Heartbeats On Ice

Avery Clark needs a full scholarship, and the way to get one is to take the unpaid job nobody else wants: team manager for the Laurent hockey squad. The locker room she walks into runs on rivalry and noise, and four of the players make her life difficult in four different ways. Declan Hayes swings between silence and temper. Finn Sinclair is gentle with her and awkward about it. Wyatt Reed treats everything as a joke, including her. Brody Evans wants to know where she is at all times. Avery keeps the schedules, handles the equipment and argues with all of them, and the arguing gradually turns into something none of them will name out loud. The pressure comes to a point at Christmas, when three of the four ask her to dinner on the same evening and she has to give an answer to each of them.