Month: February 2023

Isaac gathered the cards at the center of the table. “So, you and me, and Karlsson and Sidorov—Sido?”


I’d never seen Elias roll his eyes quite so hard. “It’s Elias, or Karly.”


Isaac’s sheepish grin was lovely. “Okay.”


Nikki leveled another glare at me before shifting his attention to Isaac. “You can call me Nisha here.” He gestured to the four of us.

So, one thing about hockey is that everyone pretty much has a nickname. Take the Penguins. Evgeni Malkin is Geno or G. Kris Letang is Tanger (though his glove says Legend and yes there’s a story behind that). Sidney Crosby is.. well, he’s Sid. Marcus Petterson has been Dragon, but is now Petey (as are all Petterssons, it seems) and that caused some confusion when Jeff Petry joined the team, because he was also Petey, but is now JP. Anyway… nicknames.

So, yes, the boys on the Griffins have nicknames, too. Some, like Nisha, have more than one. Names are important, and a sign of the closeness of a relationship, or the formality of a situation. You’ll see some of this come out in Scoreless Game.

Without further ado, here are the main ones mentioned in the Rookie Mistake (will update sometime after Scoreless Game comes out, since adding those might constitute spoilers):

Name	Nickname
Elias Karlsson	Karly
Nikolai Sidorov	Sido, Nisha, Nikki
Julien Landry	Lans, Jules, King
Isaac Rivera	Rivs
Brock Paxton	Paxy
David Larfield	Larry
Jack Davidson	Davy
Valdis Ozols	Ozzy

Once upon a time, LA Witt and I got an idea for a hockey romance. That was Rookie Mistake. Halfway through writing that book, we knew Julien and Isaac’s teammates, Elias and Nisha, were going to have a book of their own. Scoreless game is that book.

We knew their romance wouldn’t be easy, and boy, it was not. They love each other so much, but are completely oblivious to the other’s adoration. There are reasons for this, of course. The book is also an exploration of how the events of Rookie Mistake and the very large shift in the status quo of their lives culminates in all that’s been hidden bubbling up to the surface. As the book opens, their friendship is teetering on the edge of annihilation. And they fall over that.

But their love… well their love for each other is what saves them. We promise.

It will be release on March 1, which at the time of this writing, is a scant two day away (though the physical forms of the book are available now).

Blurb

At nearly thirty-one years old, Pittsburgh Griffins captain Elias Karlsson’s hockey years are numbered. Everything is changing around him, including his eleven-year friendship with Nikolai Sidorov. Elias would give anything for Nisha to be a permanent part of his life, but their once bedrock-strong bond has broken into a million pieces, and Elias doesn’t know why. More than anything, Elias wants his friend back, but if that isn’t an option, maybe it’s time for him to look outside of hockey for someone to be there with him when hockey isn’t an option anymore.

Nisha’s world is splintering apart. He’s been in love with his two best friends for years, but now one of them has someone. The other, Elias, is searching for everything Nisha wishes he could give him… but he’s looking for it in anyone but Nisha. The farther his friends slip away, the deeper the loneliness sinks in and the bleaker his empty future looks. What can he do but numb the pain in the only ways he knows how?

On the eve of the season opener, Nisha’s unexplained absence threatens the cohesion of the team and puts him and Elias on a collision course of strong wills, broken hearts, and shattered trust. In the end, they may lose the very thing that matters most to them both: each other.

Scoreless Game is approximately 180,000 words, including a bonus short story. This asexual-pansexual romance is book 2 in the On the Board series.

CW: on-page struggles with alcoholism and binge-drinking, suicidal ideation, toxic family dynamics, acephobia

Buy Link: Amazon