Page 64 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 3

The notifications hit me like an avalanche. Instagram and TikTok, dozens of alerts flooding my screen. My follower count had jumped from a few hundred to several thousand in the space of an hour.

I scrolled through the mentions, my panic rising with each post. There were edits set to popular songs, clips of Griffin and me compiled into mini movies that made our friendship look cinematic. The hashtag #Griffdrei was everywhere, trending across multiple platforms. The episode had been on streaming since midnight, and people had already cut it apart and scavenged it for the hottest bits.

“Are you seeing this?” I asked Griffin, my voice tight with worry.

He leaned over to look at my screen. “Holy crap.”

The official Blades of Northwood account was reposting fan-made content. Professional social media managers were amplifying videos of us laughing together, playing hockey, existing in the same space with what viewers apparently saw as electric chemistry.

I clicked on one TikTok. “Bromance goals,” the caption read over a montage of Griffin and me from the episode. “If it ain’t like this, I don’t want it.” The comments were full of melting emojis.

Another video had edited our interactions to a love song by Tom Odell, but the comments were all about friendship. “This is what real bros look like.” “I wish I had a friend who looked at me like this.” “Male friendship is beautiful when it’s not toxic.”

The relief was immediate. They saw friendship. Intense, maybe, but friendship. The editing might have made me look obviously smitten, but audiences were interpreting it as bromance, not romance.

I scrolled further, finding more content that made my chest tight for different reasons. Griffin’s follower count had exploded past twenty thousand. There were thirst trap edits of him, slow-motion clips of his smile, compilations of his most charming moments. The comments were full of fire emojis and marriage proposals from viewers who’d fallen for his golden retriever energy exactly as predicted. And the edits made something twist inside my chest. Damn. They weren’t even bad. They made my stomach flutter.

“Look at this one,” I said, showing him a TikTok that had gotten half a million views. It was Griffin laughing at something during practice, the sound slowed down and set to atmospheric music that made him look ethereal.

He watched it with growing amazement. “This is insane.”

“You’re famous now.”

“We’re famous,” he corrected, but his attention was already back on his own phone, scrolling through his notifications with wonder.

On the television, the episode was winding down with a preview of next week’s drama. Tension in the locker room, conflicts with opposing teams, the suggestion of romantic entanglements that would complicate our tight-knit group dynamic.

The room around us buzzed with mixed energy. Toby was practically vibrating with excitement, refreshing his social media constantly and reading comments aloud. “Someone called me ‘baby hockey boy,’ and I don’t know if I should be offended or flattered.”

Mason had his arms crossed, but I could see the pleased smirk he was trying to hide. The rebel persona was working exactly as intended. Even the negative comments seemed to feed his satisfaction.

Griffin was absorbed in his phone, occasionally showing me particularly funny or flattering posts. His wonder was infectious, that childlike joy he brought to new experiences making even this surreal situation feel manageable.

Phoenix sat silent, his expression growing darker as the episode progressed. When the credits finally rolled, he stood abruptly.

“Well,” he said, his voice carefully controlled. “That was something.”

“Come on, Phoenix,” Toby said. “It wasn’t that bad. The gay pioneer thing is kind of badass.”

Phoenix’s laugh was sharp. “Badass. Right.” He ran a hand through his hair, frustration bleeding through his composure. “They made me into a symbol instead of a person. Everything I say, everything I do, it’s filtered through this lens of being the team’s token gay guy struggling against hockey culture.”

“But you’re not struggling,” Griffin said. “You’re our captain because you’re good at it, not because you’re gay.”

“Tell that to the editing team.”

The room fell quiet. Phoenix had a point. The episode had framed his leadership through the lens of his sexuality in a way that reduced everything else about him to secondary characteristics.

“At least they didn’t make you Russian,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

Phoenix’s mouth twitched toward a smile. “Small mercies.”

Damon stood and stretched, apparently done with the drama. “I’m going to bed. Let me know when they make me look interesting.”

His indifference was exactly what the cameras had captured, and apparently what audiences would see. The comments about him were all variations on “mysterious hot guy” and “strong silent type,” followed by “Whatever happened to Garry Cooper?” or simply a GIF of Tony Soprano lifting his eyebrows. He seemed genuinely unbothered by the attention.

As the group began to disperse, I caught Griffin’s eye. He was still scrolling through social media, his expression cycling between amazement and something that looked almost overwhelmed.

“You okay?” I asked.