Page 69 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 2

My friend was spiraling. The moment I realized it, I pushed aside whatever confusing and wonderful and terrible things I was feeling. I looked into his eyes and made my voice loud enough to drown out his erratic rambling. “Ty, it’s fine,” I said. “We’re drunk. We made a mistake. It’s nothing.” Somehow, somewhere, I found a smile for him. “We’re not the first people to drunk-kiss at midnight.”

“…mistake,” he whispered, frowning a little, then nodding with determination and an eagerness I had rarely seen him exhibit. “Totally. Still, I’m sorry. I usually ask.” His voice thinned almost to a squeak at the last part.

I laughed at that bit. I couldn’t imagine Tyler often mistakenly kissing his heartbroken friends. But I also didn’t know what else to say. So I pulled him in and hugged him.

As I held him in the same sort of embrace he had given me countless times over the last week, I thought I felt his fast heartbeat and his shallow breathing. He hugged me back and didn’t let go.

I was grateful that he didn’t want to break it off right away. My face must have been glowing with heat. I didn’t know what I looked like, but I knew I didn’t want him reading my expressions. My body was still on the verge of shuddering, my legs heavy as lead. I didn’t even dare consider why my dick was throbbing with painful hardness and why my heart was dragging all the way down into my stomach with some feeling I didn’t understand. It couldn’t possibly be disappointment that he had listened to me and stopped.

Chapter Six

TYLER

What the fuck have I done? The question rang through my skull as if I’d climbed the highest mountain and shouted into the endless, empty sky. It echoed and rippled all through my consciousness as Sebastian promised it wasn’t a big deal.

We separated and I shifted uncomfortably to face someplace other than toward Sebastian.

His comforting words had stung me because it wasn’t his job to soothe me, but the other way around. Even so, when the silence came, it was infinitely worse than any comfort he had been providing.

Confusion swirled through my mind as I tried to slow down. Why had I done that? Booze-fueled sentimentality? We had been talking about soulmates and something monumental revealed itself in the center of my mind.

“Actually, I’m pretty drunk,” Sebastian said. “I should probably sleep it off.”

It was a relief that he said it first. He was sparing me the embarrassment of making up an excuse to get out of the basement. “Right.” My throat was sore and my voice was hoarse. “Probably should.”

Sebastian forced a smile, then wished me a good night and left the basement.

As the door shut, I slid lower on the sofa, wanting to squeeze myself between the cushions and disappear. Now that I could truly feel every ounce of embarrassment over that stupid thing I’d done, I indulged. My face was burning, my fingers trembling, my heart racing. What the fuck was wrong with me? The guy had just gotten cheated on and my idea of helping him through it was to make a confused and awkward move on him. I was such an idiot.

Memories of a lifetime spent orbiting each other had shifted in my mind as we talked. They had taken on a slightly different shape, glimmered in a brighter light, and some trick of the eye made me think that maybe, maybe…nonsense. I had no idea what I’d been thinking.

That night, I slept in my own bed. Well, I lay there with my eyes closed, at least. If Sebastian was awake when I entered the room, he didn’t stir. I guessed he had passed out, so I changed into my pajamas and turned away from the room, facing the wall under the window.

A perfect storm of emotions carried me through the night. I was hot and uncomfortable under my covers. I was cold from the air seeping through the microscopic cracks in the window. I was angry at my impulsive behavior and scared by what I had done.

But there was one thing I didn’t dare face. One thing I couldn’t even begin questioning. There was a scary lack of regret in me. I couldn’t be sorry for kissing him when that feeling of connection had seemed so bright and brilliant.

Around the break of dawn, I gave up on sleeping. I slipped out of the bed, tip-toed out of the room, and passed down the hallway by several doors from which I could hear our guys snoring. Once I was downstairs, I poured myself a big glass of water to kill the rising hangover and searched for snacks in the kitchen cabinets.

I carried my junk food to the big, decorative fireplace and built up an equally decorative fire. The house was too large to depend on the fireplace for warmth, so it was connected to Northwood’s heating system. Even so, it was nice to feel the lick of warmth when the dry logs caught fire and crackled merrily. Aside from the atmospheric lights in the kitchen, the fire was all the difference between light and dark, so I moved a recliner to face the fireplace and sank into its soft, faux leather seat. It creaked under me as I shifted and struggled to find a comfortable pose. It wasn’t the quality of the recliner but the feelings that raged through me that made me shifty and uneasy.

I tossed Cheetos into my mouth, aware that it was yet another bad decision coming from my brilliant mind.

I squeezed my eyes shut and allowed a wave of euphoria to pass through me. It was as unexpected as my behavior last night. Yet as it thundered through my chest, a sense of deep longing rose to the surface in its wake.

The truth was, I wanted to talk about this. And the only person I could ever talk to about serious things was off-limits. But I wanted my best friend to listen to my ramblings and help me make sense of them.

“Tyler?” The voice startled me. I glanced over my shoulder and found Asher Sullivan standing at the foot of the stairs. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” I said, my voice sore. “Why are you up so early?”

“Thirsty,” Asher said apologetically. He gestured at the kitchen island. As he moved toward the sink, he kept looking at me, head cocked. “You?”

“Can’t sleep,” I said.

The new guy nodded. He had arrived here last August, following in his stepbrother’s footsteps, and had a rocky start to his hockey career. He was good, but he was still searching for his style, shifting between cautious and reckless as unpredictably as if it was a very clever strategy. Coach Murray had seen him play on a few occasions before bringing him on, which left Jordan stunned upon hearing the news. The big guy had been worried about a family member joining the team and having to protect his stepbrother, but so far, it looked like Asher was perfectly capable of protecting himself. In fact, Jordan’s attempts at restraining Asher had backfired miserably. The two were never on the same page. It was a can of worms I was in no place to open.

Asher drank water, then hesitated, and seemed to finally make a choice near the stairs. Instead of returning to his warm bed and sleeping in, he walked toward the fireplace. “That thing works?”