Minor league goalie. Tai chi instructor. One fake relationship. The lies were never the problem—the truth was.
Goalie Brennan Keane joined the Baton Rouge Rougarous with two things: a rebuilt hip and a career that owes him nothing. He manages his life the way he manages his furnished apartment—all warmth and noise, nothing owned, ready to leave when higher league hockey finally calls.
The hip is not fine. He says it is. He's been saying it ever since his agent marketed him to the bottom rung FPHL hockey team.
What he's not supposed to be doing is thinking about the tai chi instructor who put two fingers on that hip in the first class and knew.
Tai chi instructor Jonah Holloway raised his son alone in Baton Rouge and made a stable life out of what the city offered. Private. Rooted. He handles what a body hides the way he handles everything: by seeing it exactly, and refusing to let anyone practice the lie better.
He is not supposed to be keeping track of the goalie in his early morning class.
He is keeping track.
When the strip mall owner wants Jonah as an arm ornament and threatens the studio Jonah's mentor built if she doesn't get him, Jonah's teenage son does the only logical thing: he lies and says his father is already with someone.
Who?
Brennan steps forward clean as a cut. "It's me. He's with me."
What else can a scorned woman with social graces do, but graciously accept, and watch for the truth to come out so she can take her revenge over being rejected.
The fake dating performance field? Sponsor dinners. Civic events. Every function where she might be watching.
What the fake relationship doesn't cover: Brennan's hip is healing. The healthier he gets, the closer he gets to the next rung up the hockey league ladder. The next rung is not Baton Rouge.
Goalie Fake Out is a slow-burn steamy fade-to-black standalone MM hockey romance set in a sports-mad Louisiana city. Full of favorite tropes, including fake relationship, single dad, workplace romance, hurt / comfort, found family, body-awareness chemistry, career-vs-home tension, and a hard-won happily ever after.
This story is an interconnected standalone in the MM Rougarous Hockey subseries which is part of the Bayou Boys world.
The stories in this subseries can be read in any order.
