Page 68 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 3

“Perfect,” I said and meant it.

The rest of the evening unfolded without cameras in our faces, just the three of us talking and laughing over beers that grew warm while we forgot to drink them. Phoenix told stories about Jaxon’s rehearsal disasters, complete with impressions of overly dramatic choreographers and prima donna skaters. Andrei gradually relaxed, his shoulders losing their rigid line as he got drawn into Phoenix’s increasingly elaborate reenactments.

When Andrei laughed, really laughed, at Phoenix’s impression of a figure skater having a meltdown over sequin placement, I felt something shift in my chest. The sound was rare enough to feel precious, and watching his face transform with genuine amusement was better than any attention I’d gotten from the women earlier.

When we finally called it a night, walking out into the crisp evening air, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d enjoyed a night out more. Not because anything dramatic had happened, but because it hadn’t. Just three friends, good conversation, and the comfortable rhythm of people who actually liked spending time together.

“That was fun,” Phoenix said, stretching. “We should do it more often, cameras or no cameras.”

“Agreed,” I said and caught Andrei’s small nod of approval.

As we walked back toward campus, I found myself thinking about Chloe’s comments. “You two seem really close.” The words had stuck with me. Like it was obvious to anyone paying attention.

Maybe it was obvious. Maybe what felt normal to me looked intense to outside observers. Maybe the cameras were capturing something I’d never bothered to examine because it had always just been there, as constant and necessary as breathing.

Walking beside Andrei in the quiet night, listening to Phoenix’s continued Jaxon stories, I felt a contentment that had nothing to do with social media followers or television appearances. This was what mattered. These people, these moments, this easy companionship that didn’t require performance or pretense.

The cameras could capture whatever they wanted. The producers could craft whatever storylines served their purposes. But underneath all the noise, this was real. This friendship, this loyalty, this inexplicable certainty that I’d rather be here with them than anywhere else with anyone else.

Even if I couldn’t quite explain why.

Chapter Seven

ANDREI

The cameras had finally stopped rolling. The production crew packed their equipment in silence, loading cases and cables into black vans that would carry tonight’s footage back to editing rooms where our lives would be judged and weighed frame by frame.

I stood outside the rink entrance, watching the last van disappear into the October darkness, and felt the familiar weight of performance lifting from my shoulders. Griffin emerged from the building behind me, his hair disheveled from running his hands through it, his face showing the first genuine expression I’d seen from him all day.

“Jesus,” he said, exhaling a cloud of breath into the cold air. “I forgot how exhausting it is to be charming for twelve straight hours.”

“You weren’t that charming.”

He laughed, the sound cutting through the quiet campus night. “Thanks for the pep talk, Sokolov. Really what I needed to hear.”

The rink stood behind us, dark except for the emergency lighting that cast everything in soft amber shadows. Looking at it now, empty and silent, I remembered all the times we’d snuck in here as kids when the weight of expectations or disappointment or just the need to feel ice beneath our skates had driven us to pick locks and disable alarms.

“Remember when we used to do this?” Griffin said, following my gaze. “Just us and the ice?”

I remembered. I remembered everything about those nights, catalogued and stored in the part of my brain reserved for moments when Griffin looked at me like I was the only person in the world who mattered.

“Phoenix gave me his spare key,” he said.

My grin was immediate, transforming my tired face into something bright and mischievous. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

Five minutes later, we were inside, the familiar chill of the rink wrapping around us like an old coat. The ice stretched before us, perfect and untouched, reflecting the emergency lights in scattered pools of gold. Our footsteps echoed as we made our way to the equipment room, finding skates and sticks with the muscle memory of people who’d been doing this longer than we’d been doing anything else.

Griffin laced his skates with quick movements. In the dim light, his profile was sharp and clean, all angles and shadows that made my chest tight with something I’d been carefully ignoring for most of my adult life.

We stepped onto the ice together, and the world shifted. Here, without coaches or cameras or expectations, we were just Griffin and Andrei again. The way we’d always been before everything got complicated.

Griffin pushed off first, gliding backward across the center line with his arms spread wide, face tilted up toward the rafters. The sight hit me with unexpected force. This was how he looked when he was completely himself: unguarded, joyful, moving through space like he’d been designed for it.

“God, I missed this,” he said, spinning lazily as he spoke. “Just skating without someone timing us or critiquing our form or asking how it feels to be living our dreams.”

I followed him onto the ice, finding my rhythm in the familiar push and glide. The emergency lighting turned everything dreamlike, casting long shadows that moved with us as we circled the rink. Griffin’s hair caught the amber glow each time he passed beneath a light, and I found myself timing my movements to stay close enough to watch the way joy transformed his entire being.

We skated in silence for several minutes, reacquainting ourselves with the peace that only came from empty ice and the sound of blades cutting through the night. Then Griffin, because he was Griffin and couldn’t resist filling the silence with stories, started talking.