The Score

The Score Plot Summary

Introduction

# Hearts in Play: A Game of Love, Loss, and Second Chances The night Allie Hayes fled to escape her ex-boyfriend's desperate pleas, she never imagined she'd wake up naked in Dean Di Laurentis's bed. Dean was everything she despised about college hockey players—arrogant, wealthy, and notorious for his revolving door of conquests. But tequila and heartbreak have a way of rewriting the rules, and what began as a desperate rebound collision between Briar University's golden boy and the theater major who usually avoided his type became something neither could walk away from. Their carefully constructed arrangement of no-strings-attached sex was supposed to be simple. Exclusive but temporary. Physical but not emotional. They would scratch this particular itch until it stopped demanding their attention, then return to their separate worlds. But love has a way of creeping in through the cracks of even the most carefully built walls, disguised as lust and wrapped in denial, until the night when grief shatters everything and forces them to confront what they've been too afraid to name.

Chapter 1: The Rebound Rule: When Escape Leads to Collision

Sean's text messages kept coming like bullets. "Coming over after class. We'll talk." Not a request—a declaration. Allie stared at her phone in the dim dorm light, her stomach churning. After their explosive breakup the night before, she couldn't face another round of his manipulative charm. Hannah's suggestion came like salvation: crash at her boyfriend Garrett's hockey house for the weekend. Safe territory, with roommates as buffers. Allie grabbed her overnight bag and fled, leaving Sean to pound on an empty door. But when she arrived at the off-campus house, she found Dean Di Laurentis in the middle of his Friday night entertainment. Two naked blondes writhed on the living room couch, their hands exploring each other while he watched with predatory satisfaction. The scene should have sent her running. "Bad timing, baby doll," Dean drawled, not bothering to hide his annoyance. His green eyes swept over her bundled form with casual dismissal. "Your girl's already gone." The dismissal stung more than it should have. Allie had always been invisible to guys like Dean—rich, gorgeous, utterly convinced of their own irresistibility. But tonight, raw from heartbreak and tired of being overlooked, she planted herself in his armchair and refused to budge. "I'm staying. Hannah said I could crash here this weekend." Dean's companions melted away with disappointed pouts, leaving him shirtless and scowling. The tension shifted, electric and dangerous. For the first time, Allie felt the full force of his attention—and discovered she liked it more than she should. The terrible French soap opera should have been torture. Instead, Dean found himself captivated by Allie's running commentary, her animated explanations of ridiculous plot twists, the way she unconsciously curled beside him on the couch. When she suggested tequila to make the show bearable, he should have known where the night was heading. But alcohol was just the catalyst. The real intoxication came from watching Allie shed her good-girl facade layer by layer. Her inhibitions dissolved along with her clothes, revealing a sexual appetite that matched his own. She took control with shocking confidence, tying him to his own bed and riding him with an abandon that shattered every assumption he'd made about Hannah's sweet, innocent best friend. Morning brought harsh reality. Allie woke mortified, scrambling to cover herself while Dean lay naked and unrepentant. Her shame radiated from every tense line as she gathered clothes and fled his bedroom like it was a crime scene. "It was just sex," he called after her, but the words felt hollow. Nothing about the night before had been "just" anything.

Chapter 2: Playing by New Rules: Casual Becomes Complicated

For days afterward, Dean couldn't focus on anyone else. His usual parade of willing partners held no appeal. Even guaranteed twin sisters couldn't stir his interest. His body had apparently decided that Allie Hayes was the only woman worth wanting, and no amount of rational thought could convince it otherwise. When he finally cornered her again, she was brittle with defensive energy, insisting their night had been a mistake. But her body betrayed her—the shiver when he got close, the catch in her breath when he whispered dirty promises. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her, even if her mind refused to admit it. The second time they came together, it was with ground rules firmly established. Exclusive but temporary. Physical but not emotional. They would scratch this itch until it stopped demanding attention, then walk away clean. Dean's house became their playground when roommates were absent. Allie discovered she had a taste for adventure that surprised them both—bubble baths that turned into marathon sessions, sex toys that made Dean's eyes roll back, and a willingness to experiment that left them breathless and wanting more. But complications crept in despite careful boundaries. When Logan burst into the bathroom and found Dean lounging in bubbles with a pink dildo nearby, assumptions were made that would haunt Dean for weeks. Allie's panicked dive behind the door to avoid detection only made things worse, leaving Dean to endure endless teasing about his supposed solo adventures. The secrecy chafed at them both differently. Dean found himself wanting to claim her publicly, to make it clear to every guy at Briar that she was off-limits. Allie struggled with the cognitive dissonance of amazing sex coupled with emotional distance. She'd never been good at casual, and Dean was forcing her to learn a language she didn't speak. Their arrangement worked until it didn't. Until Allie started texting him after bad days, seeking comfort instead of just orgasms. Until Dean found himself memorizing her schedule, planning his days around stolen moments. The line between fucking and feeling was blurring, and neither knew how to stop it. Dean's past caught up with him in the form of Frank O'Shea, his new defensive coordinator and father of a girl whose heart he'd allegedly broken in high school. O'Shea's arrival brought punishment disguised as opportunity—forced volunteer work coaching middle school hockey and deliberate sabotage of Dean's position on the team.

