Consider Me

What's inside (8 sections)

1. The player who always gets what he wants
2. The teacher who has reasons to say no
3. Chasing her without playing fair
4. Trust breaks and has to be rebuilt
5. The loud family around them
6. What worked for me and what dragged
7. Key takeaways
8. FAQ

I did not expect to read a 460 page hockey romance in three sittings. A friend kept sending me clips about Carter Beckett, and I finally borrowed Consider Me to see what the noise was about. It is the first book in the Playing for Keeps series, first published in 2022 and self published by Becka Mack. The paperback edition I read runs about 460 pages. I thought I would skim the first chapters and move on. Instead I stayed up late, argued with Olivia in my head, and texted my friend too many opinions.

The setup is simple. Carter Beckett is an NHL star at the top of his career. He is rich, confident, used to attention, and used to women saying yes. Olivia Parker is a high school phys ed teacher who says no. She goes by Ollie to her friends. She knows hockey players already because her best friend Cara is dating one, and she has seen enough of that world to keep her distance. She likes her job, her apartment, her routines. She does not want to babysit an athlete ego.

Carter meets her through that friend circle and fixates fast. Olivia assumes he is looking for another easy win. Carter insists he is not. The rest of the book is him trying to prove it, and her deciding whether to believe him.

The player who always gets what he wants

Carter opens the book as the guy everyone warns you about. He parties. He jokes loudly in the locker room. He has a tabloid trail. Reporters link him to a different woman every few weeks, and he does little to correct the story because for a long time the story worked for him.

Mack does not write him as secretly shy or misunderstood in those early pages. He is loud. He flirts in public. He tells his teammates he wants Olivia within minutes of meeting her, which made me roll my eyes. I have read that guy before. What kept me reading was how quickly the book lets Olivia puncture him.

She played hockey herself for years, so his status does nothing for her. When he tries a line, she answers with something dry and walks away. When he shows up where she happens to be, she calls it what it is. Her rejections are specific. She mentions the photos. She mentions the reputation. She tells him she has a perfectly good life without adding chaos to it.

Carter could have moved on. He does not. That choice is the engine for the next hundred pages. He starts showing up early, staying late, asking questions about her students and her schedule. He remembers small things she says. He backs off when she tells him to, then tries again in a different way. It is persistent without turning scary in the way some romance heroes do, though there were moments where I wished Mack had let Olivia hold the line a little longer before softening.

His teammates notice the shift before he admits it. They tease him about checking his phone. They tease him about leaving parties early. One night out becomes a good example. He is there in body, drink in hand, but his attention is elsewhere. The banter in those scenes is fast and a little crude, the way long time friends talk when no one is recording. I laughed more than I expected to, even when the jokes ran long.

The teacher who has reasons to say no

Olivia is short, strong from years of sport, funny in a blunt way, and tired of being treated as a prize. Teaching phys ed means she spends her days managing teenagers, whistles, gym smell, paperwork, kids who forget shoes. She loves it. Mack writes those school bits with concrete texture. Gym bags piled by the door. A student who tries to get out of running laps. Staff room coffee that tastes burnt. It grounds Olivia. She is not waiting for rescue. She has a paycheck, a best friend, a family that checks in.

Her caution around Carter comes from two places. First, she has watched Cara navigate dating a hockey player, with the travel and the fans and the gossip. Second, she has her own history of being let down by men who said the right things at first. She does not spell it out in a speech. It comes out in smaller reactions. A pause before answering a personal question. Changing the subject when Carter asks about exes. Keeping her apartment door as a boundary for a long time.

I related to that guardedness. It felt truer than a single big trauma reveal. She likes control because her work life requires it. Letting a famous athlete into that life would mean practices interrupted by cameras, students asking questions, parents gossiping. Who would rush that?

Her friendship with Cara is the best part of her half of the story. They talk the way real best friends talk. Short texts. Inside jokes. Cara pushes her to give Carter a chance, then pulls back and says to trust her gut. When Olivia gets hurt later, Cara shows up without a lecture. She brings food. She sits on the couch. She listens. Those scenes have warmth without getting sugary.

Olivia also has parents and a brother in the mix, plus students who adore her. One detail I kept thinking about was how good Carter is with kids when he finally meets her world. He does not perform for them. He shoots around, answers questions, signs what they ask him to sign. Jeremy, one of the kids connected to her family circle, ends up treasuring a signed jersey. It is a small beat, but it shifts Olivia. Anyone can send flowers. Not everyone can sit on bleachers and be normal for an hour.

