Page 60 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 3

The praise sent heat through my chest, unexpected and fierce. Griffin saw me, understood what I brought to our partnership in ways that went beyond statistics or highlight reels.

“What about you, Andrei? What’s it like playing with someone you’ve known for so long?”

I looked at Griffin, at the easy confidence in his posture and the genuine smile playing around his mouth. The camera captured everything, but for once, I didn’t care.

“It’s like having a conversation without words,” I said. “We don’t have to think about it anymore. We just know.”

Jen nodded, satisfied with whatever dynamic she’d captured. “Great. I think we have everything we need for now.”

The camera light went dark, and the artificial intensity of the moment evaporated. Griffin stretched, his jersey riding up slightly to reveal a strip of skin above his gear.

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said.

Easy for him to say. He was a natural in front of cameras, comfortable with attention in ways I’d never be. But maybe that was okay. Maybe my discomfort, properly edited and contextualized, would read as the mysterious brooding the producers seemed to want.

As we walked back toward the locker room, I caught Griffin’s reflection in the glass doors ahead of us. His hair was disheveled from his helmet, his cheeks still flushed from exertion. He looked exactly like what he was: a college athlete in his element, happy and unguarded and completely himself.

The cameras could capture that, could broadcast it to thousands of strangers who would fall in love with his easy charm and golden retriever enthusiasm. But they couldn’t capture the way he’d looked at me when he talked about our partnership, the warmth in his voice when he’d called us best friends. And those were the things I had fallen in love with. People could love him from afar, but nobody would love him quite the right way. Nobody but me.

That belonged to us. That remained constant, no matter how many microphones they taped to our chests or storylines they tried to manufacture around us.

I held on to that thought as we pushed through the doors into the chaos of post-practice routine, into a locker room now wired for sound and a future that felt less certain with every passing day.

At least I had Griffin. At least I had that.

Chapter Four

GRIFFIN

The campus gym at eleven thirty on a Friday night was a wasteland of abandoned equipment and flickering fluorescent lights. Most sane people were either passed out in their dorms or stumbling through some overcrowded frat house party, but here I was, flat on my back with two hundred pounds pressing down on my chest and my arms screaming for mercy.

“Come on, Shaw,” I muttered through gritted teeth, pushing against the bar with everything I had left. My muscles were already shot from the day’s double session of lectures and drill practice, but I’d promised myself I’d hit the gym tonight. The cameras had been following us for three weeks now, and I was paranoid about looking soft on-screen.

Andrei stood behind the bench, hands hovering just below the bar, ready to grab it if my arms gave out. His presence was the only thing keeping me from chickening out on this last rep.

“You got this,” he said quietly, his voice cutting through the mechanical hum of the ventilation system.

I most certainly didn’t got this. My shoulders were on fire, my triceps felt like overcooked spaghetti, and there was a very real possibility I was about to become a cautionary tale about lifting without proper supervision. But I gritted my teeth and pushed anyway, because Andrei was watching, and I’d rather die than look weak in front of him.

The bar wavered at the halfway point, my arms trembling with the effort. Spots danced at the edges of my vision.

“Grab it,” I gasped.

Andrei’s hands closed around the bar instantly, taking the weight. I felt the relief flood through my chest as he guided it back to the rack with steady control.

From my position on the bench, I had a perfect view of him towering above me. His dark hair stuck to his brow as he leaned over the bar, and his plain gray T-shirt hung loose, revealing a strip of defined abs when he stretched to guide the weight home. The sight registered somewhere in my brain without really registering, just a passing glance filed away with the rest of the gym’s late-night details.

I sat up, shaking my arms out, and reached for my water bottle. The cool plastic felt good against my overheated palms.

“Finally some peace and quiet, huh?” I said, taking a long drink.

Andrei stepped back, wiping his hands on his shorts, the bottom edges rolling up his legs. I hadn’t really thought about it, never really noticed the way his legs were covered in fine, short hair down his calves, but it grew rare and invisible on his thighs. “You know it. I still feel there’s a camera behind my back, waiting for my pants to drop before it runs over to film the embarrassment.”

The image made me laugh harder than it deserved. It seared itself inside my mind. Andrei, lifting the EZ bar, biceps curled and tense, pants slipping. Funny. “That would definitely make it into the final cut.”

We shared a moment of comfortable silence, the weight of constant surveillance temporarily lifted. It was nice being somewhere the cameras couldn’t follow, somewhere we could just be ourselves without worrying about storylines or character arcs.

“Thanks for spotting me,” I said. “This one would have killed me.”