Rowan Hayes knows two things for certain: One, she should never trust hockey players. And two, falling for her older brother’s best friend is a spectacularly bad idea. She only ever visits the frat house to see Eli—steal food, hang out with his teammates, maybe crash on the couch after a late night. But when a disastrous calculus grade forces her into a tutoring arrangement with Jude Mercer, the campus hockey star she’s somehow never properly met, her carefully controlled college life starts slipping in directions she absolutely did not plan for. Because Jude isn’t what she expected. Behind the cocky smile, hookup reputation, and endless parade of girls is someone unexpectedly patient, intelligent, and impossible to stop talking to. What starts as reluctant tutoring sessions quickly becomes late-night conversations, shared playlists, movie marathons, and secret hours spent hiding away in Jude’s room long after everyone else in the frat house falls asleep. They tell themselves it’s just friendship. But friendships probably shouldn’t feel like this. Not when Rowan starts leaving pajamas in his room. Not when Jude stops bringing other girls home because he’s always hoping she’ll show up instead. And definitely not when every almost-touch suddenly feels charged with something neither of them are ready to name. For Rowan, Jude becomes the first person in years who makes her feel genuinely safe—safe enough to laugh loudly again, trust again, maybe even want something more after the trauma that changed her life in high school. For Jude, Rowan is the one girl he can’t treat casually no matter how hard he tries. The problem? Eli would absolutely lose his mind if he found out his best friend and little sister were sneaking around behind his back. Caught somewhere between friendship and something dangerously close to love, Rowan and Jude are forced to figure out whether what they have is worth risking everything around them. Especially each other.