with Noah and take his hand in mine. But maybe that was the whole problem. I was putting my wishes first instead of considering what he needed now. Holding his hand would suit me just fine. I was tired of chasing cheap thrills. But Noah hadn’t even had a taste of it.

So, instead of being selfish and luring him into a trap that would only result in resentment, I had to do the right thing. No matter how much it hurt my heart to recognize it, I knew I was the problem. I’d done too much, too often, to be any good for him. He needed to go out there and make mistakes, fall in love, get his heart broken, sleep around, then find the same conclusion I did. I only wished I’d met him a couple of years later when he was sick of this lifestyle as much as I was of mine.

I inhaled and held that breath of air in my lungs then sighed. “I see another way.”

Footsteps thudded abruptly on the other side of the door, and a frown creased my brow.

Noah

There was a meteor shower tonight, and I had the best idea ever.

I’d already played it out in my head a million times. This was the right moment. We were in the middle of the semester and we knew that two more years still lay ahead of us. That was plenty of time to figure stuff out. But I’d already figured out the most important.

When I saw him skating across the ice last week, my heart stumbled repeatedly. When I saw him caught by Heather afterward, jealousy filled me so much that I only knew the red heat of rage. He was mine, I had thought to myself.

And it all made perfect sense. But one piece was missing. I needed to tell him. I needed to tell him and hope for the best.

When I realized the meteor shower was happening tonight, when we normally spent time together, everything fell into place. I imagined it so clearly, even now, as I walked across campus from my place to his to surprise him and make sure he was with me on time.

“There it is,” I would say and point at the sky.

Sawyer would look up, and his eyes would sparkle the same way they did when he was following a puck on the ice. “Make a wish,” he’d say.

I would. I had my wish on the tip of my tongue. “Done.”

“What did you wish for?” he would ask, of course, and I would protest. We would bicker about it until he saw a shooting star, too.

My fantasies split there into a million different ones. He made a wish on one and we decided to reveal them to each other. In another, Sawyer looked at me flatly and said: “I made my wish. I wished for you to tell me what you wished for.”

And I laughed and told him.

Because I couldn’t keep him otherwise. Heathers and Zachs gathered around him like he was glazed with honey. But I was the one who would do the licking. It had to be me, and I didn’t care what anyone else thought.

Or, at least, I had to try.

The team house was quiet when I knocked on the door.

“Yeah?” A lazy drawl came from the other side.