Cleat Cute

Grace Henderson has spent a decade anchoring the US Women's National Team. An injury pulls her off the roster just as twenty-two-year-old Phoebe Matthews steps into her spot. Phoebe plays with an ease and warmth Grace lost years ago, and the two size each other up as rivals before they speak as anything else.

Off the field, that tension turns physical. Grace makes the first move. What starts as a fling neither of them names gets harder to keep casual while Grace fights her way back from injury and the World Cup gets closer. A miscommunication leaves them reading the same relationship two different ways.

On the pitch, though, they play better as teammates than as competitors, closing the distance between them one match at a time. Both have to weigh what matters more: each other, or the one open roster spot.

Cleat Cute is a rivals-to-lovers romance set inside professional soccer, pitched as a funny, steamy read for anyone who liked Ted Lasso or A League of Their Own.