Fall With Me (playing for Keeps, #4)

Fall with Me is a contemporary hockey romance novel by Becka Mack, set in the world of the Playing for Keeps series.

Jaxon Riley, a 27-year-old defenseman for the Vancouver Vipers, has already played for four NHL teams. At each stop, he built friendships he believed were permanent, only to be traded and forgotten. This pattern, compounded by a childhood tragedy he has never processed, leaves him deeply afraid of attachment. During the team's bye week, he invites a woman named Brielle to Cabo, largely to avoid being the only single person among his coupled-up friends. After three days of fighting and Jaxon repeatedly calling her the wrong name, Brielle leaves. Their neighbor in the adjacent honeymoon villa, Lennon Hayes, has overheard every argument.

Lennon, a 26-year-old photographer, is alone on what was supposed to be her honeymoon. Her fiancé Ryne's infidelity was exposed at their wedding rehearsal dinner, and she left him that night. That evening at the resort bar, she and Jaxon trade insults and rounds of Never Have I Ever that reveal surprisingly personal details. The night ends with a passionate one-night stand, after which Lennon slips out before dawn, leaving a note that deliberately misspells his name.

Back in Vancouver, Jaxon returns to his close-knit group of teammates and Mittens, his rescue cat. His four closest friends are captain Carter Beckett and his wife Olivia, goalie Adam Lockwood and his partner Rosie, left winger Emmett Brodie and his wife Cara, and right winger Garrett Andersen and his fiancée Jennie. When the team's photographer quits, Coach introduces the replacement: Lennon walks through the door, locks eyes with Jaxon, and flees the room. The wives immediately befriend her, and Lennon rejects Jaxon's offer of friendship in definitive terms.

A pipe bursts in Lennon's apartment, flooding it and leaving her homeless. At a community event, she unknowingly eats a tart made with almond flour and goes into anaphylactic shock. Jaxon recognizes the symptoms from her allergy alert bracelet and administers her EpiPen, a moment that triggers buried memories of his childhood best friend Bryce, who died from a bee sting because Jaxon could not get the EpiPen to him in time. After the hospital, Jaxon discovers Lennon has been living out of her car and insists she stay at his penthouse. Without telling her, he disposes of every peanut and tree nut product in his kitchen.

The arrangement extends when repairs take until spring. Despite constant bickering, Jaxon and Lennon develop a domestic routine marked by unexpected tenderness. Jaxon installs extra shelving for her hair products, creates a handwritten coffee guide with cereal pairings, and places a step stool in the pantry. Lennon fills his empty bookshelf with romance novels and reframes a cherished photo of young Jaxon with Bryce in a walnut frame, preserving their childhood signatures on the back. When she asks about Bryce, Jaxon shuts down. Over FaceTime, he introduces Lennon to Gran, his grandmother, who raised him alone after his parents died in a car accident. Gran and Lennon establish a weekly video-chat routine.

After a phone confrontation with Ryne on a team flight, during which Lennon tells her ex she deserved better, she goes to Jaxon's room and they resume their physical relationship. On Valentine's Day, despite agreeing to avoid romantic gestures, Jaxon buys her pink tulips, her favorite flowers that Ryne never once bought, and begins buying them weekly, always denying responsibility. During an intimate conversation, Lennon recounts how Ryne's infidelity was broadcast to 50 guests when he accidentally butt-dialed her cousin Serena, whose phone was connected to a projector at the rehearsal dinner. She reveals how Ryne systematically diminished her over the years, calling her dream of astrophotography a silly hobby and persuading her to abandon her astronomy application.

Jaxon suffers a concussion during a game, and the team doctor warns that repeated injuries could cause permanent memory loss. At the first birthday party of Ireland, Carter and Olivia's daughter, Jaxon breaks down when pressed about his reluctance to let Lennon move out. He tells his friends about Bryce for the first time: how they played hockey together from age four, how Jaxon went into the forest without checking that Bryce had his EpiPen, and how Bryce died in his arms after a bee sting triggered anaphylaxis. Bryce's parents walked out of Jaxon's life after the funeral. The friends surround Jaxon in a group embrace, and he experiences for the first time what it means to be supported by chosen family.

On Lennon's 27th birthday, Jaxon leaves a telescope beneath her window and drives her to Porteau Cove, where they watch the Northern Lights. Lennon tells him he is her "line," the dividing mark between her painful past and her hopeful future. Beneath the stars, Jaxon tells her the full story of Bryce, and Lennon points him to Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, telling him to look there whenever he searches for his friend.

During the third playoff round against Nashville, a former teammate trips Jaxon from behind, slamming his head into the boards. When Lennon rushes to his side, Jaxon does not recognize her. Benched for the round, he spirals and pushes everyone away. Lennon remains steadfast, maintaining their routines and telling him she will wait. When Garrett confronts him, Jaxon breaks down with his teammates, confessing his lifelong belief that he is replaceable. They reassure him he is family.

Jaxon flies to Georgia to surprise Lennon at her grandmother Mimi's annual cookout, meeting her family for the first time. They have their first real conversation about wanting marriage and children, and Lennon officially becomes his girlfriend. Back home, Ryne arrives to propose to Lennon with an empty ring box. She dismantles his arguments, and Jaxon tells Ryne he failed at the only job he had: loving her. When her landlord calls to say the apartment is finally ready, Lennon declines it.

Jaxon panics when he sees Lennon moving boxes into the hallway, believing she is leaving. In a tearful monologue, he tells her he loves her, cataloguing every gesture from the tulips to the telescope. Lennon reveals she is donating furniture to a shelter, not moving out, and tells him she loves him too. Jaxon takes her to see a house he has put a deposit on, a modern colonial featuring an observatory room with glass walls and ceiling so she can watch the stars every night.

As the Vipers reach the Stanley Cup Final, Jaxon learns that Sarah, a 12-year-old he visits weekly at a children's home, is being adopted by a couple whose son died at age 12. The details unmistakably describe Bryce's parents. Lennon secretly arranges for Gran and Bryce's parents to attend game seven. They arrive wearing Jaxon's jersey and carrying ticket stubs from every game since his debut at 18, revealing they have followed his career all along. They apologize for walking away, and Jaxon forgives them. Before the game, Ryne appears at the arena to propose yet again; Cara punches him, and Lennon rejects him for the final time. In the players' tunnel, Jaxon tells Lennon she is not his line but his "after," the person who represents everything good that followed a lifetime of loss. With three seconds left in a tied game, he fires a shot over the goalie's shoulder to win the Stanley Cup.

In the epilogue, set in July, Lennon receives an email from National Geographic expressing interest in her astrophotography, submitted by Jaxon months earlier. During a group trip to Las Vegas, the couple drunkenly marries in a chapel with all their friends present. The novel closes with Jaxon reflecting that he found family, home, and love not by changing who he was, but by finally believing he was enough.