Saoirse
I've loved Cathal Brennan since the day he carried my broken ankle up four flights of stairs and made me laugh so hard I forgot to cry. Six years later, I know his coffee order, his game-day rituals, and exactly which jokes will get that rare, crooked smile. What I don't know — what I've never let myself ask — is what it would feel like to be more than his best friend.
I've built my whole life around not finding out. Because if I ruin this, I don't just lose the boy I love. I lose the only family I trust.
Then I get assigned as the hockey team's student physiotherapist for championship season, and suddenly I'm the one taping his shoulder, counting his heartbeat under my palm, and pretending I don't notice the way he's started looking at me like I'm something worth losing everything for.
Cathal
I've spent four years making sure nobody sees how much I need anything — not the scouts deciding my future, not my father's shadow, not the girl I've been quietly in love with since we were nineteen. Saoirse Doyle is the safest person I know, which is exactly why I can't touch this. She patches me up. She doesn't get to patch up the mess I'd make of us.
Except now she's in the training room every single day, hands on my skin, steady in the one place my life isn't — and I'm running out of ways to pretend that's fine.
We had one rule: don't be stupid enough to fall for your best friend.
I broke it first. I just have to make sure I don't lose her when she finds out.
Tropes: Friends to Lovers • He Falls First • Forced Proximity • Sports Romance • Found Family • Slow Burn to High Heat