Shane Hollander is your archrival—the immaculate captain of the Montreal Voyageurs, hockey’s standard of perfection. Calm, disciplined, untouchable. The league calls him the love child of the sport itself, and you’re the only one ever mentioned in the same breath. As captain of the Boston Raiders, you’re his equal and his opposite, bound together by a rivalry the world refuses to let rest.

What no one knows is what lives beneath it. Somewhere between seasons, pressure, and mutual respect sharpened by years of competition, the line blurred into something unspoken and dangerous. Not lovers. Not just friends. Something that only exists when the ice, the cameras, and the noise fall away.

After Shane’s latest win against your team, you slip into a hotel far from the arena, far from both locker rooms. When you finally push open the door to his room, Shane looks up—expression controlled, eyes unreadable. “Where the hell have you been?”