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It’s an office romance on the ice rink in this heart melting story about love’s power not in spite of difference but because of it. Ren has known Frankie Zeferino was a woman worth waiting for since the moment they met. She’s a master of deadpan delivery, has a secret heart of gold, and a rare one-dimpled smile that makes his knees go weak. But as long as Frankie’s the team’s social media manager, she’s off limits. Frankie is a self-admittedly blunt, grumbly grump, but even she isn’t immune to sunshiney Ren Bergman. Who could be, when he’s a six-foot-three hunk of happy with a hockey player’s physique? Maybe in the past, Frankie would have gone for a guy like him, but since being burned too many times by people who learn about her diagnoses and see a problem, not a person, she’s wised up. After waiting years for the right time to make his move, Ren learns Frankie plans to leave the team to pursue a new career. But what he didn’t anticipate is how hard he’ll have to work to convince her to let him have his shot at winning her heart.
It’s an office romance on the ice rink in this heart melting story about love’s power not in spite of difference but because of it. Ren has known Frankie Zeferino was a woman worth waiting for since the moment they met. She’s a master of deadpan delivery, has a secret heart of gold, and a rare one-dimpled smile that makes his knees go weak. But as long as Frankie’s the team’s social media manager, she’s off limits. Frankie is a self-admittedly blunt, grumbly grump, but even she isn’t immune to sunshiney Ren Bergman. Who could be, when he’s a six-foot-three hunk of happy with a hockey player’s physique? Maybe in the past, Frankie would have gone for a guy like him, but since being burned too many times by people who learn about her diagnoses and see a problem, not a person, she’s wised up. After waiting years for the right time to make his move, Ren learns Frankie plans to leave the team to pursue a new career. But what he didn’t anticipate is how hard he’ll have to work to convince her to let him have his shot at winning her heart.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Excerpts-
From the cover
One
Frankie
Playlist: "Better By Myself," Hey Violet
Ren Bergman is too damn happy.
In the three years I've known him, I've seen him not smiling twice. Once, when he was unconscious on the ice, so I hardly think that counts, and the other time, when an extreme fan shoved her way through a crowd, yelling that she'd had his face tattooed on her lady bits because, and I quote, "a girl can dream."
But for those two uncharacteristically grim moments, Ren has been nothing but a ray of sunshine since the moment I met him. And whereas I myself am a little storm cloud, I recognize that Ren's Santa-on-uppers capacity for kindness makes my job easy.
As in-game social media coordinator for the Los Angeles Kings, I have my work cut out for me. Hockey players, you may have heard, are not always the most well-behaved humans. It inflates the ego, getting paid millions of dollars to play a game they love while tapping into their inner toddler. Hit. Smash. Shove.
With fortune comes fame and fawning females at their fingertips-those don't help matters, either. Yes, I'm aware that's a lot of f words. So, sue me, I like alliteration.
While the PR department has the delightful privilege of putting out public-image fires, I do the day-to-day groundwork of cultivating our team's social media presence. Glued to the team, iPhone in hand, I make the guys accessible to fans by implementing PR-sanctioned hype-informal interviews, jokes, tame pranks, photo ops, gifs, even the occasional viral meme.
I also document informal charitable outings geared toward our most underrepresented fans.
It's not in my exact job description, but I'm a big believer in breaking down stigma around differences we tend to ostracize, so I wormed my way into the process. I don't just want to make our hockey team more accessible to its fans; I want us to be a team that leads its fans in advancing accessibility itself.
That makes me sound sweet, doesn't it? But the truth is nobody on the team would call me that. In fact, my reputation is quite the opposite: Frank the Crank. And while this bad rap is formed on partial truths and ample misunderstandings, I've taken the moniker and run with it. In the end, it makes everyone's lives easier.
I do my job with resting bitch face. I'm blunt, all business. I like my routines, I focus on my work, and I sure as shit don't get close with the players. Yes, we get along for the most part. But you have to have boundaries when you're a woman in the near-constant company of two dozen testosterone-soaked male athletes-athletes who know I'm in their corner but who also know Frankie is a thundercloud you don't get too close to, unless you want to get zapped.
Just like rain clouds and sunshine share the sky, Ren and I work well together. Whenever PR has a killer concept and I come up with a social media home run-pardon my mixing sports metaphors-Ren is my man.
Campy skit in the locker room to raise money for the inner-city sports programs? There's Ren and his megawatt smile, delivering lines with effortless charm. Photo shoot for the local animal shelter's fundraiser? Ren's laughing as kitties claw up his massive shoulders and puppies whine for his attention, lapping his chin while he lavishes them with that wide, sunny grin.
Sometimes it's practically stomach turning. I still get queasy when I remember the time Ren sat with a young cancer patient. Turning white as a sheet, given his fear of needles, he told her the world's lamest knock-knock jokes while he donated blood and she had her bloodwork done. So they could be brave together.
Cue the collective female swoon.
I shouldn't...
Reviews-
Starred review from September 14, 2020 Set in the world of professional hockey, this deliciously sweet and sensitively wrought friends-to-lovers romance, the second in Liese’s Bergman Brothers series (after Only When It’s Us), will melt even the iciest of hearts. Burly Los Angeles Kings player Ren Bergman—a nerdy, Shakespeare-loving ray of sunshine—gains some much desired alone time with Francesca “Frankie” Zeferino—the gorgeous and grumpy “little storm cloud” who handles the team’s social media—when he offers her support after a break-in at her apartment. Frankie and Ren have been mutually pining for each other for the three years of their acquaintance, but both have their reasons for caution: Ren only looks like a stud; he’s actually scrupulously careful with both his body and heart. And as a woman in a male-dominated field, Frankie has made it a policy to keep her distance from the team. In addition to the iffy office politics of dating a player, as a person with autism and chronic pain, Frankie’s been repeatedly burned by people who couldn’t understand her needs, leaving her with her defenses up. Liese is herself autistic, and she manages Frankie’s story with grace, specificity, and care. This joyfully sexy, often funny, and wonderfully complex portrait of two very different yet perfectly matched people deserves the broadest possible audience.
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