MT

He needed a tutor. She needed a fake boyfriend. Neither of them expected to fall in love. Y/N has spent years learning how to live with her past, keeping her walls high and her heart carefully guarded. At Briar University, she’s focused on her music, her future, and taking life one day at a time. Then there’s Garrett Graham—Briar’s hockey captain, campus heartthrob, and the last person Y/N wants complicating her life. When Garrett’s failing grade threatens his hockey career, he makes Y/N an offer she can’t ignore. She’ll tutor him, and in return, he’ll help her win over her longtime crush, football star Justin Kohl. Simple enough. Until Garrett and Y/N decide that pretending to date might be the perfect way to make Justin jealous. Suddenly, fake dates become late-night study sessions. Fake kisses become something neither of them wants to stop. And the lines between pretend and real start disappearing. But Garrett isn’t the only one falling for Y/N. His best friend, John Logan, finds himself secretly pining for the girl he believes he can never have. And Y/N? She’s beginning to wonder if the guy she thought she wanted was never the one she was meant to fall for. Between hockey games, college parties, complicated friendships, buried trauma, and a relationship that was never supposed to be real, Y/N and Garrett are about to discover that sometimes the biggest risk isn’t falling in love. It’s letting someone close enough to see all the parts of you you’ve spent years hiding. It was supposed to be a deal. It was never supposed to be love.