Breakaway by Chris Savage

His hands shake after every fight. The only person who makes them stop is the one person he can’t let in.

Wes Chen is the Atlanta Reapers’ enforcer. He hits, he bleeds, he sits in the penalty box while the crowd chants his name. Then he goes home alone and bakes bread at 2 AM because kneading dough is the only thing that stops his hands from shaking.
Nobody knows about the bread. Nobody knows about the shaking. Nobody knows that the man the league calls a weapon is quietly falling apart.
Then Luca Moretti shows up. New equipment manager. Italian grandmother’s biscotti in one hand, unsolicited kindness in the other. He’s warm where Wes is cold, loud where Wes is silent, and completely unbothered by the fact that Wes has responded to every attempt at friendship with what the team calls his “murder face.”

Luca doesn’t care about the murder face. Luca sees what’s behind it.
When an injury forces Wes into Luca’s care every morning, the distance between them starts to collapse. Gentle hands on bruised ribs. Tea delivered without being asked. A sticky note that says “For Grumpy” with a smiley face. And a slow, terrifying realization that the feelings Wes is developing for this man don’t fit any category he’s ever built for himself.

Wes has never wanted a man before. He’s never wanted anyone like this. And the thing about breaking away from everything you thought you were is that you can’t go back to who you were before.

Breakaway is a grumpy/sunshine MM hockey romance with a bi-awakening that will wreck you, an enforcer who bakes his feelings, an equipment manager who fights with biscotti, and an HEA worth every bruise. Second in the Power Play series. Can be read as a standalone. Dual POV. No cliffhanger.

Tropes: grumpy/sunshine, bi-awakening, hurt-comfort, forced proximity (injury), touch starved, found family, he falls first.