gamechangers441
He wasn't supposed to feel this young.
Or this unsteady.
Or this undone.
Luca Haas is nineteen-too tall, too quiet, too soft-faced for a league that calls boys men the moment they arrive. Drafted second overall out of Switzerland, his life fractures neatly in two: before and after the night he watches his name scroll across a television screen in Zurich, the world outside unchanged even as everything inside him rearranges.
Ottawa is louder. Colder. Sharper.
The ice is faster. The bodies heavier. The expectations relentless.
Cameras linger on him longer than he knows how to handle. His name is spoken like a promise he isn't sure he can keep. Baby-faced and blue-eyed, painfully self-conscious, Luca doesn't know where to put his hands-or his fear-or the parts of himself that still feel unfinished. On the ice, he can skate. He can breathe. Off it, he watches. He waits. He learns how not to take up too much space.
And then there's Theo.
Theo is confidence without apology. Charm without effort. The kind of presence that fills a room and leaves just as easily. He laughs loud, flirts freely, touches without thinking-and never stays long enough to be known. Where Luca is careful, Theo is reckless. Where Luca watches, Theo performs.
They aren't meant to collide.
They aren't meant to linger.
They aren't meant to change each other.
This is a story about first seasons and second thoughts.
About panic and pride, and the quiet ways we survive both.
About mentorship, masks, and the difference between being wanted and being seen.
About learning that desire doesn't always arrive loudly-and that love doesn't always ask permission.
A slow-burn NHL rookie story inspired by Role Model.
Soft. Observant. Intimate.
No grand gestures. No spectacle.
Just two people circling each other in the eye of a storm-
and the moment everything starts to matter.
**BASED OFF OF RACHEL READ ROLE MODEL BOOK, STARRING LUCA HAAS THE ROOKIE FROM OTTAWA**