Chasing her without playing fair

The middle of the book is a long pursuit, and Mack plays it mostly as comedy with heat underneath. Carter learns Olivia's coffee order. He finds excuses to carry her bag. He plans dates that are low pressure but clearly thought through. The movie date people mention online earned its reputation. He does not take her somewhere flashy to impress her. He takes her somewhere she can relax and tease him back. She spends half the night making fun of his choices, and he loves it.

Texting carries a lot of chapters. Carter is a constant texter. Good morning messages. Check ins after games. Memes after a bad day at school. Olivia pretends to be annoyed, then answers in seconds. Their rhythm builds. Short back and forth during the day, longer talks at night. I found myself smiling at my own phone during those stretches, which tells you how well Mack paces them.

Hockey stays in the background but never vanishes. Carter has practices, road trips, sore shoulders, video sessions. His team is pushing toward the Stanley Cup, so the pressure rises as the season goes on. Mack does not drown you in play by play. You get locker room talk, a few game nights, travel fatigue, the weird family feeling of a roster that lives together half the year. For a sports romance, the sport stays present without turning the book into a stats sheet.

The friend group widens here. You meet more players, more partners, Carter's parents Holly and others around them, his sister Jennie, plus Hank, who functions as a steady friend and comic relief. Dinners run long. Someone always cooks too much. Someone always drinks too much. Olivia slowly stops being the outsider at the table. She learns who needs coffee before conversation, who will steal fries, who will defend Carter no matter what.

There is a lot of heat in this section. Mack writes open door scenes that are explicit and frequent. Carter and Olivia have chemistry, and once they act on it, the book does not cut away. If you like that, you will be happy. If you prefer closed door or slower burn, this will feel like a lot. For me, the first few scenes added to the sense that they could not keep away from each other. By the fourth or fifth long scene, I started skimming to get back to the plot. The emotional talks after, where they lie around and admit fears, interested me more than the physical details.

A New Year stretch matters. They spend time together around the holidays, meet family, fall into couple habits. Carter starts talking about future plans out loud. Olivia starts picturing them, then catches herself and pulls back. That push and pull repeats. He says he wants something real. She believes him for a day, then reads a headline and doubts everything again.

Trust breaks and has to be rebuilt

Every romance needs a crack, and here the crack is Carter's past meeting Olivia's fear. She finds or hears about tabloid coverage, photos, rumors that suggest he has not changed. He swears the stories are old or twisted. She wants to believe him, but her brain supplies the worst version.

They fight. Not one big shouting scene that fixes everything, but a series of smaller ruptures. She goes quiet. He overexplains. She asks for space. He gives it, badly, by checking in too often. At one point she cries on a porch after feeling shut out, and a friend finds her there. That image stuck with me because it felt ordinary. No dramatic rain. Just a cold porch, a phone that does not light up when you want it to, and shame about caring so much.

Carter has to look at himself here. He has coasted on charm for years. Charm does not work on someone who has already decided you will leave. He starts doing unglamorous things. Showing up on time. Telling the truth before she asks. Letting her talk to his family without hovering. Apologizing without adding a joke to soften it. His growth is not a sudden switch. He still brags. He still flirts with everyone in a friendly way that makes Olivia nervous. But he starts to notice the effect and adjust.

Olivia has work to do too. She uses Carter's reputation as a shield. When she gets scared, she reaches for a headline instead of asking a question. Mack lets Cara call her on this gently. It is easier to say all hockey players cheat than to admit you are falling for one specific man and might get hurt. I appreciated that the book does not let Olivia stay perfect while Carter does all the changing. Her stubbornness is both armor and flaw.

The reconciliation, when it comes, is slow. They talk face to face over long evenings, phones down. Carter answers hard questions about other women, about what he wants after hockey, about money and privacy and kids far in the future. Olivia admits she has been waiting for him to fail so she could leave first. They agree to try with clearer rules. More honesty. Fewer tests. No boom box moment arrives. Two people simply decide to be less defensive.

If you have read a lot of romance, you will see the beats coming. Misunderstanding, separation, proof of change. Mack does not reinvent that shape. She fills it with enough specific dialogue and family noise that I did not mind the familiarity.

The loud family around them

What lifts Consider Me above a simple chase story is the crowd. Hockey teams make good found families because they eat, travel, and argue like siblings. Carter's teammates rag on each other constantly. They steal each other's food, mock haircuts, show up uninvited. Jaxon, Garrett, Adam, and others get enough page time that you start sorting who you want to follow next. Garrett's easy charm hides more care than he shows. Adam is quieter. Jaxon is prickly in a way that hints at his own book. You can feel Mack setting up future stories without pausing this one.

Hank deserves his own mention. He is not a player in the same spotlight, but he is always around, cooking or driving or talking sense. He has an awkward, sweet interest in Carter's sister Jennie that never takes over but adds lightness. When scenes get too heavy with Olivia and Carter circling each other, Hank cuts in with food or a dumb joke and resets the room.

