Page 168 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 3

SETH

The first snowball smacked me sneakily in the back of my head, the blow softened by the beanie. White rage of vengeance blinded me as I stumbled forward, soon fueled by Damon’s booming laughter.

I hadn’t even heard him falling back. Worse than getting snowballed in such a cowardly way was that he had let me walk away alone, chatting like a madman, so he could make his move.

I bent down and formed a snowball hard enough to smash his balls should my aim be off. I launched it at him while he was bending over, laughing, and it hit his shoulder, throwing him off-balance so that he slipped on the wet ground and fell onto his ass.

The shock replaced his laughter instantly. He stared at me in disbelief, and I stared at him with murder in my defiant eyes.

For a moment, we were in a standoff, measuring one another. Then, as he moved, I did, too. Damon slid behind a mound of shoveled snow by the narrow walking path, while I ran for the snow-covered bush. The white blanket of snow stretched far between us, making it much less likely that I would throw any effective snowballs and still hit my mark. Damon was at an advantage here.

A few passersby moved out of the line of fire, laughing good-naturedly as if these weren’t matters of life and death, of honor and courage. The morning was clear, the sun shining and reflecting off the thick, clean snow.

I knew what I needed to do as Damon catapulted two snowballs in quick succession toward me. One fell into the snow next to me, still perfectly shaped, while the other slammed into the snowy bush and released a small avalanche onto me.

I picked up his intact snowball and made two more, carried them in my folded left arm, and threw them one after the other with my right hand, hitting close to Damon’s hiding spot while cutting diagonally across the empty field to a naturally formed mound of snow halfway between Damon and my original hiding spot.

I lay flat in the snow and used my bare hands to shovel more of it onto the small rise, building a little fortification while Damon’s snowballs missed me by an inch. One particularly strong ball smashed the edge of my newly raised wall, but that was okay. I had my defense for now, so I focused on building ammunition. I swear to God, he earned a rock in at least two out of three snowballs, but I decided to be merciful.

I poked my head above the wall of snow and saw him bent down to make a new snowball.

Taking a chance, I opened fire, launching a barrage of attacks from behind my wall and missing every single time. As I depleted my ammo, I fell down to build up the reserves, realizing that I had no chance of winning with my terrible aim.

I needed to change my strategy.

So I built up my reserve and let Damon hurl the snowballs at my battlements, bringing my wall down. Poking my head out into the open proved what I had been suspecting. He was cocky. He was moving toward me out in the open, closing in on what he imagined was a defenseless, harmless pup. He would learn his mistake soon.

I made a soft snowball after forming five really hard ones, then turned onto my front with the softer ball carefully placed under me, right hand closed around it. I covered my head with my left hand and played dead until Damon’s snowballs playfully slammed into my back, where the jacket protected me from damage.

“You lose,” Damon said.

I didn’t move. I was dead for all he knew. I held my breath.

“You can get up now. You lost.” The snow crunched under Damon’s shoe, and his shadow fell over me. “Get up, Seth.”

I didn’t move.

“Seth?” There was the tiniest note of worry in his tone. He bent down, the whisper of his jacket moving growing louder as he neared me, his hand falling onto my shoulder.

I spun around, turning onto my back and launching the soft snowball into his face just as his eyes widened with surprise. The ball broke into a powder of snow as it slammed into him, stunning him for long enough that I could reach the small pile of real snowballs a couple of feet away.

One after another, I released them with all my might, hitting his shoulders, his stomach, his legs, and once, accidentally, his crotch. He bent over, laughing and begging, but I didn’t stop until he fell onto his back.

I seized the moment and jumped onto him, sitting on his legs and grabbing handfuls of snow to feed him. “That’s…what you get…when you mess…with me,” I said between the laughs.

He begged and pleaded until he was so cute that I couldn’t keep tormenting him. I grabbed his wrists and pinned his hands in the snow above his head, watching him shake with laughter, face red from melting snow, drops of water trickling down his neck and under his sweater.

“Kiss me, I dare you,” he said.

I leaned in, crushing my mouth against his, making him sink back into the snow with the force of the kiss. He didn’t even have a beanie or a scarf, the cocky fucker.

“Gonna fuck around again?” I asked after biting his lip.

“No. No, Sir. You win,” he whimpered, unable to hold back the laughs. “I’ll do anything. Just don’t do that again.”

“Anything?” I asked, voice dropping low. I crawled a little higher up his body, sitting down on his crotch. “Christ, you’re hard already, you devil.”

“You love it,” he said. “I’ll let you play with it if you forgive me.”