Second Chance Offside Love

The night I erased Nikolai Vale’s winning goal, I became the woman every hockey fan loved to hate.

One offside challenge. One overturned overtime goal. One furious team captain staring up at my video booth like I had personally stolen his future.

Three years later, I’m wearing the jacket of his team.

Niko Vale is still number 83, still Portland’s golden-boy center, and still the man who once turned my career into a public scandal. I should keep my distance. He should keep hating me. Instead, every frame we study, every argument we survive, and every dangerous look across the ice pulls us closer to a line neither of us can afford to cross.

Then one reckless night changes everything.

Two pink lines. One secret I refuse to hide. One captain who looks at me like I’m no longer his enemy, but the only thing he’s terrified of losing.

But our past was never as simple as one bad call. Someone manipulated the footage that destroyed us both, and the truth could cost me my job, his captaincy, and the fragile family we never meant to build.

I know hockey from a screen.

He knows where it hurts.

And now we have to decide if love can survive the review.