Icebound

Rhode Tremblay is thirty-three, plays in the NHL, and has a reputation to match. He also has one firm rule: he does not date anyone under thirty. Nina Alstyne is twenty-two and in the last stretch of an art degree. After a relationship that expected her to vanish into it, she has stopped reshaping herself around other people's plans.

An accident puts the two in each other's path, and a pretend situationship begins. Rhode goes into it believing Nina is a thirty-year-old doctor, a mistake that leaves his age rule intact on paper while she keeps quiet about the truth.

As the arrangement deepens, the lie gets harder to hold. Rhode has his rule to defend and Nina has her promise to stay guarded, and each has to decide whether those walls are worth the cost once the truth threatens to come out.

This is a fake-dating, age-gap hockey romance, and the first book in the Boundless Players series. The tone leans on banter, and the love scenes are open-door. It also takes a grounded look at anxiety and self-image, which gives the lighter, flirtatious setup some weight. The story follows the pair from a staged relationship toward a feeling neither of them planned on.