Summary:
Harrisburg Railers #9
Ever since he first set foot in Harrisburg, Tennant’s life has been a rollercoaster. Ups and downs too numerous to mention, hard knocks and championship rings. Through all of those monumental moments, one thing has been a constant for him, Jared Madsen. Now that their wedding day is drawing nearer, Ten is seriously considering eloping. He would, if not for his mother, his father, his brothers, the wedding planner, the guests, the cake, the press, and the team. Oh, and then there’s his best friend, who is vying for the job of ringmaster of the wedding circus. Would sneaking off during the night with Jared and skipping to the honeymoon part of the festivities really be all that bad?
When Jared proposed to Ten, he imagined a quiet wedding, on a beach somewhere, with family, and maybe the team. But life gets complicated with Ten’s warring brothers, a Russian goalie with a love of sequins, and a bachelor party organized by Adler. When Trent sends them a wedding planner, every spare hour is filled with choosing invitations, cake tasting, and finding a rose in the perfect shade of green. Add in Layton organizing a press conference, and suddenly their private wedding is destined to become a media sensation. Is it wrong to think seriously about kidnapping Ten and spiriting him away to a small deserted island?
Adler organizing the bachelor party, Trent supplying the wedding planner, and Stan writing a speech. What can possibly go wrong?
Original Review July 2019:
From the first page Tennant and Jared appeared together way back in Changing Lines, no matter how many entries to Harrisburg Railers RJ Scott & VL Locey wrote or how many years the series spanned you just knew they would be electric, emotional, and unforgettable. Save the Date is published proof of that very prediction. Ten and Mads might be a May/December-ish type of trope but they are what held the team together, pulled them in and helped create a family not just a team. Seeing them get their HEA is lovely, fun, sexy, romantic, and everything that made this series so special.
I'm not going to say a whole lot about this story, not just the no spoiler rule I live by but also, if you've been reading Harrisburg Railers up till now, then you know how good the series is and Save the Date is just icing on the cake. From the minute Ten is weirded out over his Mom's knowledge of anal sex and Jared's uncanny ability to runaway from such convos to the couple's honeymoon destination, we get to see the team rally round the pair as the wedding of the century is brought to life. So open your invite, grab a seat, absorb everyone's contribution to the day, and feel the love.
As every wedding is bound to do, there is drama but there is also humor and romance, let'f face it, Save the Date is rom-com at its finest, Hollywood and Hallmark has nothing on Scott & Locey. At this point I think I'm pretty much repeating myself with different words so I'll end my review by saying: you'll laugh, you'll cry(happy tears), you'll laugh some more, and when that final page is turned(or swiped) you won't be ready to say goodbye to the Railers but you'll know it ended the best way possible. Truth is, even though Save the Date may be the final entry in the Harrisburg Railers series, something tells me we'll see a few of them pop up from time-to-time in the authors' upcoming spin-off series, Arizona Raptors.
One last note: if you haven't been reading the series and are wondering if this needs to be read in order my answer is yes. As each of the original entries feature a new couple, technically I suppose it could be considered a a standalone series but as the team appears in all of them, I just think everything flows better in order. Personally, I can't imagine reading it any other way than how it was released. The final three novellas "re-visit" previous couples so they definitely need to be read at the end but as I said, personally I highly recommend reading the Railers in the order they were written. However you choose to read them though, you won't be sorry because hockey lover or not, this is a must series for well written romance and character-driven drama fans.
RATING:
RJ Scott
VL Locey
When Jared proposed to Ten, he imagined a quiet wedding, on a beach somewhere, with family, and maybe the team. But life gets complicated with Ten’s warring brothers, a Russian goalie with a love of sequins, and a bachelor party organized by Adler. When Trent sends them a wedding planner, every spare hour is filled with choosing invitations, cake tasting, and finding a rose in the perfect shade of green. Add in Layton organizing a press conference, and suddenly their private wedding is destined to become a media sensation. Is it wrong to think seriously about kidnapping Ten and spiriting him away to a small deserted island?
Adler organizing the bachelor party, Trent supplying the wedding planner, and Stan writing a speech. What can possibly go wrong?
From the first page Tennant and Jared appeared together way back in Changing Lines, no matter how many entries to Harrisburg Railers RJ Scott & VL Locey wrote or how many years the series spanned you just knew they would be electric, emotional, and unforgettable. Save the Date is published proof of that very prediction. Ten and Mads might be a May/December-ish type of trope but they are what held the team together, pulled them in and helped create a family not just a team. Seeing them get their HEA is lovely, fun, sexy, romantic, and everything that made this series so special.
