Elle Kennedy’s The Score (2016) is a New Adult contemporary romance and the third book in the international bestselling Off-Campus series. The novel follows Allie Hayes, a drama major reeling from a recent breakup, and Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis, a wealthy and promiscuous hockey player at the fictional Briar University. After Allie seeks refuge from her persistent ex at the off-campus house Dean shares with his teammates, a one-night stand between the two evolves into a secret, emotionally complex arrangement. Thematically, the story explores Moving Beyond Socially Prescribed Norms in Romantic Relationships, Choosing Personal Fulfillment Over Obligation, and Confronting Grief as a Step Toward Emotional Growth.

A Canadian author of over 40 romance novels, Kennedy is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author and a winner of the Romance Writers of America RITA Award. The Score was nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award for Best Romance, and the popular Off-Campus series has been published in over 20 countries. The book series has also been adapted into a television series for Prime Video, with the characters of Allie and Dean slated to be the focus of the show’s second season.

This guide is based on the 2021 Bloom Books edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of sexual content, suicidal ideation, cursing, substance use, and illness or death.

Plot Summary

The third installment in the Off-Campus series follows Allie Hayes, a senior drama major at Briar University, and Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis, a hockey player and the roommate of her best friend’s boyfriend, as they move from a drunken one-night stand to an unexpected relationship.

Allie has just broken up with Sean McCall, her boyfriend of three and a half years, for the fourth and final time. Allie ends their relationship for good when it becomes clear they have irreconcilable visions for the future: Allie wants to pursue acting in Los Angeles or New York, while Sean expects her to move to Vermont and become a homemaker. Post-breakup, Sean does everything he can to win Allie back, including stopping by her dorm uninvited. When Hannah goes away for the weekend with her boyfriend, Garrett, leaving Allie alone, Garrett offers to let Allie stay at the off-campus house he shares with his teammates. When Allie arrives, she discovers only one roommate home: Dean.

Forced into each other’s company, they bicker over movies, smoke marijuana, and drink tequila. Allie opens up about her breakup and asks Dean to keep her phone so she cannot text Sean. Their flirting escalates throughout the night, and they end up having sex. The next morning, Allie is mortified, having never had casual sex before, and insists they never speak of the encounter again. They agree to keep the hookup secret from their friends. Dean, however, cannot stop thinking about Allie and calls her that night to say he wants to see her again. She hangs up on him.

At hockey practice, Dean discovers that his high school hockey coach, Frank O’Shea, has been hired as Briar’s new defensive coordinator. O’Shea harbors resentment toward Dean over Dean’s past relationship with O’Shea’s daughter, Miranda. O’Shea demotes Dean to a weaker defensive pairing and forces him to volunteer as assistant coach for the Hastings Hurricanes, a local youth hockey team. Dean interprets both moves as punishment.

As Dean and Allie continue to spend time together over the following weeks, Allie feels more freedom to experiment sexually than she ever has with anyone else. Dean encourages her to embrace what he calls the “Life of Dean”: doing what she wants without caring what others think. They begin a secret fling, agreeing to exclusivity and absolute secrecy.

Meanwhile, Dean finds genuine joy coaching the Hurricanes. He bonds with Robbie, a talented seventh grader, and Robbie’s 10-year-old sister Dakota, who confides that she never learned to skate because her single mother could only afford lessons for one child. Dean promises to find her a pair of skates.

Allie grows jealous when a girl flirts with Dean at a bar. When she confronts him, Dean insists that he rejected the other woman and argues that feeling jealous is normal even in a casual sexual relationship—it doesn’t have to mean they’re falling in love. Allie agrees that they can continue their fling, and they have urgent sex in the alley behind the bar.

Allie privately worries she is codependent, noting she has never been without a boyfriend since high school. Sean resurfaces, begging her to have coffee with him. He presents Allie with non-refundable airline tickets and offers to move to Los Angeles with her so she can pursue her career. Allie, who is no longer interested in Sean, turns him down, telling him they need to move on entirely.

Dean and Allie drive to New York together for Thanksgiving. During the trip, they share vulnerable details about their pasts: Allie confides in him about her mother’s death from cancer, and Dean reveals the full story of his relationship with Miranda and the depression and suicidal ideation she experienced after their breakup. Coach O’Shea blamed Dean for Miranda’s mental health crisis and punched Dean in the parking lot after a game, but Dean never reported him.

Dean has Thanksgiving dinner with Allie and her father, Joe, a retired hockey scout with multiple sclerosis. Joe takes an immediate dislike to Dean, calling him a rich kid incapable of handling hardship and telling Dean bluntly that he does not trust him to take care of his daughter.

Despite Joe’s hostility, Allie and Dean grow closer and they eventually admit they’re in love. After Sean shows up at Allie’s dorm in the middle of the night, screaming abuse, Allie asks Hannah to call Dean for support, outing herself and Dean as a couple. Garrett worries Dean will break Allie’s heart, while Hannah is cautiously supportive. Allie attends Dean’s Hurricanes’ practices with him and watches Dean teach Dakota to skate using special pink skates he found for her. Coach Ellis, the Hurricanes’ head coach, tells Allie that Dean should consider working with kids as a career.

When Dean’s best friend, Beau Maxwell, Briar’s starting quarterback, dies in a car accident. Dean spirals into weeks of binge drinking and using drugs, operating on autopilot while numbing himself emotionally. He stops coaching the Hurricanes entirely and he misses the opening night of Allie’s senior play when he throws an impromptu party at his house with the football team. Allie packs her suitcase and declares the relationship over.

The next morning, a mandatory drug test catches MDMA from the previous night’s party in Dean’s system. He voluntarily confesses to his coach before the results come back and is suspended from the team, effectively ending his hockey career. He meets Allie to apologize. She forgives him but says she needs time alone to learn how to function without a boyfriend. Dean embarks on an apology tour, making amends with friends, teammates, Coach Ellis, and Dakota. He also calls Miranda for the first time in years, and they have a healing conversation in which she admits she allowed her father to believe the worst about Dean. Both apologize, and Dean feels closure.

During their weeks apart, Dean tells his family he’s abandoning his plan to attend Harvard Law School and accepts a teaching and coaching position at Parklane Academy, a private school in Manhattan. Allie gets a part in a Fox pilot in Los Angeles but turns it down, feeling no connection to the role. Her agent then calls with news that she’s been offered a dramatic role in a cable show filming in New York.

When Joe takes a fall and sprains his wrist, Allie calls Dean to check on him, and the two men bond over beer, pizza, and sports. Joe softens toward Dean and shares the story behind Allie’s custom perfume, a blend of strawberries and roses that her dying mother had made for her in France. When Allie returns to campus, she and Dean get back together. Dean presents her with airline tickets to Los Angeles, just as Sean did, but assures her the tickets are for Allie and her father, who he’s convinced to relocate so Allie can pursue her dreams. Allie explains she has already accepted the New York role. Both will be in Manhattan after graduation.

The novel ends with their roommate Tucker revealing that Sabrina James, a political science classmate of Dean’s, is pregnant with Tucker’s baby, setting up the next book in the series.