STUBBORN PUCKBOY

Puckboys – Book Nine

by Eden Finley & Saxon James

Cover & Excerpt Reveal

Release Date: July 31, 2025

Cover Design:






Story Styling Cover Designs



Photographer:



Wander Aguiar Photography

Model: Gael

Genre: M/M Sports Romance Standalone

Trope: Friends to enemies to lovers, Coach x Player, secret relationship, collective shenanigans

Synopsis

Colby

Once upon a time, playing for the NHL was my dream. Then Radimir Novicov skated circles around me and made it clear I’d never be good enough. He was smart, talented, and worst of all–sexy. Every closeted guy knows that you don’t hit on your teammate, even if his gaze lingers longer than it should.

All it took was one drunken close call before our friendship was in tatters, he was called up to the NHL, and I was sent for further conditioning.

Playing in the NHL was off the table, so coaching became my new dream.

And seventeen years later, I’m finally heading to the big time.

Video coach. Pro level. The only downside?

It’s for Novi’s team.

Novi

Radimir Novicov is not scared of anything. I am one of the best. Future Hall of Famer. There are two years left on my contract and I will end my career on the highest high anyone did see.

Then I will slink into the shadows where no one will hear of me again.

Because while I’m playing professionally, I cannot come out and be myself. Not with my family still in Russia.

The plan has been set since I first moved to America, and I only have two years left to wait. It should be easy to focus on hockey.

Then Colby Kessinger walks back into my life. The teammate with the lopsided smiles and cocky attitude–the one who made my heart want things it can’t have.

Now two years feels like a lifetime.

Excerpt

I heard a rumor during last year’s Stanley Cup game that I haven’t been able to shake all summer. I’ve done my best to stay offline and ignore it, but even when I got weak and looked up hockey news, there wasn’t anything there.

Probably a good thing.

I shove my gear bag in my cubby right as a text goes off. One glance at the screen, and I reluctantly open the message, knowing it’s going to be peak Ezra.

Pala-SOOK:

Happy “lose every game to Boston” season, bestie!

I refuse to smile. Or be amused. Ezra Palaszczuk decided we were best friends the moment we officially met off the ice. I’ll never admit it out loud to anyone, but I’ve always been in awe of him—and borderline resentful. He gets to have everything I’ve ever wanted. So while being friends with Ezra is something I want, I’m also careful not to get too close. Being linked with his Queer Collective isn’t something I can risk, but I didn’t know how badly I needed that connection until I had it. Ignoring a large and important part of myself has worn on me.

The locker room is empty, so I switch on voice to text and reply.

“You are embarrassing yourself.”

Pala-SOOK:

Nothing new there.

This time, my lips twitch, but I tuck my phone in my pocket without replying. Even with the messages as a distraction, I can’t shake that lump building in my gut, and I remind myself that nothing is confirmed yet. And if the worst happens, he’s the one who should be nervous. Not me. I’ve played with LA for seven years now. This is my home.

Colby Kessinger cannot take that from me.

Ah, I hope. He had me under his spell once, but I was young and reckless then. I’m much smarter and better prepared to handle him if it comes to that.

I stuff my hands into the pockets of my sweatpants and head up the hall to the video room. We’re meeting our coaches this morning since Trent Beller retired last year, and there have been staffing changes in the hopes of a better season. I’ve won two Stanley Cups, but none since moving to LA, and at thirty-eight, I’m running out of chances to get my name on there again. I’ve given myself two more years of hockey before I hang up my skates and get to live the life I’ve kept secret for so long.

Out of the spotlight, I’ll be able to finally have a relationship, and while giving up hockey isn’t something that will be easy, knowing I will have that freedom helps.

Not many get to play as long as me, and I’m grateful to have this career and my life in the States. By the time I retire, I will have lived here as long as I lived in Russia, but I think I’ll always miss my country. The nostalgia of home. The pretty buildings and familiar language. Novy God. Sometimes the sadness falls on me that I can never go back, but it doesn’t last long. Russia, the people, my family, they’re all things I love. The law is not. The government is a joke. But not a funny one.

Russia keeps going backward.

Most of my team is waiting, and I can already guess the topics of conversation. Vacations, babies, proposals, and weddings. These are things we do in the off-season.

More specifically, things they do.

My off-season was spent attending other people’s weddings, fielding messages from Ezra, and visiting glory holes. What a life.