Under the Lights Series by Brooke Sterling

She built a life without him. He came home and complicated everything. Eight years ago, Easton Cross left Millview, Georgia - and June Parker - without a real goodbye. He became an NFL quarterback. She became the woman who didn't need him anymore. Now Easton is back... moreShe built a life without him. He came home and complicated everything. Eight years ago, Easton Cross left Millview, Georgia - and June Parker - without a real goodbye. He became an NFL quarterback. She became the woman who didn't need him anymore. Now Easton is back. A career-threatening shoulder injury has sent him home to the small town he outgrew, where his mother leaves the porch light on and his father still drives the same truck and the girl he left behind has become a woman who runs the community development center with a clipboard in one hand and a boundary in the other. June doesn't want Easton's apology. She doesn't want his charm, his fame, or the way his presence makes the whole town hum with second-chance speculation. What she wants is to do her job - and right now, her job includes launching a youth football program that the town's injured golden boy is uniquely qualified to coach. Working together was supposed to be professional. Falling again wasn't part of the plan. As Easton coaches sixteen kids on a patchy field with a donated scoreboard, he discovers that the life he left behind might be the life he was always meant to live. And June discovers that the man who broke her trust at twenty might finally be learning - at twenty-eight - what honesty actually costs. But Easton is hiding something. A secret about his shoulder, his career, and the future he's too afraid to face. And when June finds the truth he's been concealing, it doesn't just threaten their relationship - it threatens the foundation of everything they've built together. Second-Chance Season is a dual-POV contemporary romance about two people who loved each other badly the first time and are trying to love each other better the second. It's about small towns and big secrets. Youth football and adult accountability. The difference between leaving and choosing to stay. And the radical, terrifying act of trusting someone who's already proven they can break your heart. Perfect for readers who love:. 🏈 Second-chance romance with real emotional stakes. 💔 Dual POV - his guilt, her guarded heart. 🏡 Small-town settings with a full cast of characters. 🔥 Slow-burn chemistry with open-door intimacy. 🏟️ Sports romance (NFL + youth football). 💪 Heroines who lead with strength, not spite. 📋 A clipboard as a love language. Second-Chance Season is Book 1 in the Under the Lights series. It features a complete, standalone love story with a guaranteed happily ever after, open-door intimate scenes, and a gray cat named Gerald who is the moral center of the entire novel. less

She built something worth protecting. He came back to prove he could stay. The question is whether trust can survive what neither of them planned for. Mara Nguyen has spent two years fighting for the Clearwater Sports Complex's community programming wing, the room that will put two hundred kids on the ice who couldn't get there otherwise. What she doesn't need is a former NHL player with a checkbook and an exit strategy showing up as her investor six months before opening... moreShe built something worth protecting. He came back to prove he could stay. The question is whether trust can survive what neither of them planned for. Mara Nguyen has spent two years fighting for the Clearwater Sports Complex's community programming wing, the room that will put two hundred kids on the ice who couldn't get there otherwise. What she doesn't need is a former NHL player with a checkbook and an exit strategy showing up as her investor six months before opening. Cole Bennett came back to Clearwater for one his teenage niece needs somewhere to land. He wasn't planning to stay past the paperwork. He wasn't planning on a project manager who runs toward hard problems. He wasn't planning on any of this. But the project is real, the town is starting to feel like something, and Mara Nguyen is the most specific person he's ever met. Staying is beginning to look less like a temporary inconvenience and more like the only thing that makes sense. When past legal complications surface and community scrutiny threatens everything they've built, they'll have to decide what they're actually building, and whether they trust each other enough to build it together. Home Game is a slow-burn small-town sports romance about the patient, imperfect work of choosing someone. It features a single mother who keeps meticulous documentation, a former hockey player learning what staying actually costs, a sixteen-year-old who is wiser than both of them, and two wooden foxes named Gerald and Frances. This is Book Two in the Under the Lights series. It can be read as a standalone but is best enjoyed after Book One, Second-Chance Season. less