Publication Date: June 20, 2025

Tropes: Single Dad | Age Gap | Found Family | No Third Act Breakup | Overcoming Trauma | Cinnamon Roll MMC | Virgin FMC | Slow(ish) Burn | Center Fielder x Daughter’s Dance Teacher | Interconnected Standalone | Dual POV | Open Door Spice

Hearts live by being wounded… but sometimes those wounds run deeper than the surface.

Olive Finch should be in the prime of her life at twenty-three. But after shutting herself off from everything and everyone for six years, she’s only just starting out. Trying to find her path, she starts teaching ballet lessons at her mother’s studio. It’s there she meets her student Sage, daughter of Lane Brooks, center fielder for the New York Stars.

Lane has never taken life too seriously… that is, until he finds out he got his one-night stand pregnant. As a single dad, he always puts his daughter first, but at thirty-two, he longs to give Sage a family and find someone to share his life with. After a chance meeting with a beautiful woman at a coffee shop, he’s practically ready to drop to one knee.

When they meet again, it isn’t as strangers. To Lane, it’s fate. And Olive can’t deny how much she enjoys having him around.

But when secrets kept and truths exposed leave them both reeling, it’s clear that trauma has become an unwelcome third wheel. Can they leave their respective pasts behind, or is just being the fielder’s choice not enough?