Blue Line, Red Heart

Jesse North had a career, a reputation, and a secret — until one punch in front of a national audience cost him the first two and nearly exposed the third. Exiled to a minor-league team at the edge of the map, living in an apartment over a bait shop and skating for a club nobody watches, he has exactly one plan: keep his head down, say nothing, and earn his way back to the show.

Then he meets Ezra Voss.

Ezra is the team's athletic trainer — steady, dry, impossible to rattle, and strictly off-limits. The league has a rule about staff and players, and the rule has one punishment: you're gone. But Ezra is the first person in years to look at Jesse and see the whole man instead of the headline. And the harder Jesse works to stay invisible, the more he wants to be seen by the one person he isn't allowed to have.

When the truth Jesse buried starts clawing its way back into the light — on someone else's timeline, in front of everyone — he's forced to choose between the career he's fighting to reclaim and the man who taught him he doesn't have to carry it all alone.

He came north certain his life was over.

He had no idea it was about to start.