Breaking the Crease

Third string means you practice, you dress, and you watch. Priya Raman was fine with that. Then both starting goalies go down in the same period, and the net is hers for six weeks she didn't ask for. Dex Whitmore, the team's leading scorer, decides she's his project. He shows up at 5 a.m. to shoot pucks at her head. He refuses to celebrate his own goals until she stops one. He drives her to appointments she didn't tell anyone she was keeping. She doesn't want a coach. She doesn't want a boyfriend. She wants the crease. But the season doesn't care what she wants, and neither, apparently, does Dex. A college sports romance about the loneliest position on the ice — and the one person who wouldn't leave her alone in it.