Ari Meyer is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, and I hate him for it.

Jocks like Ari Meyer don’t go for geeky nobodies like me. When he bats his dreamy eyes in my direction, I assume that it’s a prank. His fellow hockey goons wouldn’t hesitate to pick on the glasses-wearing nerd behind the concession stand, why should I expect differently from him?

I want it, though. I want him so fricking badly.

Is it really so far-fetched to think that the Adonis on hockey skates might be into me?

Irrationality prevails, and I find myself falling right into his beefy, hockey-stick-wielding...

Ari Meyer is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen, and I hate him for it.

Jocks like Ari Meyer don’t go for geeky nobodies like me. When he bats his dreamy eyes in my direction, I assume that it’s a prank. His fellow hockey goons wouldn’t hesitate to pick on the glasses-wearing nerd behind the concession stand, why should I expect differently from him?

I want it, though. I want him so fricking badly.

Is it really so far-fetched to think that the Adonis on hockey skates might be into me?

Irrationality prevails, and I find myself falling right into his beefy, hockey-stick-wielding arms. But it’s not that I don’t recover from rejection or heartbreak well. I don’t recover from it. Like, at all. It’s a monumentally bad idea to let myself have this much hope. What little self-esteem I have might never recover if this goes sideways. I’ll turn into one of those crotchety old men who yells at people to get off his lawn, bitter and alone.

Someone please tell me how to say no.

A sweet novella-length story set in the Heartbreak Hockey Universe, several years before book one, featuring these tropes:

Nerd/Jock * Forced Proximity * Grumpy/Sunshine * He’s mine, so back TF off * Opposites