Page 68 of Heart Checked By the Hockey Heartthrob

“A big one. Everyone we love. Sunset Cove deserves to know you’re not just visiting anymore.”

“Chaos in paradise?”

“Exactly.”

I shake my head, but I’m already picturing it.

And in my mind, the party ends with a question I’ve been carrying in my pocket for months.

She has no idea what’s coming.

But she will.

Chapter twenty-five

Quinn

The first thing I notice when I walk into Wes’s beach house—our beach house, I guess, if the last few weeks are anything to go by—is the scent.

It doesn’t smell like paint or empty walls anymore. It smells like lemon soap and fresh linen, and something else I can't quite name that makes my heart flutter a little. The front hall has been transformed since the last time I saw it—woven runner down the center, a slim console table topped with a ceramic bowl for keys, and a glass vase filled with sunflowers Wes claims he bought “completely unprompted.”

The bowl is new. The sunflowers? I may have sent a picture to Abby with a caption that read: Make him love plants. But the fact that he actually went and bought them?

It makes me smile all the way through.

“Back door’s open!” Wes’s voice calls from somewhere deeper in the house.

I step past the living room, and my breath catches again.

This isn’t the man cave I first walked into. The brown couch is gone—thankfully—and in its place is a pale gray sectional scattered with navy and cream pillows. The oversized armchair I picked out is angled toward the windows, a knit throw draped across the back like something out of a magazine. A woven jute rug grounds the space. There’s a new coffee table, rustic wood with an open shelf underneath stacked with hockey books and a photography collection of coastal towns.

I step closer and realize one of the framed photos on the end table is from the festival—me laughing, face turned up toward the sun, unaware someone was even holding a camera.

I swallow thickly.

“You okay?” Wes’s voice floats in again, closer this time.

“Just admiring,” I say, walking through the open archway that leads to the kitchen.

He’s in swim trunks and a navy linen shirt, barefoot, stacking paper plates on the counter with an energy that suggests he’s been pacing since sunrise.

“You went all in on this party,” I say, eyeing the spread of fruit trays, drinks, and an entire charcuterie board in the shape of a whale.

“Abby,” he says flatly. “I said ‘snacks,’ and she said, ‘do you want joy in your life or not?’ So. Whale meat-and-cheese board. DUH.”

I laugh, stepping into the kitchen to check on the lemonade pitcher. The space feels warmer now—hand towels in striped blue and white, a bowl of citrus on the counter, and two barstools I picked out because they reminded me of the diner we always ended up at back in the early days.

Even the back deck has changed. The Adirondack chairs are arranged in a semi-circle around the firepit, fresh cushions in place. The string lights Abby insisted on adding to the overhang, already glowing faintly in the late-afternoon sun.

And then there’s the view.

Sunlight dances across the surface of the ocean. A few kids are already wading in the water, shrieking with delight. The sand looks like it was swept by hand—which wouldn’t surprise me, knowing Wes—and there’s a folding table set up near the dune path, already covered in tubs of cold drinks, sunscreen, and extra towels.

He did all this.

Not for attention. Not because someone expected it.

But because he wanted to share it.

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