Page 55 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 2

Our brows touched. We pressed our heads together and wrapped our arms around each other. The music changed again, playing another classic with a similar beat, although I couldn’t recall the name. Gray had always known his music history better than me. “I’m proud of you, too, Gray,” I said.

“I know that everything is changing,” he said, leading me on the dance floor. It was easy to follow. He made everything so simple and beautiful. “But we’ll make it work. I’ll make it work for us.” He smiled encouragingly. “Our schedules never aligned perfectly, but we always did our best.”

“And we’ll keep doing our best,” I assured him.

He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and shot me a cheeky smile. “I was thinking,” he said. “Even if you have to be on the move, you can have a base here in the city.”

I nodded.

“And an apartment is such a better fit than your boyfriend’s dorm room, huh?” He laughed, and I knew where he was going with this.

“But we don’t know if I’ll be here two days a week or seven,” I said.

He shrugged. “I say we go for it. I’ve found a few places we can look at. If you stay in Detroit, great. If you get drafted elsewhere, you won’t be leaving before fall. And even then, you’ll come back. It’s just one year.”

And it was. I was determined to bridge this year any way I could. I would be with him. Everything else was secondary. “You found places?” I asked, unable to hold back my smile.

He gave a slow nod. “I wanted you to know how much you mean to me,” he said. “There’s nothing I won’t do to keep us together.”

My throat closed with an abundance of emotions that sparked to life within me. I pulled him closer still and pressed my lips hard against his. The fluttering in my stomach had never passed. I couldn’t kiss Gray without falling in love with him harder and deeper than ever before. Every touch we shared was an extra bond between us, every kiss a promise.

We belonged to one another in all the ways. There was nothing he didn’t know about me or I about him.

Distantly, I heard someone wolf-whistle and I felt Gray’s smile under my lips. We kept it going, slow and passionate, loving and tender. Then we pulled our heads back and gazed into each other’s eyes.

“I love you, Gray,” I said.

“And I love you, Avery.” His grin broadened as he said the words. Then, as the music changed to something more upbeat, fire burst to life in his eyes. His movements became wild and unpredictable, but he pulled me into the beautiful whirlwind of adventure.

We danced the night away. We danced our shoes off. We danced with each other until I forgot that I couldn’t dance at all.

The truth was, there was never anything I couldn’t do when Gray was the one helping me do it. There was nothing we could achieve so long as we were together.

Forever.

REBELS OF THE RINK

Chapter One

SEBASTIAN

Tyler smiled in a way only I could see.

The corners of his lips were always a little curled. He never looked like he wasn’t in on a private joke. And when there was a private joke, his upper lip pressed the lower one, the change to the set of his face infinitesimally small. Yet his eyes lit up by a fraction of a degree.

He locked his phone and slipped it into his pocket.

“What’s so funny?” I asked in a low voice. Thirsty Thinker was loud enough with an entire hockey team celebrating the first victory of the new year.

Tyler glanced at me. “Our chat.”

I snorted. I’d flooded his inbox with memes before the game. It was a calming technique before a big game, getting my mind off the anxiety. And Tyler had a particular taste for the silly kind of memes. He loved seeing Gollum in job interviews. I wasn’t a die-hard fan, but my best friend was. “I figured you’d like that.”

As we lifted our glasses, a few gazes around the table darted somewhere behind us. The tables we had joined together were filled with all the usual suspects. Our captain, Beckett Partridge, and his right-hand man, Caden Jones, sat across from Tyler and me. On either side of the couple sat Jordan Mitchell and his little stepbrother and sulk of the year, Asher Sullivan. It was always smart to seat them away from one another with enough of a buffer. It hadn’t happened yet, but we all anticipated Asher spilling his drink on Jordan. It would be fair since Jordan would probably start the fight by reminding Asher that he shouldn’t be drinking in the first place. Tyler and I would take the opposite sides just for shits and giggles. Another freshman, Phoenix, sat next to Asher, and next to him was our goalie Sawyer, his physics tutor turned boyfriend Noah, an empty chair, and then Avery.

When the gazes lifted to the door on the far side of the tavern, I knew who it was without looking. Even so, I turned to glance at Grayson Reed walking confidently between the scattered tables. He wore a little smile and shrugged, his palms open, his arms spreading a little. “Here I am.”

“I hope you brought your wallet,” Beckett said.