The Beckett family is warm in a lived in way. Holly, Carter's mom, welcomes Olivia fast and means it. She fusses. She feeds people. She teases Carter about his ego in front of guests, which Olivia enjoys more than she admits. Carter's dad is steadier, proud without gushing. Jennie is sharp and funny, protective of her brother but quick to side with Olivia when Carter acts dense. Family dinners sprawl. People talk over each other. Plates get passed. Someone's phone rings with a team group chat blowing up.

Olivia's side adds balance. Her parents care but do not hover. Her brother jokes with Carter in a testing way, the way brothers do when a famous guy dates their sister. Her students pop up in stories she tells at dinner, and Carter remembers their names, which earns him points. Those small crossings, hockey world meeting school world, give the romance weight. Dates turn into merged calendars, negotiated holidays, friends learning each other.

Humor holds all of this together. Mack relies on banter, group chats, nicknames, teasing about height differences, teasing about Carter's vanity, teasing about Olivia's stubborn streak. Ollie as a nickname gets used a lot. Sometimes it charmed me. Sometimes I tired of hearing it every few pages, the way a song chorus wears out. Still, the jokes land more often than they miss, and they make the sadder moments hit harder because you have seen these people happy together.

By the final stretch, the series frame is clear. This is book one of five, and Mack wants you invested in the whole roster. A wedding for friends becomes a gathering point. Old tensions ease. New couples flicker at the edges. Carter proposes to Olivia and she says yes, which closes their arc while leaving the door open for the next books. I saw it coming from miles away and still felt pleased, because the proposal fits Carter. Public, confident, a little showy, but with a private promise underneath that felt true to what they learned.

What worked for me and what dragged

Let me be direct about the strengths. The voices are distinct. Carter sounds like Carter, all confidence and jokes and sudden sincerity. Olivia sounds like Olivia, practical and quick. Their texts and fights do not blur together. The friend group feels real enough that I remembered who was who without a chart. The hockey details stay light but present, with travel and soreness and playoff pressure shaping choices instead of decorating them. And the emotional idea is solid. A man who never had to earn attention learns to earn trust. A woman who expects to be disappointed learns to ask for clarity instead of assuming the worst.

Now the fair criticism, because length matters here.

At around 460 pages, this book repeats itself. The same argument happens more than once with slightly different words. Carter proves himself, Olivia doubts, Carter proves again. After the second cycle, I got the point and wanted the plot to move. A tighter edit could have cut fifty pages without losing heart. Readers who love long romances with lots of couple time will not mind. Readers who want lean pacing will feel the drag in the middle third.

The spice level will also divide people. It is frequent, detailed, and enthusiastic. Early on it builds their bond. Later it crowds out conversations I wanted more of, like Olivia's teaching life and Carter's fears about aging out of the sport. If explicit scenes are not your thing, you will be skipping chunks. If they are, you will feel well served.

Some cheese is baked in. Carter says and does things no real twenty something athlete would say so smoothly. He gives speeches about feelings that sound rehearsed. Olivia forgives faster than I would after certain headlines. Side characters sometimes act as cheerleaders rather than people with their own problems. I rolled my eyes a few times, then kept reading because the affection among them felt genuine even when the dialogue went glossy.

Who should pick it up. If you like contemporary sports romance with humor, a big friend circle, and a devoted hero who grovels, start here. If you liked Icebreaker by Hannah Grace for the college hockey vibe but want older characters with jobs and apartments, this bridges that gap. If you need short books, low heat, or sharp social commentary, look elsewhere. This is comfort reading with abs and jokes, and it knows what it is.

I finished it tired in the best way, like after a long dinner with loud friends. A few days later, I still thought about the porch scene and the bleachers and the group chat jokes. I also thought the middle could have been shorter. Both things can be true. For a series opener, it did its job. I want to know what happens to Garrett and Jennie next, and I am rooting for Olivia and Carter even while I tease them. If you try it, give it past chapter five. That is when Olivia stops blocking Carter at every turn and starts seeing him clearly, and the book finds its pulse.

FAQ

When was Consider Me published?

First published in 2022 in a self-published edition by Becka Mack. The paperback cited here runs about 460 pages with ISBN 9781778133008.

Is Consider Me part of a series?

Yes. It is book 1 in the Playing for Keeps series, followed by stories for Garrett, Adam, Jaxon, and others in the same hockey circle.

Who are the main characters?

Carter Beckett, an NHL star with a playboy reputation, and Olivia Parker, a high school phys ed teacher who resists him before slowly trusting him.