seriously romantic: tough guy by rachel reid

it's no secret that i adore the game changers series. i have re-read heated rivalry over 9 times since it's release last year. and i released in march. so we're talking me re-reading basically once a month. i'm about due for another re-read to be honest.

ryan price had a short, but memorable appearance in heated rivalry. and in tough guy we see the man behind the mask. by all appearances, ryan is an actual tough guy. he's big and burly. he's an nhl defenseman whose primary job is to fight the other team's fight guy. ryan is those things, but he's also deeply anxious. insecure. socially awkward. and kind of into femme guys.

when he re-encounters fabian salah, it's an actual blast from the past. he stayed with fabian's hockey-mad family while at a training camp. and fabian happens to be kind of a femme guy.

unlike the rest of his family, fabian also kind of hates hockey. he didn't hate ryan though, remembering him as one of the few non-jerky hockey bros to have stayed with his parents. and remembering the crush he had on ryan. one that he at one moment wondered might be reciprocated.

spoiler alert: it was totally reciprocated.

but ryan has issues. deep-seated psychological issues that make relationships difficult and change difficult. and fabian has to work really hard to see beyond the hockey thing because he really hates the hockey thing. he hates that ryan fights. even though ryan has never been anything but gentle with him. he can't reconcile the sweet awkward man he loves with the ruthless enforcer on the ice.

they might need the help of some friends to figure this problem out. good thing ilya rozanov doesn't mind sticking his nose in other people's business.

**tough guy will publish on january 13, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/carina press in exchange for my honest review.