I'm not going to say a whole lot about this story, not just the no spoiler rule I live by but also, if you've been reading Harrisburg Railers up till now, then you know how good the series is and Save the Date is just icing on the cake. From the minute Ten is weirded out over his Mom's knowledge of anal sex and Jared's uncanny ability to runaway from such convos to the couple's honeymoon destination, we get to see the team rally round the pair as the wedding of the century is brought to life. So open your invite, grab a seat, absorb everyone's contribution to the day, and feel the love.
As every wedding is bound to do, there is drama but there is also humor and romance, let'f face it, Save the Date is rom-com at its finest, Hollywood and Hallmark has nothing on Scott & Locey. At this point I think I'm pretty much repeating myself with different words so I'll end my review by saying: you'll laugh, you'll cry(happy tears), you'll laugh some more, and when that final page is turned(or swiped) you won't be ready to say goodbye to the Railers but you'll know it ended the best way possible. Truth is, even though Save the Date may be the final entry in the Harrisburg Railers series, something tells me we'll see a few of them pop up from time-to-time in the authors' upcoming spin-off series, Arizona Raptors.
One last note: if you haven't been reading the series and are wondering if this needs to be read in order my answer is yes. As each of the original entries feature a new couple, technically I suppose it could be considered a a standalone series but as the team appears in all of them, I just think everything flows better in order. Personally, I can't imagine reading it any other way than how it was released. The final three novellas "re-visit" previous couples so they definitely need to be read at the end but as I said, personally I highly recommend reading the Railers in the order they were written. However you choose to read them though, you won't be sorry because hockey lover or not, this is a must series for well written romance and character-driven drama fans.
RATING:
Tennant
I dipped my hand into the bag of peanuts and nodded. I’d been nodding at a steady rate for about twenty minutes now. I’d tried to speak a few times, but my attempts to slide into the conversation had been trucked, but in the prettiest and sweetest ways possible.
“… added that picture of that triple-layer fudge cake to the food board. Did you see it?” That was Mom, high priestess of the Tennant & Jared Pinterest wedding boards. Noting the “S” on the end of that word board made me sigh.
I cracked the peanut shell and bobbed my head. “Uhm, no, I haven’t been to Pinterest for a few days…”
All three women participating in this FaceTime morning meeting gaped at me.
“Tennant,” Mom sighed and gave me her I’m-slightly-put-out-with-you stare.
“Maybe we could just pick out our top three choices for the cake patterns and send them to you? Would that work, Ten?” Brady’s Lisa, the lovely blonde legal aide, asked.
“Uhm…”
“Oh! We could make a vision board and send him that when we whittle down the choices! My girlfriend Penny did that for her wedding, and it really helped us figure out what to buy as a gift,” Jamie’s Lisa, or Lisa #2, the tall brunette who worked as a dental assistant, chimed in. My niece Sylvia sat on her lap chewing on her fingers, her green Rowe eyes wide and happy.
“That’s a great idea!” Mom and Lisa #1 exclaimed.
I took a swig of chocolate milk to wash down the peanut and dipped a toe into the rapid-fire conversation. “What’s a vision board?” I inquired.
Six slim eyebrows flew up three smooth brows.
“Tennant,” Mom said in that voice again.
“Sorry, what? I don’t do a lot of pinning or vision-boarding. Help a guy out here,” I begged, giving the women a piteous look. It worked on my sisters-in-law but not so much on my mother. She was far too used to seeing my puppy dog face.
“Well— Girls no! No, do not feed that to Bourque! I’ll be right back. The oldest twins are trying to medicate the dog with their doctor’s kit. I think they’ve gotten into the liquid stool softener I had to take after Leah and Lanie were born. No! Do not give that to the dog! Bourque, no!”
Wow, okay. That was information about after-birth stuff I did not need to know.
Then mom joined in. “Ugh, I remember being so constipated after I had Tennant. I strained so hard I tore a few of my episiotomy stitches and had to—”
“Mom! Please, give a dude a break here, would you?” I pleaded just as Jared walked into the living room, all freshly showered and shaved.
“Oh for goodness sake, Tennant. Your fiancé puts his wang into your butt, and you’re getting squicked out about a little discussion about hootchie stitches?”
“Mom! Oh. My. God.” I slapped my hands over my hot cheeks. Jared raced into the kitchen, the coward. Lisa #2 was laughing so hard she was crying. Lisa #1 was heard in the distance yelling at her first set of twin girls. The second set were too young to feed the dog stool softener yet. “Can we not discuss what Jared and I do in bed? How do you even know about anal sex?”
“Tennant, for the love of Pete, I’ve been around the block a few times. Your father and I were quite adventurous when we were younger. One time before Brady was born we found some flavored lube and—”
“And no, nope, no way!” I shot to my feet, peanut shells tumbling from my lap to the carpet Jared had just vacuumed last night. Oops. “Mom, can we go back to talking about wedding boards?”
“Well, you looked bored so I thought we could talk about things that were important to you,” she said innocently.