Chapter 3: Breaking Point: When Jealousy Reveals the Truth

The night Allie walked into Malone's dressed to kill, Dean's world tilted. The royal blue dress hugged every curve, fuck-me heels made her legs endless, smoky makeup transformed her from cute to devastating. It was a declaration of war, and every man in the bar was ready to enlist. But it was jealousy that undid them both. Allie's fury at seeing Penelope draped over Dean, despite their undefined status. Dean's possessive rage at watching other men devour Allie with their eyes, offering drinks and probably much more. The careful boundaries they'd established crumbled under emotions neither wanted to acknowledge. The alley behind the bar became their battleground and surrender. Dean's accusations were harsh but accurate—Allie had come to stake a claim she had no right to make. Her denials were weak in the face of obvious desire, her body betraying every word. When he pressed her against brick wall and slid his hand between her legs, they both knew the game was over. The sex was desperate and dangerous, fueled by jealousy and the thrill of potential discovery. Dean took her from behind while voices drifted from the street, her cries muffled by his palm as she came apart in his arms. It was reckless and raw and everything their careful arrangement wasn't supposed to be. In the aftermath, as they straightened clothes and tried to pretend their hearts weren't racing from more than physical exertion, truth hung between them like a challenge. They weren't done with each other—might never be done—and all their rules and boundaries were elaborate lies they'd told themselves to feel safe. Sean's return shattered the careful equilibrium they'd constructed. Her ex-boyfriend's desperate attempts to win her back—complete with plane tickets to Los Angeles and promises to abandon his own plans—forced Allie to confront the reality of what she'd lost and found. The coffee shop confrontation was brutal in its finality. Sean laid his heart bare, admitting fears and mistakes, offering to sacrifice his future for hers. But Allie felt nothing except pity and strange relief. The boy she'd loved for three years had become a stranger, and she'd become someone who no longer needed saving. Dean's reaction to learning about the meeting was swift and cutting—complete radio silence that lasted days. His jealousy was a living thing, eating at him as he imagined Allie choosing familiar comfort over the uncertain territory they'd been exploring together.

Chapter 4: Shattered Ice: How Grief Changes Everything

The call came at three in the morning. Beau Maxwell, Dean's best friend and Briar's star quarterback, was dead. A patch of black ice on Route 9, a car that spun out of control, a neck snapped on impact. Twenty-one years old, and gone in an instant. Dean's world imploded. The grief consumed him like a living thing, eating away at everything he'd built. He turned to alcohol first, then pills, anything to numb the pain that threatened to tear him apart. The Dean who'd held Allie through her crisis disappeared, replaced by a stranger who reeked of whiskey and spoke in slurred words. Allie watched helplessly as the man she loved drowned in his sorrow. She tried to reach him, tried to pull him back from the edge, but Dean was lost in a haze of substances and self-destruction. He missed classes, missed practices, missed the moments that mattered most. The night of her play's opening, Dean was supposed to be there. She'd reminded him countless times, had seen the promise in his eyes. But when the curtain fell and she looked into the audience, his seat was empty. She found him at home, high on molly and surrounded by football players, his pupils dilated and his touch wrong in ways that made her skin crawl. "I can't do this anymore," she whispered, and for the first time since Beau's death, Dean's eyes focused on her face. But it was too late. The damage was done, and Allie walked away from the wreckage of what they'd built together. Rock bottom came with a failed drug test and expulsion from the hockey team. Dean stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, taking inventory of what his grief had cost him. A black eye from Garrett, an ex-girlfriend who'd finally had enough, and a career in ruins.

