He took the puck off me with eleven seconds left. Now he's on my team.

Blaine "Blaze" Kovac is the best player in the conference and everybody knows it. He's got a father who only calls about scouts, an agent counting down to the draft, and one bad memory he can't skate away from — the freshman who beat him in the regional semifinal and said four words to him in the handshake line.

Now that freshman just transferred in.

Cole Rivers left his last school in the middle of the season and told everyone it wasn't working out. That's a complete sentence. It's the only one he plans on giving. He's quiet, he's careful, and he's spent his whole life being the guy nobody notices.

Coach puts them on the same line as punishment.

Cole stays up all night watching Blaze's tape and finds something nobody in the sport has ever seen — a flaw that isn't in his hands or his feet. It's in the part of him that's still sixteen and afraid.

He shouldn't tell him. He tells him anyway.

What starts as film sessions in a locked basement room turns into something neither of them planned.

Late nights. Hotel rooms on the road. A first kiss when the heater breaks. Six weeks of quiet mornings that cost them nothing — until a photo lands in the team group chat, an agent says the word "distractions," and Blaze does the one thing he swore he never would.

Some things you can fix by looking at the post.

Some things you have to say out loud, in a room full of people, and hope you're not too late.

BREAKING KOVAC is a slow burn, dual POV, rivals-to-lovers MM college hockey romance. Full-length standalone with a hard-won HEA. No cheating, no cliffhanger.

Tropes: rivals to lovers · forced proximity · one bed · only one heater · out and proud x closeted · found family · touch her and die energy · dual POV · slow burn · coming out · sports romance · HEA guaranteed