Empty Net: A Cold Harbor Novel (Small Town Hockey Romance: The Cold Harbor #3)
Finn Archer
The team's openly gay goalie has been in love with his straight best friend for three years. Moving in together to co-parent was supposed to fix everything. Instead, it's breaking his heart.
Dmitri Sokolov is superstitious, warm, and hopelessly in love with the one man he can't have. Dr. Gray Miller — the team physician, his best friend, and a straight divorced dad struggling to raise his deaf daughter alone. When Gray's ex threatens a custody battle, Dmitri doesn't hesitate: "Move in with me. I'll help you prove stability." It's practical. It's selfless. It's torture.
Because playing house with Gray means pancakes and bedtime stories, domestic intimacy that blurs every line Dmitri's been holding. Gray's hand lingering on his shoulder. The way Gray watches him sign with Rosie. The mornings that feel too much like a family Dmitri will never really have. He's been in the friend zone for years — he can survive this. Except he can't. Not when every day with Gray and Rosie feels like the life he's been aching for.
Gray thought he had it all figured out. Straight. Divorced. Focused on being a good father. But living with Dmitri is rewriting everything he thought he knew. The warmth he feels isn't brotherly. The jealousy when Dmitri goes on a date isn't protectiveness. And the way his heart races when Dmitri smiles at him? That's not friendship. That's a bi-awakeninghe never saw coming — and it's terrifying. Because risking this could destroy the family they've built. Or it could be everything they've both been waiting for.
Best friends to lovers. Bi-awakening. Pining (years of it). Fake co-parenting that becomes real. Single dad romance. Explicit M/M hockey romance with a deaf child at the heart of it all.
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