Page 16 of The Love Comeback (Glaciers Hockey #3)

The thought hits me with unexpected force, and I have to take a sip of water to cover the sudden tightness in my throat.

“Okay, so we need to label these diagrams.” Ella points to the blank circles on the page. “Let’s start with the ones you know for sure.”

Colton chews his lower lip, a habit I’ve noticed he shares with Ella. “Well, that one’s a full moon,” he says, pointing confidently to one of the circles. “And that’s a new moon because you can’t see it at all. ”

“Great start,” I encourage, watching as he carefully writes the labels. His handwriting is better than mine was at his age—neater, more controlled. “Now what about these others?”

“Um…” He hesitates, pencil hovering over the page.

“Think about what they look like in the sky,” I suggest. “You know how sometimes the moon looks like a half circle? Or just a sliver?”

His face scrunches in concentration. “Yeah, like when it looks like a banana?”

“Exactly.” Ella nods. “That’s called a crescent moon.”

I reach across to point at another diagram, my arm brushing against Ella’s in the process. A jolt of awareness runs through me at the contact, and from the way she quickly shifts, she felt it too.

“Sorry,” I murmur, though I’m not sorry at all.

“It’s fine,” she says quietly, not quite meeting my eyes.

Colton, oblivious to the tension suddenly crackling between us, is busy writing “crescent” beside another diagram. “So what’s this one called?”

“That’s the first quarter or third quarter, depending on which half is lit up,” I explain, recovering my focus.

“Wow, look at you go, Kade.” Ella smirks. “I’m impressed.”

“Believe it or not, I took astronomy as part of my general education in college. It’s one of the few classes I actually looked forward to.” I laugh and then continue my explanation to Colton. “See, the moon orbits around the earth, and as it moves, different portions get illuminated by the sun.”

“Think of it like this,” Ella jumps in, grabbing a clean napkin and drawing a circle.

“If this is the earth, and the sun’s light is coming from this direction…

” She adds another circle and some arrows.

“The moon travels around the earth, and depending on its orbit, we see different amounts of the sunlit side.”

I watch her hands as she sketches, elegant fingers moving confidently across the napkin, creating a surprisingly accurate diagram with just a few strokes. Her nails are short and practical—no polish, a small paper cut on her index finger. Teacher’s hands. Mother’s hands.

Beautiful hands.

“I think I get it,” Colton says, studying her drawing. “So these ones where it’s more than half full but not completely full are … gibbous moons?”

“Right!” Ella and I say in unison, then exchange surprised smiles.

“Waxing gibbous is when it’s getting fuller, and waning gibbous is when it’s starting to shrink again after being full,” she explains.

“Like wax on, wax off,” I say, making a circular motion with my hand.

Colton looks at me blankly.

“It’s from a movie,” I explain. “Before your time. ”

“Way before,” Ella mutters in a way that makes me feel ancient at twenty-seven before giving me a smirk.

Colton shrugs and returns to his worksheet, carefully labeling each phase.

As he works, I find myself studying the curve of Ella’s neck as she leans over to guide him, the way her hair falls forward when she tilts her head.

She tucks it behind her ear absentmindedly, a gesture I’ve always found endearing.

As Colton works on the final parts of his assignment, Ella reaches across him to point out a minor correction.

Her hand brushes against mine where it rests on the table, and this time, neither of us pulls away immediately.

For one breathless moment, her pinky finger rests against my knuckles, a touch so light it could be accidental but feels too deliberate, too charged to be anything but intentional.

When she finally withdraws her hand, I have to resist the urge to reach for it again.

“Almost done,” Colton announces, still oblivious to the silent current running between the adults flanking him. “Just need to label these last two phases.”

“You’re doing great,” Ella encourages, her voice slightly deeper than before. She clears her throat, tucking that persistent strand of hair behind her ear again.

I wonder if she knows how much that simple gesture affects me, how it takes me straight back to high school—to study sessions in her mom’s kitchen, to bleacher seats at hockey games, to the back of my beat-up old truck under star-filled skies .

“Finished!” Colton declares triumphantly, setting his pencil down. “Can you check it, Ella?”

She scans the completed worksheet, nodding with approval. “Perfect. Your teacher will be impressed.”

“We make a pretty good team,” I say, the words slipping out before I can censor them.

Ella’s eyes meet mine, a flash of something vulnerable crossing her face before she masks it with a smile. “We do,” she admits softly.

Colton beams up at both of us. “That was way easier with both of you helping. Usually, it’s just me and Ella at the kitchen table, and sometimes she has to look stuff up on her phone.”

“Well, even teachers don’t know everything,” Ella says, ruffling his hair affectionately.

As the academic crisis subsides, the world around us seems to filter back in—the restaurant noise, the late hour indicated on the wall clock, the reality of our complicated situation.

But for those twenty minutes, it felt like we were so much more than a professional hockey player, a struggling single guardian, and a kid who’s lost too much.

We were three people who fit together in a way that feels as natural as breathing.