Bench Press: A Small Town Hockey Romance (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798180953896)

POPPY HALE has been arriving in new towns her whole life. She's gotten very good at it - at learning the coffee orders, finding the warm center, building herself in one careful thing at a time. Wren Lake, Minnesota is different. Eight months in, she's still looking at the lake every morning. That, she's decided, is a good sign.

NATE CALLOWAY didn't plan to come home. But his shoulder made the decision his stubbornness wouldn't, and now he's back in the town he grew up in, coaching fifteen kids toward a tournament he didn't agree to care about, living in the house his father keeps running out of reasons for him to leave. He has a five-point plan. The plan is mostly about Ellie.

Ellie is seven. She has her grandfather's eyes, her father's stubbornness, and an extremely thorough opinion about chocolate chips. She has also decided, within approximately forty-eight hours of Poppy's banana bread, that the woman in the garage apartment is her favorite.

Nate is less certain. He is certain about: defensive zone coverage, the roster that needed rebuilding, the scoreboard that needed fixing, and the very specific look Ellie gets when she has filed something under permanent. He is trying not to think about: seventeen minutes, a frozen lake at midnight, and the way Poppy Hale receives information without performing a response to it.

He calls it a liability. She calls it practicing staying. Ellie calls it dumb, Dad, with the calm of someone who has already worked out the ending.

She's probably right.

BENCH PRESS is a slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, single dad small town hockey romance - complete with a retired defenseman who communicates in two-sentence corrections, a sunshine heroine who keeps a notebook about everything, a seven-year-old who steals every scene she's in, and one very ill-fated visit from a golden retriever named Zamboni.

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry, Devney Perry, and Penny Reid. Closed-door romance. Part of the Wren Lake Wolves series.