"Look out for Zach, and don't hit on him." My brother's request sounds easy enough. Keep an eye out for his best friend on campus and keep my hands to myself. Easy. Even if Zach is a quintessential nerd, who I've always thought was cute, I don't have the time to think with my...stick. There's only one stick I should be focused on this year, and that's my hockey stick. My goal once I graduate is to get an NHL contract. The last thing I need is a distraction. On or off the ice. Only, keeping to the rules is harder than I thought it would be. 

Daniel Mulligan is tough, snarky, and tattooed, hiding his self-consciousness behind sarcasm. Daniel has never fit in - not at home in Philadelphia with his auto mechanic father and brothers, and not at school where his Ivy League classmates looked down on him. Now, Daniel's relieved to have a job at a small college in Holiday, Northern Michigan, but he's a city boy through and through, and it's clear that this small town is one more place he won't fit in.

I’m a man with too many secrets, so the last thing I need is a new roommate with a sexy smile and blue eyes that see right through me. Eight years ago, Roderick left town after high school. We’re not friends. I owe him nothing. But back then, I let one of my secrets slip, and he’s the only one who noticed. Part of me knows I should run far, far away. But the other part wants him to come upstairs and spend the night. But if I let him in, I could lose everything. 

When they were only teenagers, Axel and Caxton were caught making out in the woods at church camp. And afterward, Cax had disappeared from all the youth group activities. Six years later Axel is astonished to spot his first love's face in the crowd of a college basketball game he's watching on television - at a school that has just offered him a job. It's a thousand miles away, in a tiny rural town. But suddenly he can't wait to get there.

When Talon left to play pro ball six years ago, the hole in my chest confused me. I focused my heartache into making my own NFL dreams come true, and by the time I was drafted, the longing I had for my best friend was buried deep. Now, he wants everything to be like it was in college, but we can't have threesomes and be reckless like we once were. The media storm would be enough to break both our careers. That's not my biggest concern, though. The torch I had for him burns brighter after so long apart, and there's nothing I can do about it. Marcus Talon is straight.