Page 112 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 3

I watched the crowds swell in the rink, masses gathering outside from Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, from all the places where we played, queueing in hopes of getting to see the Arctic Titans in person.

Throngs grew in the back entrances to any rink we played. Cars began to drive us to and from our games, arriving hours before the people showed up, and even then, they waited and screamed and shouted our names.

Fame had arrived unnoticed.

Hiding from camera flashes became a game, the team keeping a score of headlines featuring our photos, and Andrei and I were losing the game by miles, with the highest count of public sightings. It was like sitting at a war table, counting losses.

Phoenix storming out of the interview with us trailing him only boosted his profile. There seemed to be nothing we could do to calm the storm, nothing to speed up these fifteen minutes of fame.

Blades of Northwood had captured something feral in people, something curious, something hungry for novelty. It wasn’t, after all, a typical, trashy reality program. Yet what it was that created the magic was beyond my grasp.

I ached to have a walk with Andrei in some forgotten forest, to step into the mist without a single flash of the camera, without the red recording light, without the microphones grabbing all my words to further my image.

And when our final clash against the Steel Saints finally arrived, I woke up with fear locking my limbs around Andrei’s warm body. The terror of seeing Easton again, seeing Jace, who so unashamedly loved his man. I feared the crowds chanting Griffdrei from the top of their lungs, demanding to know what was going on.

All I wanted was the innocence of loving him on my own. Something I had never been given.

The day pushed on like I was on death row. The only respite came when Andrei knelt before me and pulled my head down to kiss me from below, kiss me deeply and lovingly. To kiss me goodbye. Though neither of us said it, we knew that the sand was almost out of the hourglass.

“Ready to kick their asses?” he asked me softly, the real words still unspoken.

I knew it was up to me to say them. I knew it was up to me to prove that I was the man I had told him I was on that night when we had first kissed. I neither expected nor demanded those words from him. He had all but said them by being my faithful companion despite all the obstacles all these years.

I nodded. “I’m ready.”

Our rink was far too small for the demand in tickets, so the Athletic Department had teamed up with the city to have us play our matches there. Cars with tinted windows drove us from the team house through the streets that increasingly grew distant to me. I no longer had a chance to walk to the nearest café with Andrei because someone would expect to see us there. I no longer had a chance to go to a bar with him and the team.

So I gazed out the car, my hand resting beneath Andrei’s in the back seat, and I realized the terrible truth about the silent loss we had suffered. “We never went on a date,” I whispered.

Andrei’s hand squeezed harder around mine in quiet recognition.

Whenever we went out together, we pretended to be friends.

Back in high school, when I’d discovered that girls liked me back, I’d done it all. I’d done the sneaking around, the kissing in the storage cupboards, the hand-holding, the movies, the dances, the dates. But Andrei had always stood on the sidelines, watching, loving, suffering.

He had never been on a date with someone who loved him more than life itself.

Tears stung my eyes, and I shook my head, angry with myself both for crying and for never giving him that. How badly I had failed at being his boyfriend.

The cars dropped us off as close to the entrance as they could. We stepped into the cacophony of chants and calls, people joyful upon seeing us. By right, we should have enjoyed the attention, yet we both resented it.

We resented the interest in our private lives, when most of it had come from nothing but the goodness of the people.

I made myself Andrei’s shield, obscuring him from the lenses as we passed into the back of the rink and the hallways that gave us the mirage of silence. “When is this going to end?” I squeezed through my teeth. I couldn’t think of NHL players who lived so squarely in the collective consciousness. Not even Nate Partridge had drawn so many eyes at the height of his career or at the end of it.

We stormed into the locker room, where the final preparations were being made before the camera crews. Coach Neilsen and Phoenix outlined the plans, guys changed in their corners, and Jen Harding hurried around to make sure the crew had all the right angles.

I wanted to crack, to shout at everyone to be quiet for a hot minute, but I knew that drama would only make me more popular.

The show was almost over, though its popularity would inevitably bring another season our way. And we wouldn’t have much choice but to go with it.

Something had to change.

Something had to break.

In a haze, I had changed into my gear, placed my stick over my knees, and sat quietly on my own, listening to the strategy.

Jen passed around some final updates and information regarding the ideas for the shots. “And Griffin, if you raise your stick with both hands after any score, it won’t pass unnoticed. People respond well to it. And if you get around it, post a quick reel thanking your followers. You officially have a quarter million of them.”