Prologue
Vesper
My parents measured life in summers as if it were a religion.That’s hockey for you—everything in seasons, everything in cycles.
Dad used to live under arena lights.Even now, he moves like he still hears skates cutting into ice—shoulders back, jaw set, that old-fashioned confidence that makes strangers assume he’s in charge.He’s the guy hauling boxes of donated helmets out of the trunk like they’re sacred objects, barking at twelve-year-olds about hydration with the same intensity other dads save for playoff overtime.
Mom ran a summer camp like it was her empire.Clipboards.Schedules.A whistle that could slice straight through any conversation and make grown men stand up a little straighter.She didn’t ask for attention.My petite mother took it.She was kindness and command wrapped into one woman who refuses to let anyone show up unprepared.
Me?
I measure life in departures—flights, drives, the miles between one version of me and the next.
While growing up, it was different.It was the drive from Portland to Juniper Ridge, a small town where orchards started just beyond the last stop sign, the river ran bright and cold beside the road, and the wind carried that clean, sharp scent that made you believe you could start over.
Juniper Ridge was never a straight shot.You didn’t arrive.You were taken to a magical place that separated the extraordinary from the ordinary.
By the time the first handmade sign appeared—advertising fresh berries, cider, honey—Dad’s tapping had turned into something softer, almost absent-minded.Mom smiled for a reason she wouldn’t admit.
My brothers—because yes, of course I have brothers—treated the backseat like their personal locker room.They talked in stats and chirps.They argued about who would’ve made varsity earlier if the coach hadn’t been “an idiot.”They tossed insults like they were confetti.
They were destined for rinks.
Not me, though.
My parents never saidYou won’t be a hockey player,but they never encouraged me either.They loved me like I was a miracle they didn’t know they needed.But the world?The world made sure I understood the difference between a girl who skates and a boy who belongs.The difference between cute and good.The difference between being cheered and being feared.
So I learned early on how to be loud.How to take up space.How to bite first so no one can bite me harder.
Summer was a promise I could taste.
I waited for it the way some people wait for miracles, the way people press their palms together and make bargains with the universe.
Because up there, tucked between peaks in a made-up slice of Oregon that felt more real than anywhere else I’ve ever lived, the camp waited for us.
Our camp.
Mom’s kingdom.
My refuge.
There’s a rink that always smelled like cold metal and Zamboni fuel and old hockey tape—like every hockey dream that’s ever been sweated into existence.Kids arrived with duffel bags and nervous excitement, eyes too wide, voices too bright.Parents waved and pretended they weren’t terrified of letting their babies go.Coaches shouted names and ran line drills like soldiers.
And I grew up learning that a summer can hold an entire lifetime if you let it.
Also, that’s where I metthem.
I still remember it as if it were yesterday ...no, as if I were just meeting them now.If I close my eyes, I can see it all in real time.
I’m fifteen.
They’re sixteen.
And the moment they step out of their vehicles, something in me shifts, like my story has been waiting for them to arrive.
Callaway Livingston Harrington Winthrop shows up first, and he does it like he’s walking onto a stage.He’s all grin and swagger and perfectly lopsided charm, like the universe handed him a script and he decided he’d improvise anyway.Loud.Magnetic.The sort of boy who makes shy kids laugh without mocking them, the sort of boy who makes coaches sigh like they’re exhausted by him and secretly thrilled he exists.
Silver spoon kid, sure—his last name is basically a trust fund—but he wears it like it’s irrelevant.Like he’s determined to prove he can earn love without buying it.
