Paint & Penalties (Rochester Copperheads #1)

an alternate cover and title edition can be found here

He was supposed to be the NHL’s next superstar. Now Walker Hannan is one penalty, one bad decision, and one final chance away from losing everything.

Banished to the minors after becoming the kind of player coaches warn rookies about, Walker’s only focus is clawing his way back to the NHL before his career crashes for good. Then Finn Carter—an annoyingly optimistic art teacher with paint-stained hands and zero interest in Walker’s reputation—walks into his life and turns everything upside down.

What starts as an impossible attraction turns into something neither of them expected: late nights, stolen kisses, found family, and the terrifying possibility of something real.

But just when Walker starts wanting more than hockey, the NHL comes calling with the second chance he’s been waiting for.

Now he has to decide what matters more—the career he’s fought for his entire life, or the man teaching him there’s life beyond the ice.

Paint and Penalties is a grumpy/sunshine, opposites-attract MM hockey romance packed with emotional hurt/comfort, found family, redemption, chemistry, and a hard-won HEA.

*****

Content warning: This story has references to substance abuse, self-harm, childhood violence, a school shooting, off-page physical child abuse, and mental health concerns.

author's note: If you read it as Rough Draft, this is the same story — new cover, new title as Book 1 in the Rochester Copperheads series — but I've added 6,000 words of new scenes since the original release. So even if you've read it before, there's new content waiting for you. And if you haven't read it yet, now is the perfect time.