I didn’t mean to roast Gio Montagalo, goalie and crown jewel of The Houston Baddies hockey team. Honestly, I was screaming at the TV in a sports bar like any self-respecting sports junkie does when their team is on a losing streak! So when his twin sister sidles up on the stool beside me, laughing at my commentary, I figured I’d made a fan, too. What I didn’t expect? For her brother—the guy I called “a flashy ice peacock with the reflexes of a sloth”—to hear about it.
Yikes. What were the odds?!
Next thing I know, Gio is in my DMs with a challenge: “Hold up a sassy sign at my game and hit me with your best shot. Roast me in front of everyone.” For him, it’s fun. For me, it’s humiliating. But I did it. Glitter included. And because the universe thrives on chaos, the Baddies won.
Now Gio thinks I’m his good luck charm, begging me to show up with more signs. He also wants to see me—off the ice.
What does a hot, hockey hunk want with a bookish girlie like me?
I try to keep my distance. Mostly.
Soon, Gio is showing up at my job for swoony kisses and trying to charm my dog—also named Gio—and failing because my dog hates him at first sight. I wonder if this whole “lucky charm” thing has less to do with hockey and more to do with the overwhelming, undeniable pull I feel toward him. Or maybe it’s fate’s way of showing me that sometimes, the guy you roast on national TV can be the one you accidentally fall for.
Austin is a die-hard hockey fan so when her favorite team is on a downslide, she can’t contain her angry rant about their goalie and how much he currently stinks. She takes her hockey very seriously and is always happy to discuss it, so she’s happy to tell the world how she feels over drinks at the neighborhood bar. Except she doesn’t realize that this casual conversation with a stranger will get back to the goalie since Austin was unwittingly telling the guy’s twin sister just how much he sucks right now. Gio isn’t insulted when he hears about the angry fan. In fact, he knows he sucks right now and is desperate to pull himself out of this slump, so that kind of harsh truth is just what he needs.
He tracks down the angry fan and challenges her to take her message to the next home game and shove it in the goalie’s face in glittery letters from some of the best seats in the house. Austin agrees because they are REALLY good seats, so thank you very much, hot stranger. It’s not until she’s at the game, waving her sign for the world to see, that she finally realizes her hot stranger from the bar is Gio Montagalo, the Baddies’ goalie himself. He’s on fire that night, so the superstitious athlete declares Austin his good luck charm. He wants her at every game with her signs to keep him motivated, but that’s not all he wants.
This is a laugh-out-loud funny story with great characters and I could not put it down. Austin and Gio were everything I wanted and they drew me in from the first page. Their story is funny and sweet with some great slow-burn spice and I loved everything about it. This is only my second book by the author, but she’s quickly becoming a favorite because a good rom-com is not easy to find. The secondary characters were great too and I can’t wait for Nova’s story. I’d like to thank the author and The Author Agency for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
