Page 83 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 3

“I know I was a dick lately,” I continued, needing to fill the silence with something, anything. “I just…stuff’s been happening to me, and I don’t even know how to explain it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know,” Andrei said, his voice breaking on the words. He stood abruptly and faced me, backlit by the glow from the streetlights outside our window. “I know what’s up, Griff. I’m not stupid. You can’t stand the idea of being around me after you saw how other people see us.”

“What?” My heart tried to explode out of my chest. That wasn’t it. That wasn’t it at all.

“And I get it.” His voice climbed higher, edged with something desperate and hurt. “For fuck’s sake, don’t you think I get it? I don’t want to be your fan fiction boyfriend, Griffin.”

The words cracked like breaking ice. He stopped speaking instantly, biting back whatever else he’d been about to say. His jaw clenched, throat working as he fought for control. He blinked rapidly and looked up at the ceiling, at the string lights, at anything but me.

“I wasn’t going to do this in the first place, Griff. I didn’t want any of it.”

“Andrei,” I tried, but my throat closed around his name. Nothing else would come out.

“No,” he said, waving his hand like he could physically push away the conversation. “Griff, you can’t deny it anymore. It drives you nuts, and that’s fair. I don’t even…” He shrugged, the gesture so defeated it made my chest ache. “I don’t even hold it against you. I just wish we’d never signed up for this.”

“I wish we could go back to simpler times,” I said, the truth spilling out before I could examine whether it was the right truth or the wrong one.

Andrei blinked and shook his head, something like grief washing over his features. “We can’t.”

The finality in those two words hit me like a body check I hadn’t seen coming. I watched his face, examining every emotion that painted itself across those sharp features. Grief. Guilt. Something that looked too close to resignation. His eyes glimmered with expectation, waiting for me to say something that would either fix this or end it.

But I didn’t know what he expected from me. Didn’t know what words would make this better instead of worse.

The truth was so much more complicated than he thought. He believed I was pushing him away because I was disgusted by the fan fiction, embarrassed by the speculation, and uncomfortable with being shipped with my best friend.

He had no idea I’d been avoiding him because I couldn’t trust myself around him anymore. Because every time I looked at him, I wanted things I couldn’t utter aloud. Because I’d crossed a line in that shower that I could never uncross, using his memory and his scent to fuel fantasies that felt both inevitable and unforgivable.

He thought the problem was everyone else’s perception of us.

He didn’t know the problem was me. What I’d done. What I wanted to do again. Even now, as I looked at the shape of his mouth, my heart hurt with every beat.

I stood there with my chest hollowed out and my heart aching, holding a beer I couldn’t drink, watching my best friend wait for words I didn’t have. The string lights cast amber shadows across his face, making him look like something from a dream or a nightmare, beautiful and unreachable and so close I could touch him if I were brave enough to try.

But I wasn’t brave. I was a coward who’d hurt the person who mattered most because I was too scared to face what was happening inside me.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” I finally said, the admission raw and honest in a way that made me feel naked, yet I knew I was still well shrouded in a lie.

Andrei’s expression shifted, something softening in the hard lines of his face. “Maybe you can’t.”

The words should have devastated me. Instead, they felt almost like permission. Permission to stop pretending I had all the answers. Permission to admit I was lost and confused and terrified of losing him.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Then…” He licked his lips and shook his head. “Just be my friend, Griff. That’s all I ever wanted.”

“What if I can’t?” The question escaped before I could stop it. The floor shifted beneath me. The weight of the question made me dizzy. “What if being close to you right now is too hard?”

His eyes widened slightly, and I watched him try to parse meaning from words I barely understood myself. “Why would it be hard?”

Because looking at you makes me want to feel your lips on mine. Because I can’t stop thinking about you. Because I’m terrified you’ll figure out what I did and hate me for it. Because I’ve loved you my whole life like a brother, and I don’t dare mess it up. “I don’t know,” I lied. “I just need time to figure some stuff out.”

Andrei studied my face for a long moment, those light green eyes searching for truth beneath my carefully constructed walls. I held my breath, terrified he’d see too much, that his ability to read me would finally expose everything I was trying to hide.

“Okay,” he said finally, and I couldn’t tell if the emotion in his voice was relief or disappointment. “Take your time. Just…don’t shut me out completely, okay? I can handle a lot of things, Griff, but I can’t handle losing you.”

The irony wasn’t lost on me. He was afraid of losing me, while I was terrified of losing him, both of us circling the same fear from opposite directions.

“You’re not losing me,” I said, wishing I believed it as completely as I needed him to. “I promise.”