Title: All Hail the Underdogs
Series: Breakaway, Book Three
Author: E.L. Massey
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 08/29/2023
Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 78100
Genre: Contemporary, contemporary, gay, interracial, YA/new adult, sports, ice hockey, team mates, writer, humorous, private school/ dorm life, slow burn, enemies to friends to boyfriends, enemies/rivals to boyfriends, coming of age, coming out, adoption, alcohol/underage drinking, family drama, emancipation, accidental baby acquisition
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Description
When seventeen-year-old Patrick Roman is offered a scholarship to a top hockey preparatory school, he thinks maybe his notorious bad luck has finally ended. With a hearing for his legal emancipation on the horizon, he dreams of getting scouted and securing a place on a D1 college team. There’s only one problem: Roman has serious beef with his new winger on the team, Damien Bordeaux. They’re supposed to be perfectly in sync on the ice. But Roman, with his buzzcut and tattoos, has nothing in common with trust-fund-kid Damien, his floral scrunchies, and designer T-shirts that cost more than all of Roman’s secondhand hockey gear combined.
When eighteen-year-old Damien Bordeaux starts his senior year, he tells himself he’s going to focus on hockey and school. No more making out in the stacks, no more dorm parties. He needs to decide what his future will look like. Does he pursue his long-held dream of becoming an author? Or stay in his lane and do what he’s good at: hockey. Regardless, he’s not going to let any pretty boys distract him from figuring his shit out. Except his new center, Roman, is possibly the most beautiful boy Damien has ever seen. And his hockey—the way he moves on the ice—might be even more beautiful. Too bad he’s also probably a homophobic, racist asshole.
But their antagonistic beginning turns into an unlikely friendship and then turns into something much scarier for them both. Navigating relationships is hard enough for normal teenagers. It’s a lot harder when contending with lawyers, NHL scouts, and mutual past trauma. Roman and Damien have to decide: What do they really want in life? Are they willing to fight for each other—including fighting against their own pasts and prejudices—so they can have a happy ending?
All Hail the Underdogs
E.L. Massey © 2023
All Rights Reserved
The dining hall is overwhelming.
Damien pointed it out as they walked to the dorm and then invited Rome to join him for dinner.
Except now, Rome is uncertain where to begin because there is food everywhere. A salad bar to his right. Omelet station on the left. Pizza and hotdogs and burgers. Lasagna. Chicken. Meatloaf. Pasta. Juices and milks and sodas and a whole section for dessert around the corner.
He follows Damien, and he fills up his tray with all the same things Damien does: chicken, pasta, mixed vegetables, a fruit cup, a cookie.
Well. Rome gets two cookies.
He feels like he did the first time he ever left Port Marta on a bantam hockey trip, and they’d stayed at a hotel and were allowed to eat as much as they wanted at the buffet for dinner. Rome gorged himself to the point that he nearly was sick. He reminds himself of that night as he carefully doles out the portions on his plate.
The dining hall isn’t going anywhere.
He’ll have these options every day now.
That realization is enough to almost make Damien’s company bearable.
Almost.
Damien clearly has no similar appreciation for the embarrassment of riches before them. Once they sit and begin eating—Rome at a careful, measured pace—Damien cheerfully complains about the chicken being too dry and the vegetables too soggy, and the unacceptable fact that St. James doesn’t offer organic salad greens. It’s a good thing Rome’s mouth is full and his hands are busy cutting his chicken because it distracts him from laughing. Or maybe punching Damien in the face.
“I’m getting milk,” Damien says as he sucks cookie crumbs off his fingers. “You want some? Coach is probably going to give you hell about your weight, just so you know.”
Rome does laugh then. A sharp, brittle thing that makes Damien frown at him.
“Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”
Every coach he’s had since he was ten and on his first real team has told him he needed to gain weight.
“You’re a tall kid for your age, son,” his bantam coach said despairingly after nearly every practice. “But you’re too skinny. Just put some weight on, and you’d be a more effective presence on the ice.”
It sounded easy, like that.
Just put some weight on.
And then he moved up to Triple A, and the refrain continued. They gave him black-and-white printouts of recommended caloric intake and carb-to-protein ratios and portion sizes, and then later, they asked if he was keeping up with his meal plans and workouts, and he’d lie and say he was.
What they didn’t seem to understand is that food costs money. And Rome didn’t have any. His family lived off markdowns and seafood they caught themselves and WIC items his stepmother snuck past his too-proud father. He worked at the rink after hours to afford getting his skates sharpened, worked at his uncle’s garage on weekends and his other uncle’s boat during the summers to pay even discounted team fees. He could afford to eat more healthy shit or he could afford hockey, but he definitely couldn’t afford both.