Chapter 5: Rebuilding the Game: Individual Healing and Growth

The path back was paved with apologies and hard truths. Dean faced each person he'd hurt, starting with himself. He apologized to teammates, to Coach Ellis, to the kids at the elementary school where he'd been volunteering before everything fell apart. But the hardest conversation was with Dakota, the ten-year-old girl whose tears over his abandonment cut deeper than any physical pain. "I'm mad at you," she said with the brutal honesty of childhood, and Dean knew he deserved every word. But children forgive more easily than adults, and when he promised to do better, she patted his arm and said, "Stop being such a girl, Dean. I like you again." The conversation with Allie was harder. She forgave him, but forgiveness wasn't enough to bridge the chasm his grief had carved between them. "I need time," she said, and Dean had to respect that, even as it killed him to let her go. He'd failed her when she needed him most, and now he had to prove he could be the man she deserved. Time apart taught them both hard lessons about love and loss, about the difference between needing someone and choosing them. Dean threw himself into rebuilding his life, making amends and discovering new dreams. Teaching called to him in ways law school never had, and he found purpose in working with children who saw potential instead of past mistakes. Allie learned to be alone, to make decisions without a boyfriend's input, to trust her own instincts about her career and her heart. She took the theater role that challenged her instead of the TV pilot that would have paid better. She learned that she was strong enough to stand alone, which made choosing to stand with someone else all the more meaningful. When Dean's father had a health scare, Dean didn't hesitate. He flew to New York to check on the man who'd never quite understood his choices but had always loved him anyway. It was there, in a hospital waiting room, that he realized he'd finally become the person he was meant to be—not perfect, but whole.

Chapter 6: The Final Play: Choosing Love Over Fear

Their reunion was inevitable, two hearts that had found their way back to each other through the wreckage of grief and the wisdom that comes from surviving it. When Allie saw Dean again, she recognized the man she'd fallen in love with—still there, just stronger now, tempered by loss and refined by growth. "I love you," Dean said simply, standing in her New York apartment with flowers that were already wilting and a heart that had learned the difference between wanting and choosing. "Not because I need you, but because I choose you. Every day, for the rest of my life, if you'll let me." Allie's answer came in the form of a kiss that tasted like second chances and new beginnings. They'd both learned that love wasn't the fairy tale ending they'd been taught to expect. It was messier and harder and more beautiful than any story could capture. The future stretched before them, uncertain but no longer terrifying. Dean had deferred Harvard Law to pursue teaching, much to his family's dismay. Allie had turned down Hollywood to chase her dreams on smaller stages. They were both exactly where they were supposed to be—together, finally ready to build something real. When they made love that night, it was with full knowledge of what they were choosing. Not the desperate need of youth, but the deliberate love of two people who'd seen each other at their worst and decided to build something better together. They'd learned that the best relationships aren't built on perfection but on the willingness to keep showing up, keep trying, keep loving even when it's hard.

Summary

Dean and Allie's love story played out against the backdrop of college hockey rinks and theater stages, in coffee shops and childhood bedrooms, in moments of crisis and quiet contentment. It was a love that survived grief and growth, mistakes and forgiveness—the kind of love that doesn't conquer all but endures everything. They learned that sometimes the most important victories come not from winning the game as it's traditionally played, but from having the courage to rewrite the rules entirely. In the end, they discovered that love isn't about finding someone who completes you, but about choosing someone who inspires you to complete yourself. Their story became a testament to the power of second chances, the beauty of imperfect love, and the truth that sometimes the best things in life come from the courage to play your heart instead of playing it safe. And sometimes, if you're very lucky and very brave, that's enough to win the game that matters most.

About Author

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Elle Kennedy

Kennedy investigates the intricate dynamics of strong heroines and seductive alpha heroes, creating narratives that fuse heat and danger. She pursues her writing with the explicit goal of delivering stories that captivate and engage readers, demonstrating her passion for character-driven plots. Her dedication to crafting these compelling characters and situations is rooted in her early aspirations to become a writer, a dream she actively chased as a teenager.\n\nHer books often navigate the challenges and triumphs of bold female protagonists in thrilling contexts, integrating romance with elements of suspense. Kennedy's method involves a keen balance between character development and plot intensity, which she has honed while working with various publishers. As a result, her narratives appeal to those who relish dynamic storytelling and vividly drawn characters, providing an exhilarating reading experience.\n\nFor readers seeking a deep dive into stories with layered characters and gripping plots, Kennedy's body of work delivers a fulfilling journey. Her ability to weave complex relationships and intense scenarios ensures that each book leaves a lasting impact, making her a notable figure in contemporary fiction. This short bio captures her journey and the thematic essence that defines her career as an influential author.

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