BLURB

Seven years ago, Stellan Reed was the eighteen-year-old king of Silver Ridge’s frozen pond: cocky, untouchable, and stupidly in love with the only girl who ever saw through him. Then the NHL called, and he left town without a backward glance, breaking every promise he ever whispered against her mouth in the dark behind the Zamboni garage.

Now, December 2025, a shredded shoulder has dragged him back to the same small Canadian town that still strings Christmas lights across Main Street like nothing ever changed. He’s twenty-six, maybe finished as a player, definitely finished pretending he doesn’t check her old Instagram at 3 a.m. She’s back too, burying her mother and whatever was left of her belief in forever.

One midnight skate on the empty outdoor rink. Two ghosts who never learned how to say sorry. Snow falling thick enough to muffle every lie they told themselves about moving on.

He still has the key she gave him at sixteen.

She still has the scar on her heart shaped exactly like his name.

Some breakups never end.

Some loves just wait under the ice until somebody’s brave enough to cut a hole and pull them back up.

trope: childhood sweetheart reunion, second chance romance, brooding athlete with a career-threatening injury, small-town Christmas, right person wrong time (now maybe right time), golden boy who fell from grace, silent guilt that’s been festering for years, snowed-in emotional constipation, he left to chase the dream and lost the girl, slow-burn redemption arc, he’s still stupidly in love and terrible at saying it, she’s allowed to hate him, hockey player who only feels at home on ice, winter nostalgia weaponized, forced proximity via holidays and small town, will-they-won’t-they

Pic creds: traciesart