Page 171 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 3

Nick stole the puck from under my blade, and for a heartbeat, we locked eyes. His expression made something old and familiar twist in my stomach. I didn’t know what I expected. Maybe nothing. Maybe worse.

The puck slid free again. I chased him down and slammed him hard into the boards. Not dirty, but not gentle either. Enough to rattle us both, enough to feel like something cracked open between us.

The crowd reacted in a wave, one pulsing sound swirling around us.

Nick turned his head just enough to angle his voice toward me. His cage was inches from my cheek. His breath fogged the metal. His eyes were bright in a way I had not seen since high school.

“I know you’re fucking my brother, Pierce.”

Everything inside me went quiet.

Not the rink. Not the game. Not the players around us.

Just me.

My balance slipped. My stick lowered. Something cold spread through my chest, sharp and fast. The boards felt too close. The ice felt too soft. I took one step back, then another, like someone had pushed me without touching me at all, the rink tilting like a sinking ship.

All the things I had not told Seth crowded in at once. All the things I hoped we could postpone. All the things I had been pretending didn’t matter yet.

Nick didn’t move. He just waited, eyes steady, as if he had been expecting this reaction.

I swallowed. The taste of metal filled my mouth. My gloves felt too tight. My legs felt heavy.

Keiran shouted something from behind me. The ref blew the whistle again. One of the Breakers skated past, throwing me a confused look as if he could not figure out what just happened.

I could not figure it out either.

Everything tilting, everything loud, everything wrong.

And Seth was somewhere in the stands, watching a game that had just changed without him knowing why.

“You can’t even deny it,” Nick spat. “And what’s gonna happen to him when he finds out who you really are?”

He shook his head and skated away, back into the thick of it, while I stood in stunned silence. As I turned around to look at the stands and at Seth, his gaze caught mine. His raised eyebrows evened above his eyes, his mouth grew a little stiff, and the fire dimmed in his eyes.

Chapter Sixteen

SETH

I pushed through the crowd before I even realized I was moving. The noise in the rink pressed in from every direction. My ears rang. People shouted around me, hands in the air, bodies leaning past me to see what was happening on the ice, but it all landed on me like static, humming without any meaning.

Silas caught my arm just as I reached the aisle.

“Where are you going?” he asked, breathless and confused.

I pulled free. “I need air.”

“Seth, wait.”

I didn’t. He meant well. He always did. But good intentions felt like chains right now, and if I stopped, even for a second, I knew everything would crash into me at once.

I kept walking. Past the stands. Past the snack bar. Past the doors that slammed shut behind me with a short thud. The cold night air hit my face. The world tilted. I blinked hard, trying to steady it, but the rink still spun somewhere behind me like a flashing warning light.

I didn’t know where I was going. That was the whole point. If I didn’t know, then nobody else could figure it out either. Not Silas with his worried eyes. Not Nick with his judgment sharpened like a razor. And not Damon, who had promised I would not get caught, who had sworn we would be careful, even though neither of us had ever been good at careful.

It wasn’t fair to throw that at him. I knew it wasn’t. My heart did it anyway, and I hated myself for it.

I walked until the frost stung my cheeks. Somewhere along the way, I ended up behind the science building, staring at the metal fire escape ladder that stretched into the dark. Climbing felt like instinct. One step at a time. Wind rising with every level. When I reached the top, I stepped onto the flat roof and leaned forward, trying to breathe through the knot in my throat.