Book Title: An Unrivaled Off-Season (Hockey Ever After, #3.5)
Author: Ashlyn Kane & Morgan James
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Cover Artist: L.C. Chase
Release Date: April 2, 2024
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance, M/M sports romance
Tropes: Rivals to lovers, established relationship
Themes: Meeting the family, starting a life together,
Heat Rating: 3.5 flames
Length: 27 808 words/ 96 pages
It is not a standalone story. It follows directly after Unrivaled (Book 3 – same couple) and won’t make much sense without it.
It does not end on a cliffhanger.
Available in Kindle Unlimited
Sometimes the best win comes in the off-season.
Blurb
Any other year, hockey player Grady Armstrong would be licking his wounds after a disappointing playoffs exit. Somehow, this year, he’s in the stands as his rival-turned-boyfriend Max Lockhart competes for the Stanley Cup… and there’s nowhere he’d rather be. Well, except maybe lifting the Cup himself. So along with preparing his body for next season, Grady prepares to ask Max to stay in his life permanently.
Max figures it can’t be easy for Grady to watch Max cash in on his dreams, but if he’s struggling, he hides it well—which is great, because they don’t get much time together during the season, and it would suck if Grady spent the summer sulking.
But while Grady may still be a competitive bastard, he doesn’t sulk. He nurses Max through hangovers. He comes home with him for the summer. He loses fishing bets. He earns so many boyfriend points Max should really level him up. The question is, how?
Because Grady’s life was a joke, at this year’s NHL Awards, Grady won the Lady Byng—the most-sportsmanlike-conduct award he kept missing out on because Max got under his skin.
Grady probably didn’t deserve it, but it was funny, and he enjoyed telling the Condors beat reporter that he was probably the first person to get a trophy for learning to get along with someone.
“Get along with?” Max said incredulously in their hotel room after, flopped over on the bed but propped on his elbows. “You argued with me for fifteen minutes about which Elvis impersonator to see.”
“That was foreplay.” Grady swatted his leg. “Get your shoes off the bed, heathen. What was I supposed to say? ‘First guy to get a trophy for fucking his rival’?”
Max smirked as he kicked his shoes off. “It would’ve made a better pull quote.”
“I think I’ve said enough embarrassing things about you to the media. Quit fishing for compliments.”
Max leaned up, grabbed Grady’s tie, and pulled him down until they were eye to eye. Then he said, very seriously, “Never.”
None of the compliments Grady gave him in the ensuing twenty minutes were fit to be printed anywhere but a Penthouse confessional, but Max didn’t complain.
After they’d cleaned up, and after Grady had spent ten minutes fussing with the blackout curtains that couldn’t quite keep the orange city lights from creeping in, and after Max drifted off in his usual spot, curled around Grady like an octopus with a body pillow, Grady let himself think.
A whole summer with Max. Just a year ago that would’ve seemed more like a nightmare than a dream. Now Grady was looking forward to spending time with Max’s whole family, who were exactly like Max except with thicker East Coast accents.
Was that crazy? How long had they even really been together? Should he start counting from September or the trade deadline? Or Christmas? Did he count the time they were broken up, even if they hadn’t officially been dating?
Grady paused with his fingers in the curls behind Max’s ear and rephrased the question. Did he care if it was crazy?
Max sighed in his sleep and rubbed his face into Grady’s chest. Grady’s dumb heart melted into a useless puddle.
Okay, so it didn’t matter if it was a year or six months. That was all in the past anyway. Grady was looking to the future now, and it was filled with Max—Max’s dumb bets and infuriating smirk and the sweet voice he used when talking to Gru.
He couldn’t imagine any future Max might want that Grady wouldn’t enjoy more because it had Max in it. If he had to spend the rest of his life buying Max fancy shampoo because he’d buy crap from the dollar store if left to his own devices, so be it. Did Max want kids? Grady didn’t know. Did Grady want kids? He didn’t know that either. But he liked Max’s brother’s kids, so if Max wanted them, he’d be fine, and if he didn’t, then Grady would spoil the niblings. Problem solved.
Oh Jesus. Grady wanted to marry this idiot. He wanted it maybe more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. More than he wanted the Cup.
He wanted Max Lockhart to be his husband.
No, worse than that. He wanted to be Max Lockhart’s husband.
Ashlyn Kane likes to think she can do it all, but her follow-through often proves her undoing. Her house is as full of half-finished projects as her writing folder. With the help of her ADHD meds, she gets by.
An early reader and talker, Ashlyn has always had a flair for language and storytelling. As an eight-year-old, she attended her first writers’ workshop. As a teenager, she won an amateur poetry competition. As an adult, she received a starred review in Publishers Weekly for her novel Fake Dating the Prince. There were quite a few years in the middle there, but who’s counting?
Her hobbies include DIY home decor, container gardening (no pulling weeds), music, and spending time with her enormous chocolate lapdog. She is the fortunate wife of a wonderful man, the daughter of two sets of great parents, and the proud older sister/sister-in-law of the world’s biggest nerds.
Morgan James is a clueless (older) millennial who’s still trying to figure out what they’ll be when they grow up and enjoying the journey to get there. Now, with a couple of degrees, a few stints in Europe, and more than one false start to a career, they eagerly wait to see what’s next. James started writing fiction before they could spell and wrote their first (unpublished) novel in middle school. They haven’t stopped writing since. Geek, artist, archer, and fanatic, Morgan tends to pass their free hours with in imaginary worlds and people on pages and screens—it’s an addiction. As is their love of coffee and tea. They live in Canada with their massive collection of unread books, where they are the personal servant of too many four-legged creatures.
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