Penalty Box Hearts

Emmett Laroque has been the Halberds' captain for three seasons without once losing control of his locker room. That record ends the morning a trade brings in the one player he swore he'd never share a room with again. And the season has barely started.

Emmett Laroque built the Halberds around trust. He runs his line, manages his room, and keeps the line between professional and personal exactly where it needs to be. He is twenty-five years old, captain of a team in serious contention, and carrying a knee that has already cost him two meniscus pieces. He has learned, in all of it, to keep his accounting clean. Some things stay in the past. They stay there because letting them back in costs more than the return is worth.

Then Helen Marchetti-Okafor calls him on a Sunday night to tell him a trade is coming he's not going to like. She is not wrong.

Silas Draegan is the kind of player coaches build a system around, the kind of player other teams want badly enough to offer roster pieces for, and the kind of man that Emmett has been very deliberately not thinking about for two years. The last time they were in the same city, something happened that neither of them put a name to, and then Silas was traded and Emmett was made captain and that was the end of it. Now he's in a Halberds stall and Emmett has to find a way to captain a man he has unresolved history with through a playoff push that will define both their careers.

Two years of distance. One locker room. No room for the past. The past has no interest in staying gone. The Cup is the only thing that matters.

Except it isn't, and they both know it, and the season is long.

Perfect for fans of Helena Hunting, Jay Bell, and Piper Rayne. Penalty Box Hearts is a full-length standalone MM Hockey Romance with HEA and no cliffhanger. Contains mature content, steam, and two men who know exactly what they want but spent two years pretending otherwise.