Thin Ice

HIS FATHER HAS A PLAN. IT DOESN'T INCLUDE LIAM.

Christmas break. Brackett Lake. A Friday dinner that changes everything.

Alex
My father knows. About Liam, about the semester, about all of it. He sat me down with a folder and a plan for my withdrawal from the joint program, a curated path back to the life he chose for me, and a deadline.

If I sign, I stay a Harrington. The trust, the tuition, the name. Everything stays.

If I don't, he'll pull funding that doesn't just hurt me. Scholarship athletes. The boathouse. Kids who had nothing to do with any of this.

He's not asking me to choose between Liam and the money. He's asking me to choose between Liam and everyone else.

Liam
Alex is going to his family's lake house for the Friday dinner and I can feel it in my chest. The way he kissed me before he left. The way he said "I'll be fine" without looking at me.

Thomas Harrington has the money, the name, and twenty years of practice bending his son into shape.

I've got an eighty-dollar-a-day job at a marina and I'm not enough to compete with that. I know it. I've always known it.

All I can do is leave the door open and hope he walks through it.

A frozen lake. A word neither of them can say. And a choice that will change both of their lives forever.

· Hurt/comfort
· Holiday romance
· One bed
· Coming out to family
· Blue collar / white collar
· Found family
· First "I love you"
· Open door

The Varsity Heat Crew is a bingeable MM college sports one couple, one obsession, a complete emotional arc every book. For readers of Rachel Reid, Eden Finley, and Elle Kennedy who want the yearning to actually pay off.

One-click to find out what Alex chooses when the name and the boy can't coexist.