I rolled my eyes, sat down, and spent another fifteen minutes with all the Rowe gals, being talked at and around. Finally, when Mom called an end to the meeting to go to her tai chi class, I slapped the lid on my Dell shut and whimpered.
“Is it safe?” Jared called, peeking around the doorframe.
I waved him in. “Chicken,” I huffed as he rounded the couch, then glanced down at the mess on the floor. “I’ll clean that up. Come sit down with me. I have a headache.”
That wiped the humor from his face. He dropped down next to me, his light blue eyes filled with worry.
“Are you okay?” he asked, taking the bottle of chocolate milk from my hand. “I still say that hit Peterson gave you during the finals should’ve been—”
I leaned over and put my lips on his. He chilled a bit then. But just a bit.
“It’s stress. Nothing more, my brain is good. Ninety-seven percent normal, which is a twenty percent improvement from how I had been before the injury, according to Brady,” I teased, dropping little smooches along his smooth jawline, then nibbling his ear. “Wedding stress.”
“Ah, the women.”
I kind of melted into him like a candy bar on a dashboard. “The women. Oh my God, you’d think they’ve never planned a wedding before.”
“Well, they’ve never planned a wedding for two men before. They want everything to be perfect. And you are the baby so…”
“Mm,” I murmured as I wiggled a bit so I was curled under his arm, my cheek on his shoulder. I inhaled the scent of his Dior Homme shower gel and felt the tension ease from my neck. “I don’t care about cake toppers or the color of the flower girls’ barrettes or the proper spices for the grilled trout. I just want to marry you and go away for a few weeks so we can fuck ourselves into comas.”
“Such a simple man,” he said with a chuckle, his fingers slipping through my hair.
“Simple man, simple needs. What the hell is tulle anyway, and why would they think I’d have an opinion on it?”
That made him laugh out loud. I felt my bones softening as we cuddled on the couch. “They mean well,” he said as he continued to play with my hair. “And we do need to make some final calls on things. We have three weeks.”
“Right, yeah, I know. I have no clue about any of it. Should we hire a wedding planner?”
“We could, I guess. Do you know any?”
“Me? Uhm, no.” I chortled and reached for my phone. “I can hit up the guys in the group chat. Lots of them are married. Maybe they know someone?”
“Okay, go for it. Perhaps if we call in a professional, she or he can rein in the Rowe women a bit.” He tipped my head back by pulling gently on my hair. I wriggled up just an inch for the long, wet kiss. He fisted my hair when I rolled my hips, a low growly sound rumbling out. Hungry for more, I slid around until I was on top, my hips grinding against his, my phone slipping to the floor, wedding planners forgotten.
Then my stupid phone rang. I moaned at the Elvis song played, the one set by my best buddy so I’d know it was him.
“Ignore it,” Jared said, sliding his hands down the back of my shorts to cup my ass. Elvis sang on and on and on and on.I rocked my dick into his, trying to block out That’s All Right Mama but failing miserably.
“Let me just… ugh, sorry, watch your balls.” I shifted around on the couch, picked up my phone, and slapped it to my ear. “Stan, my man, what is it?”
“Why is phone ringing seventy-two times? Is brain being bad? I call police at eighty rings, so worry is making my fingers find other phone to send police over for checking on your head.”
“Dude, my head is fine. I didn’t pick up because Jared and I were getting into it.”
Jared made a sound of impatience. I was with him on that sentiment.
“Getting into what?”
“You know… getting into it?”
“Getting into car?”
“No, Stan, we weren’t getting into the car. We were about to go heels to Jesus.”
Jared snickered.
“But is not Sunday, is only Friday. Is new thing for Jesus on Friday?”
That one made me snort loudly. “Dude, no, we were going to fuck.”
“Ah fucking, yes, now this I know! Well, you can go fuck boots for Jesus in but minute. I am working on speech for wedding dinner as is fitting best friend. My words are good, but I am not sure if this is correct phrase. You will help me? Erik is burning out, and his words are not good right now.”
“He’s burning out?” I asked, glancing at Jared with confusion.
Jared just shrugged.
“Has been much bad day with kids. Eva is making womanly time and cried because Pavel ate all the butterscotch ice cream. Pavel and Noah painted the shower stall. I am not sure how they get paint from garage or open can or carry pink paint to Mama’s shower, but they are now seeming like Pepto-Bismol hatchlings. Even hair is pink. So Erik and I wash boys while Eva cries and Mama makes good soup that no child will eat because it is beet soup. Much screaming and tears, and now Erik is burning out, and I am searching for good word help for best friend’s wedding speech.”
“Okay, just give me a minute,” I said, then looked down at Jared. “Erik’s burned out, and the kids are hellions. Can we do this in, like, ten minutes?”
“Sure. Grab the strawberries when you come to bed.” He kissed me with fiery promise, then slid off the sofa, his dick tenting his lounge pants.
