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His smile fades. “Our parents died when I was seven, and he was seventeen. I was the surprise baby they never expected. Ryder wasn’t just ten years older.

He was ten times the player I ever was. But our town was small, with only a big factory that my dad worked in all his life.

A career in the NHL was a pipedream for someone like us, too big of a leap to risk us losing the only home we had, so he let that dream go to take care of his kid brother instead. ”

“So what did he do?” I ask.

“He quit school and got a job at the factory he hated.” He shakes his head as if to dislodge the ghosts of the past clinging to him. His gaze turns dreamy. “Skating is flying. Nothing has ever come close to it. It’s the best feeling in the world.”

He holds out his hand to me, palm side up, tempting me.

My fingers flex against the edge of the rink. “You’ll catch me when I fall?”

“ If you fall,” he says softly. “But you’ve got this, Giggles.”

My smile is brief. “That nickname is ridiculous.”

“Not half as ridiculous as mine. Come on over, and I’ll tell you what it is.”

And slowly, I release my death grip on the wall.

His eyes bounce from my face to my feet. “Left leg first. Slowly push out. Don’t try to keep both feet beneath you. The point isn’t to stand still.”

The distance between us closes.

His smile is proud as he slowly skates back. “Right leg. Keep it coming. You’re a natural.”

“You’re just saying that,” I say, flushing with pleasure.

My eyes flick to the ice, and he shakes his head.

“Keep looking at me. Look to where you want to go.”

So I look at him as I skate toward him, arms out for balance. I’m as wobbly as a baby deer walking on ice, but I’m moving. I haven’t knocked out my teeth or humiliated myself like I was so certain I would.

The farther I go, the easier it is to keep going.

“Pollyanna,” he says, surprising me as we slowly circle the rink’s perimeter. “That’s what the team calls me. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Big smiles. Big positive energy. You-can-do-it spirit. That’s me.”

That name is ridiculous, but it fits. And I think it’s a compliment instead of the joke name I initially thought it was.

I stumble.

And just as Reid said, he’s there, saving me from knocking my front teeth out. “How’d it feel?” he asks, still holding me.

I try to put words to the small bubble of hope and excitement forming in my chest. “Not sure. Can we try it again?”

His grin is everything. “We’re on our way to making a Wolverine out of you, huh?”

We stay on the ice for another thirty minutes until my teeth start chattering, even with all my layers.

“What do you say we hit the coffee shop and grab some hot chocolate to warm up?”

I eagerly accept.

The campus coffee shop isn’t far—about a fifteen-minute walk. On a cool, slightly crisp spring morning, students sit around the quad reading, relaxing, or laughing in groups.

We attract more than a few lingering glances, but Reid doesn’t seem to even notice all the attention.

“I don’t get it, Reid. You said your brother was really good. Why did he quit? He could have gotten a scholarship for college. Couldn’t he have just gone into the NHL instead of working in the factory if he needed money to take care of you?”

“Ryder could have if it were just about money,” Reid admits. “He could have skipped college and gone straight into the draft. He was that good. But he was thinking about what was best for me.”

“And what was best for you?”

He stops and stares into the distance. When his bag slides down his arm, he distractedly nudges it back up again.

“The first year is the hardest. Not all rookies manage the transition to the NHL well. You could be amazing at college but flunk as a rookie. And in the draft, you’re not just competing against guys in the States.

It’s insanely talented guys from all around the world. ”

“That has to have been better than the factory he hated, right?”

He looks down at me, his expression impossible to read.

“He was a risk-taker on the ice, but Ryder didn’t want to take chances with me.

He’d have had to train hard, which meant long hours away from me.

We’d have needed to leave our home, find a new house, a school for me, and someone to watch me.

Back home, we had neighbors we trusted. I think if it were just him, he’d have taken the chance, but he was worried about me. ”

He holds the coffee shop door open for me, and we hit pause on our conversation as we walk inside. “What do you want?”

“I can?—”

“My treat,” he interrupts, “For a fun session on the ice, it has to be a Venti.”

“A latte, then. Salted caramel.”

I snag us a seat at a small table beside the window overlooking the quad, and he dumps his bag on top and goes to place our order.

I’m too busy watching Reid, thinking about the sacrifices his brother made to take care of him, that I jump at the thump beside me.

Reid’s bag.

I bend to pick it up, stuffing the books that fell out of it back inside. My eyes linger on a note in his bag. It’s a request from his professor to see him anytime about his paper.

I’m being nosy, so I quickly shove everything back in his bag, return it to the table, and glance up at Reid to find him watching me.

“Uh, your bag fell off the table,” I explain when he returns with our drinks. “I was just picking it up. I wasn’t?—”

“It’s all good. Just my professor wanting game-day tickets.” He winks at me. “Wanted to make sure I had his number to get them to him.”

He spends the next several minutes cracking jokes and telling me about all the embarrassing trips and falls he’s had on the ice. Everything except school. As relaxed as he seems to be, it all feels like a distraction.