He’s a backup goalie with a broken game. The only thing he needs more than a win is the hot, grumpy bartender who pours his weekly beer.

Becker James is having a spectacularly bad season. Once a top draft pick, he’s now riding the bench in the minors, one failed save away from being cut. The highlight of his week? A lonely hour on a barstool at Sportsballs, Denver’s queerest watering hole—and Forest, the bartender with flannel sleeves, a gruff voice, and a beard that stars in Beck’s dreams.

Opportunity strikes when Forest’s LGBTQ hockey team—the Stickhandlers—loses their goalie last-minute. Beck makes Forest an he’ll help them beat the most hated team in the beer league, but he wants something in return—one night together.

Cue the record scratch, because Seth Forrester doesn’t do hookups. After his last one went horribly wrong, he swore off men for good. He’s definitely not falling for the awkward hottie who just stammered through an indecent proposal.

But Beck is prepared to press his case, no matter how awkward it gets. And one beer league game turns into something messier, sweeter, and so much harder to walk away from…

For various reasons I’ve previously detailed, I am highly selective about the M/M authors I choose to read. So, if I am reading it, it's got to be from an author I know will make the story work and make both of the characters in the main couple feel like entire people, not the lead and a secondary character.

Beck and Forest were both leading men in their own right, and so them being together...well, let's just say I loved them, and the idea of them, from the beginning. They are so perfect for one another, when on paper I am not actually sure they should work as Beck is so adorably quirky and Forest...isn't. He just isn't. He has things that make him who he is, but I loved that the two of them together make one another into more than they were apart.

It took me no time at all to read this title, and that is because I was involved and invested from the beginning. I loved them, their story, I wanted all of the things to be perfect for both of them, and I wanted to see their happy ending, immediately.