Ryan Lindqvist has spent years following the rules. Keep your head down. Play the game. Don’t get distracted.
Especially not by your best friend’s younger sister.
Maren Callahan was never supposed to become a problem. She’s smart, stubborn, completely unimpressed by hockey players… And she’s only in Minnesota for one weekend before heading back home to Arizona.
Ryan is sure keeping his distance should be easy.
Until late-night conversations turn into lingering looks. Until friendship starts feeling dangerously close to something else. Until one almost-mistake changes everything.
The closer Ryan gets to Maren, the harder it becomes to remember why she was off-limits in the first place.
Set before the Phoenix Sidewinders existed—before the captaincy, the expansion draft, and the pressure of building a team from nothing—this emotional hockey romance prequel tells the story of the weekend Ryan and Maren stopped being just Griffin’s best friend and little sister…and became something neither of them was ready to lose.
