Page 29 of Heart Checked By the Hockey Heartthrob

“It doesn’t feel like enough.”

“It won’t. Not for a while. But she smiled tonight. You made her laugh. That counts.”

Before I can answer, someone else laughs across the firepit. A bright, familiar sound.

I turn—Quinn. Laughing at something Abby said, hand over her mouth, eyes lit up. It hits me square in the chest.

I missed that sound.

That sound used to mean we were okay. That the world hadn’t gotten to her yet. That I hadn’t messed it all up.

Griff sees me looking. ““That laugh?” he says. “That’s your crack in the armor. Keep pushing.”

I shift toward him. “What do you mean by that? Keep pushing how?”

He shrugs like it’s obvious. “Be around. Keep showing her the version of you who isn’t running from everything. Ask her questions, really listen when she answers. Don’t try to bulldoze her with declarations or apologies. Just… make her laugh again. Make her remember why she let you in the first time.”

“And if she doesn’t want to remember?”

Griff gives me a look. “She showed up. She laughed. She let you catch her. Don’t pretend those things don’t matter. Just don’t rush her. Let her meet you halfway—but give her something worth walking toward.”

I nod, but something catches my eye. A figure standing just outside the light. Tall, confident posture. Familiar.

He steps forward, a plate of s’mores in one hand.

Quinn’s laugh fades when she spots him. Her body stiffens, shoulders drawn tight as if bracing for impact. The easy curve of her smile drops, replaced by something unreadable. Maybe it’s shock, or wariness with a touch of disbelief. Her hand falls from her mouth to her lap, fingers curling slightly into a fist. I see her blink once, hard, like she’s trying to reset her entire posture.

Whatever joy had been warming her features disappears, replaced by that guarded expression I remember all too well—the one she wore the night I left.

I hear her say his name. A name I haven’t heard in years.

“Ryan?”

Her ex. The one from college. The one who used to visit every holiday with too-bright smiles and too-smooth compliments. The one who always seemed to know just how to make her laugh—and just how to make me feel like I didn’t measure up. We never liked each other. Mutual, unspoken disdain. And now he's here, looking like a headline about to rewrite my entire comeback story.

He grins like he never left.

And just like that, the fire doesn’t feel warm anymore.

Chapter eleven

Quinn

Ryan Jensen.

Of all the ghosts who could walk out of the smoke at a summer bonfire, it had to behim.

One second I’m laughing with Abby about the s’mores-to-marshmallow ratio and watching Jake try to toast one with a plastic fork, and the next—boom.

There he is. Like a glitch in time. Still tall, still annoyingly handsome in that clean-cut, polished way. Still wearing that cologne I used to think smelled expensive and now just smells like something bought on discount.

"Quinn," he says, smiling like this is the most casual thing in the world.

"Ryan?"

My voice comes out strangled.

He offers a little wave, like we’re bumping into each other at a coffee shop and not... whateverthisis. "Wow. It really is you."

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