Icing (Power Play #1)

He's the last person I should want. He's the only person I do.

Cole Briggs was Chicago's golden boy—until he came out and they traded him to a team that doesn't exist yet. Now he's the face of the Atlanta Reapers, an NHL expansion franchise built from castoffs and second chances. He's ready to prove Chicago wrong. He's ready to lead. He is absolutely, categorically not ready for Mikhail Volkov.

Mik is six-foot-three of cold Russian granite with a scar through his eyebrow and the emotional range of a parking meter. He doesn't talk. He doesn't smile. He hip-checked Cole into the boards two years ago and never even apologized. And now, thanks to the world's worst housing coordinator, they're sharing a hotel room for training camp.

One room. One bed. One Russian who won't stop being shirtless.

Cole can't stand him. Mik won't look at him. The tension between them could melt the ice they play on. And when a road trip, a snowstorm, and a single hotel room conspire to put them exactly where neither of them wants to be—close enough to stop pretending—the thing they've been fighting turns out to be the thing they can't live without.

But Mik has spent his entire life in the closet, and Cole has spent his entire career being the NHL's most visible out player. Going public means risking Mik's family, his career, and everything he's built behind his mask. Staying secret means asking Cole to go back into the dark he fought so hard to leave.

The ice doesn't care who you love. The world does.

Icing is an enemies-to-lovers MM hockey romance with scorching heat, a grumpy Russian defenseman, a golden boy with a chip on his shoulder, and an HEA that'll make you ugly-cry on public transit. First in the Power Play series. Dual POV. No cliffhanger. KU enrolled.

Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, only one bed, forced proximity, secret relationship, coming out, he falls first, bi MC/gay MC