I wet my lips, palmed my own stiff cock, and focused on Stan and his wedding words. Forty minutes later, I was able to hang up. My head throbbed. Trying to untangle mangled English on top of working to figure out what it was that Stan was trying to get on paper had been like trying to work out some sort of advanced algebraic equation. The math would have been less taxing. We’d not gotten very far.
I sent a quick note to our Pokémon group that I was not going to be training tonight, rolled my eyes at the snarky comment from Adler about being an old married fuddy-duddy, and tossed out the wedding planner question before I chucked my phone to the coffee table and put my bare feet down on the carpet. Finally, I spent ten minutes picking up, then vacuuming peanut dander off the floor with that little handheld Dirt Devil vacuum Jared was so fond of.
Close to an hour after Jared had gone to bed to wait for me, I raced into the bedroom, container of juicy red berries in hand, dick throbbing, to find my fiancé snoring softly, his glasses on his nose, the book written by a gay Indiana mayor facedown on his chest.
A drawn-out exhalation emptied my lungs. Padding to my side, I placed the berries on my nightstand, peeled off my shorts, and slipped under the soft print sheets. The lure of him drew me to the middle of the bed after I turned off the light on my nightstand. His nightstand lamp still glowed soft white. Lying there staring at him, I felt a hundred thousand things all at once. Love, of course, tons of love, but also things like pride, desire, happiness, joy, hope, inspiration, satisfaction, amusement, and awe. It still blew me away that a man like Jared Madsen would love a guy like me. Aside from having some minor skills with a stick and puck, I couldn’t see what it was that he found so alluring about me and my not fully normal brain cells.
“Always liked a Studebaker,” Jared mumbled, then blinked awake, his gaze flying to me spread out beside him. “Ah, shit, that made no sense, did it?”
“Not much, no.” I chuckled as he closed his book.
“This book takes place in South Bend where they used to make Studebakers. My grandfather had an old Studebaker truck. Black and white it was, with a manual transmission and AM radio.” He yawned widely, his eyelids droopy. “I learned how to drive in that old truck. I was twelve. How boring am I?”
“Not boring at all.”
He pulled me into his side, then drifted off. After he was sound asleep, I wiggled out from under his heavy arm, removed his DILF glasses, and put them and his current read on my nightstand, my fingers bumping the plastic tub of strawberries. I smiled when he spooned up behind me a moment later, his chest to my back, one arm flung over my hip. The light on his side was still on, but with a clap— yeah, we were that kind of couple— his light dimmed. I fell asleep wondering if I should refrigerate the berries or not, but as it turned out, Jared woke up with some tasty ideas for those warm berries. After he wrung a mind-blowing orgasm out of me with only strawberries, his fingers, and the tip of his tongue, I fell back to sleep sated and sticky.
Jared shook me awake sometime after the berry love fest. “Trent is on the phone. He’s slightly… uhm, well, how do you describe it?”
“Slightly Trent?” I said, my voice thick and slurred with sleep.
“That works.” He handed me his phone. I sat up, berry bits glued to my balls and back, and rolled my head in a circle. Things in my neck cracked and popped.
“Is he just slightly Trent or totally Trent?” I asked, phone jammed under my armpit to mute my conversation with Jared.
“Bordering on totally,” he whispered, rose from the messy bed, and walked to the bathroom, a small green strawberry cap stuck to his sweet ass. That made me smile to myself. Good thing, because the figure skater on the other end of the phone was in full Trent mode, which is something that really should only be dealt with after a shower and some coffee.
“Hey, Trent, what’s up?” I croaked.
“You’re asking for a wedding planner three weeks before the big day?!”
“We thought we could do it ourselves?”
“Oh my sweet gods!”
Yeah, coffee was so needed for this.
Saturday's Series Spotlight
Owatonna U
Boston Rebels
RJ ScottWriting love stories with a happy ever after – cowboys, heroes, family, hockey, single dads, bodyguards
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott has written over one hundred romance books. Emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, single dads, hockey players, millionaires, princes, bodyguards, Navy SEALs, soldiers, doctors, paramedics, firefighters, cops, and the men who get mixed up in their lives, always with a happy ever after.
She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing. The last time she had a week’s break from writing, she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a box of chocolates she couldn’t defeat.
V.L. Locey loves worn jeans, yoga, belly laughs, walking, reading and writing lusty tales, Greek mythology, the New York Rangers, comic books, and coffee.
(Not necessarily in that order.)
She shares her life with her husband, her daughter, one dog, two cats, a flock of assorted domestic fowl, and two Jersey steers.
When not writing spicy romances, she enjoys spending her day with her menagerie in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania with a cup of fresh java in hand.
VL Locey
Save the Date #9
Harrisburg Series
Owatonna U Series
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