The Rest of the Story by Tal Bauer



Playing hockey and one-night stands make up Morgan's life, but when his new team needs him to step up and lead, he will give them his 365 days on his contract and then move on. But he doesn't expect a gorgeous rookie Harvard graduate to easily slip into his life and his heart as they work together to rebuild a team that slowly becomes a family.

From the blurb for The Rest of the Story:

Let me earn it.

I keep things simple. I’m a classic one-night wonder. Relationships? Are you out of your mind? No. No way. Not interested. My heart is vulcanized rubber, puck hard, and that’s the way I like it.

Then I'm traded to the absolute worst team in the NHL, the Rocky Mountain Outlaws, and I’m hit with a one-two punch.

First: I’m asked to step up and lead the team, which is every kind of bad idea you can imagine. I'm a head-down, mind-my-business kind of guy. Mr. Uninvolved, Mr. No, Not Me, Mr. Find Someone Else. But these players have been through a mess of hell, and someone thinks I can help pull them together.

The Outlaws are made up of jaded veterans and wide-eyed rookies, and we have no business whatsoever succeeding. We are scrappy and plucky and built out of spit and duct-tape… and whatever we’re doing, it’s working.

Second: The first day I’m in Boulder, I go over the boards and come face-to-face with a pair of blue eyes and lose my heart. Boy, howdy: meet my new co-captain, Shea Darling.

He’s way, way off-limits. It's a stratospherically terrible idea to want or crave him. This crush, this infatuation, is going nowhere fast.

Yeah, right. I’m gone for Shea. I’m head over heels, and I’m all tangled up in something I can’t understand or control. This isn’t me. I don’t fall in love. And there’s nothing simple about Shea, or about the Outlaws. This team is finally putting up the wins, and we are making something of ourselves. Falling for my co-captain while we’re on a Cinderella run could jeopardize everything we’re striving for.

But then there’s this one night.
And this one kiss.
And everything changes.

Eighty-two games in a season.
Twenty men hungry for redemption.
One co-captain who could be my forever.

This is the rest of the story.

*****

The Rest of the Story is a friends-to-lovers, hockey players/teammates MM romance, and includes themes of survivorship.

The Rest of the Story is set in the same universe as Gravity, but each novel can be read independently. You do not need to read Gravity first to enjoy The Rest of the Story. 




SNik's Review:

Standalone (but this is set in the same hockey universe as Gravity). Found family. Slow burn. Single POV. 

Morgan skates through life, literally. As a professional hockey player, he’s made a point to never get too attached to a team or a relationship. When Morgan gets swept up into leading his new team, he certainly doesn’t expect the overwhelming attraction to his Harvard educated teammate Shea or how easy their friendship and working together becomes. 

Whether Morgan believes it or not he is a natural leader and he starts to care about the men on his team, so the story of gathering a group of teammates together to become a family and a winning sports team is inspiring and hopeful and fun. 

For Morgan, Shea is someone that fills all his empty spaces, makes things brighter, happier, and he finds he would do anything to keep Shea in his orbit, make him happy and bring all his dreams true. 

This is a long book, but the continuous heart string tugs kept me invested. Morgan doesn’t feel he deserves Shea or the team’s faith, but he works hard and invests all of himself to be the man he hopes he can be for Shea and the team. 

The rest of the story includes romance, a horrible adversary, binding friendships, supportive friends and family, commitment, loyalty, healing and, of course, falling in love. 

As expected, Tal Bauer brings all the feels and delivers a beautiful romance.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

The Rest of the Story is available to buy as an ebook or to read with Kindle Unlimited subscription.

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