He doubts Damien Raphael Bordeaux, with his Ray Bans and designer shirts, has ever had that problem.
So Rome stayed skinny, and he made up for a lack of bulk with speed and aggression. He learned how to use the size he did have. He learned to intimidate without having to use his body at all.
And as long as his numbers stayed up, which they did, coaches wrote off his weight as a fast metabolism and his attitude as the kind of superiority complex that comes from being the best athlete on a small team.
So when Rome sits there with his tray full of food, healthy food, and Damien bemoans its quality—
He knew St. James Academy would be full of rich kids, but he’s never really been around rich kids before.
Even on Rome’s last team, the spectrum ranged from desperately poor to sort of poor to not poor. Rich is a whole new thing.
And apparently, that thing is disdainful of perfectly good, fully cooked, within-date chicken.
“Hey!” Damien says, flailing a little and nearly knocking over his glass of milk. “Olly! Justin! Kaner! Come meet the new guy.”
Rome recognizes only one of the three people who approach. Justin Lefevre, his new captain. Blond hair. Green eyes. Perfect teeth. He looks just like his father, and he’ll probably go on to be just as famous if his hockey career continues on its current trajectory. The other boy is brown-haired and olive-skinned and has the general look of an athlete about him. The girl’s face is vaguely familiar, with sharp features and dark hair, but he can’t place her. She also holds herself like a person used to using their body like a tool.
“This is Justin,” Damien says. “Our captain, defense.” He points to the second boy. “Olly, goalie. And—” He points to the girl. “Kaner, the other winger on our line.”
“But you’re a girl,” Rome says before he has the chance to stop himself.
“I am,” Kaner says. “Thanks for noticing.”
Weirdly, it doesn’t sound sarcastic.
“Kaner is special,” Justin says.
“Kaner is trans,” Kaner says. “Let me know if that’s going to be an issue for you.”
Rome has no idea what that means in this context, but he also knows, from the way the other boys are all looking at him, that he needs to tread lightly. “No issues here. I’m Rome.”
“Sweet,” Justin says, offering him a closed fist. “Thought your name was Patrick though. Hockey nickname?”
Rome bumps their fists together and then shakes Olly’s and Kaner’s outstretched hands. “Yeah. Started with Romer. Turned into Rome. Doesn’t feel right to answer to anything else now.”
It isn’t 100 percent true, but they don’t need to know that.
“There are worse nicknames,” Olly agrees. “Brian Campbell graduated last year. His was ‘Soup.’ And one of our D pairs is ‘Jeeves’ and ‘Wooster.’ But Coach’s email said you’re from Maine, right?” Olly has a southern lilt to his speech that makes Rome take a second, closer look at him.
He’s wearing a black shirt, jeans, and scuffed brown boots. While none of his clothing is threadbare or patched, none of it looks name brand either. Not like the others who, even in athletic gear, wear wealth like a habit. Olly’s not poor, Rome assesses, but he’s not rich either. It’s enough to give Rome a little bit of hope. Not poor is better than whatever the hell Damien, Kaner, and Lefevre are.
“Yeah, Maine,” Rome says, and then, because he knows it’s expected, “up the coast.”
Olly makes a noise of agreement and says, “You look like someone who’s actually worked a day or two in your life,” and, oh, Rome likes him already. “Any chance you know your way around washing machines?”
“Some,” Rome says.
“Well, neither of the two in the basement of our dorm are working, and maintenance can’t come until next week. I was thinking YouTube and I might go have a chat with them. You care to join me?”
Yes. Please.
“Sure.” Rome stands, remembers to tip his head to the others, and picks up his tray. He follows Olly back to the lobby, depositing his dirty dishes in a bin by the exit.
Olly touches his arm to point out the plasticware and takeaway boxes in case he ever needs one, and Rome flinches. Just a little.
Olly doesn’t say anything, but he does withdraw his hand.
“You here on scholarship?” Olly asks once they’re outside.
“Yeah. You?”
“Yessir. And I gotta say I’m happy to have you with us. When Leefer graduated, I thought I was going to be the only scholarship kid on the team. I love these guys to death, but sometimes—” Olly sighs. “You know, I was complaining about the laundry situation on the way over here, and Kaner offered to just buy us new washing machines rather than wait for maintenance to show up? Whole ass. Brand new. Washing machines. Like that’s a thing that people do?”
“Rich people,” Rome says.
“Lord, don’t I know it,” Olly agrees.
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E. L. Massey is a human. Probably. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her partner, the best dog in the world (an unbiased assessment), and a frankly excessive collection of books. She spends her holidays climbing mountains and writing fan fiction, occasionally at the same time.
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