PLEASE DON’T FALL FOR THE OUTSIDE HITTER

She tracks every jump, landing, and heartbeat. Her job is to keep the team's biggest star from breaking again. She is not supposed to fall for her.

Nora Lindqvist doesn't do chaos. She does color-coded spreadsheets, oat milk, and cold, correct data. Hired as the Duluth Gales' new return-to-play specialist, she has one assignment: monitor superstar outside hitter Dani Okafor through her comeback from a torn ACL and report every number to the front office. No friendships. No favorites. Absolutely no feelings.

Dani has other plans. She's warm, loud, and impossible to ignore, and she is determined to make the grim woman with the clipboard laugh before the first snow. She is also terrified that if her knee doesn't hold, she's worth nothing to anyone.

Then the details start piling up. Nora has to drive Dani everywhere because Dani can't yet drive herself. Their hotel rooms share a wall on every road trip. A blizzard buries a training retreat and leaves them one cabin, one fireplace, and no good excuses. Banter turns into friendship, friendship turns into long looks across a quiet kitchen, and the one rule Nora swore never to break starts to look very breakable.

But Nora's reports decide contracts, and Dani's contract year is ticking. When the numbers get complicated, loving each other might cost them both everything they've worked for.

Swoony, laugh-out-loud funny, and seriously steamy, Load Management is a standalone slow-burn romance about two women learning that the strongest thing you can do is let someone else carry some of the weight.

Tropes: Grumpy/Sunshine, Slow Burn, Forced Proximity, Workplace Romance, Friends to Lovers, Opposites Attract, Sports Romance, F/F Romanc