He laced up his skates, then grabbed his stick, his helmet, and his mouth guard and headed out onto the ice.

The sun was high, warm, and he’d worn only a thin shirt under his jersey, but he wouldn’t need more. He stretched and did a couple warm-up laps, and only then did he glance over at the stands.

Peyton sat next to Shasta and Winter and raised a hand to him as he glanced her direction.

But no Echo. Which felt weird.

Dodge circled the ice again, and then the rest of the team came out, and they warmed up.

Still no Echo.

By the time he found himself on the line, ready for the puck drop, he’d surrendered to the idea that she wasn’t coming.

He glanced up two minutes into the first period, though, and spotted her sitting next to Peyton, wearing an oversized Copper Mountain Grizzlies sweatshirt, her blond hair down under a white hat with a pom-pom. She waved, and something swelled inside his chest.

His very own cheerleader.

He focused back on the game just in time to see Axel headed his direction, grinning, playing with the puck, and nope, no one was getting past him today.

Dodge spun, came around, and slammed Axel into the boards.

It shook the puck loose and Dodge shot it down to the far end of the ice, where Mal caught it.

Slapped it in.

And that’s how it was done. Hooah.

Dodge high-fived his team and kept his mind on the ice all the way to the end of the game.

The bush team won, three goals to one.

Grabbing a towel from the sidelines, Dodge skated over to the bleacher area. Echo stood with Peyton, who was on crutches and seemed to be waiting for Nash.

Indeed, Nash came over, leaned down, and popped Peyton with a kiss. Interesting.

Echo wrapped her arms around herself, obviously shivering. “Great game.”

He wanted to reach out for her, pull her in close by her scarf so he could kiss her. But she stood strangely away, her gaze not quite meeting his.

“You okay?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Am I going to see you tonight at the breakup dance?”

Her eyes lifted. “Really?”

He laughed. “Only if you say you’ll go with me.”

She grinned then. “It’s against the rules, but I’ll go with you.” She left with Winter and Shasta, and he skated back to the warming house, changed, grabbed some free pizza with the guys, then headed home.

He spent about an hour trying to figure out what to wear. He’d never actually been to the breakup dance. Oh, how he hated dancing. In his worst fears, he ended up on the floor, in a tangled mess, maybe on top of Echo. Nice. But Echo always had this thing for it, loved dancing movies . . .

And that’s what love did—it ignored the what-ifs.