The Score

What's inside (6 sections)

1. Fun with terms
2. Close rooms and constant texting
3. Fathers and futures
4. Heat and humor that hold up
5. Key takeaways
6. FAQ

I picked up The Score because friends said Dean was the funniest Briar man. The 384 page Bloom Books paperback, published January 11, 2016, ISBN 9781775293958, third in Off-Campus after The Mistake, follows Dean Di Laurentis and Allie Hayes. I read it in two evenings with much underlining of jokes. It is lighter than The Deal, hotter than most, and kinder about grief than I expected from a playboy book.

Allie Hayes is ending things. Longtime boyfriend Sean wants a break that looks like an exit. Graduation looms with no job plan. Her best friend Hannah, now with Garrett, offers couches and pep talks. Allie decides a rebound will reset her. One night, no names beyond first, no future. She picks Dean, Briar hockey star, known for charm, abs, and never calling back. He agrees happily. Then morning comes and she wants friendship instead of repeats. He hears a challenge.

Dean Di Laurentis is rich, funny, and tired of being only fun. He drinks, jokes, beds women with consent and condoms and morning humor. Underneath he carries a strange home. A father who pays but does not see. A mother who loves but drinks. An older path he avoided by playing hockey. He pursues Allie with texts, rides, and over the top gestures that she rejects half the time. She sets rules. Public only. No sleepovers. No meeting parents. He breaks rules by being useful rather than flashy. He drives her to interviews. He fixes her car. He remembers her dad's surgery date.

You should know where I came from with this series. I liked The Deal for heart, liked The Mistake for sweetness, but I braced for Dean to be too much. You know the type. Loud in the bar, loud in the locker room, loud on the page. He is loud here too, at first. Then Kennedy lets him go quiet in small beats and I found myself rooting for him by page fifty. Allie helped. She is prickly in a real way, not a cute way. She shuts doors fast when she feels exposed. Watching those two trade control back and forth felt like watching friends figure it out in real time.

Fun with terms

Their deal is loose. Hang out, no labels, end when summer starts. Allie needs space to decide about grad school and acting. Dean needs someone who laughs at him and calls out his act. Early dates are comedy. Mini golf where Dean cheats badly. A bar where Allie out drinks him and regrets it. A study session where neither studies. Kennedy writes banter fast. Texts with terrible puns. Nicknames that stick. I laughed at a hockey workout scene where Allie tries to keep up and fails loudly while Dean pretends not to notice.

Sex comes early and often, explicit and negotiated. Condoms used. Birth control named. enthusiastic yes checked in clear words. Allie, fresh from a dull bedroom, learns what she likes and says so. Dean, used to pleasing without asking, learns to ask and wait. Those details keep the heat from feeling empty. Power gaps get named too. Dean has money, a car, a name on campus. Allie has less cash and more pride. She pays when she can. He covers without show when she cannot. Friends call out imbalance when jokes cover it.

Hannah and Garrett return as the steady couple. Hannah hires Allie for small jobs, lends clothes, tells her when she is hiding behind busy. Garrett teases Dean into honesty with locker room talks that are blunt rather than cruel. Logan and Grace, from book two, appear with baby talk and new parent exhaustion that grounds the campus bubble. Those cameos reward series readers without blocking new ones. You can start here; Kennedy recaps who dates whom in two lines.

Allie's family adds weight. Her father needs surgery and hides fear with jokes. Her mother fusses. Money is tight in ways Dean's family never felt. Allie considers skipping auditions to work full time. Dean wants to pay and learns not to offer too fast. He drives her home for the hospital, waits in halls, brings food for nurses. That waiting, boring and kind, does more for their bond than any goal he scores.

What I liked most about their so called arrangement is how quickly it stops working. Allie says casual, then texts him about a bad audition before she texts Hannah. Dean says casual, then saves her takeout order. They keep saying no strings while adding strings everywhere. They try to set a schedule for hookups like study hours and both start laughing. I dog eared that page.

Friends notice before they do. Hannah gives Allie that look. You know the one. The best friend look that says keep lying if you need to, I will be here when you stop. Garrett does the same to Dean in the locker room, with more swearing and less patience. He basically tells Dean to stop collecting stories and start telling the truth. Dean deflects, as always, with a joke about Garrett going soft. But he hears it. You can tell because he goes quiet for a beat longer than usual, then changes the subject a little too fast.

Close rooms and constant texting

A lot of this book lives in borrowed spaces. Couches. Cars. Hallways before practice. Hannah and Garrett's apartment becomes base camp. Allie crashes there when her room feels too loud with thoughts about Sean and about what comes after May. Dean shows up with food and bad jokes and stays a little too long on purpose. I loved those crowded kitchen scenes. Someone always cooking pasta wrong. Someone stealing fries. Allie trying to run lines while guys argue about hockey drills in the background. It feels college true, where privacy is rare and closeness sneaks up while you fight over the last slice.

The texting thread deserves its own praise. Kennedy uses texts the way real twenty somethings use them. Flirty. Checking in. Annoying at midnight. Sweet without trying to be poetry. Dean sends memes after Allie bombs an interview. Allie sends a photo of a terrible parking job when she needs him to laugh during a long drive. They argue by text once and both hate it, then agree to call instead when it matters. That small rule told me more about their growth than any big speech. They learn to pick voice over screen when feelings run high.

Living near each other forces the consent and care talks to stay ongoing, not one time. Allie says what hurts from her past relationship. Sean did not listen in bed and did not ask outside it. She does not want pity about that, she wants practice saying yes and no clearly. Dean listens without fixing his face into sad sympathy. He asks what works. He remembers. He checks again later when they try something new. That back and forth made their steamier scenes feel safe to read. Hot, yes. Rushed, no.

There is also money friction in daily life that rang true. Dean fills her tank without asking. Allie gets stiff about it. She spent years splitting bills with Sean down to the dollar and pride gets tangled. They fight about a dinner bill once in a way that feels silly and big at once. He learns to ask, can I get this, instead of grabbing the check. She learns to say yes sometimes without keeping score. Kennedy nails the tone. No lectures. Just two people learning how to let help feel kind.

I cackled at the roommate rules list.

Allie tapes a mock contract to Hannah's fridge about Dean. No shirtless protein shake making after ten. No singing in the shower. No stealing her audition heels for jokes. Dean adds his own clauses in marker. He breaks all of them within days, but he also starts doing dishes without being asked and drives Hannah to an early shift when Garrett has practice. That is his pattern. Loud promise, messy follow through, then quiet repair that counts more. By midbook the apartment feels like four people sharing socks and chargers and worries about rent and grades and tryouts. It made the romance feel rooted, not floating above campus life.

Fathers and futures

Dean's father is the late reveal that reframes comedy. A rich man who treats Dean as accessory. Phone calls about image. No questions about pain. Dean's humor turns out to be armor learned young. Allie sees it first at a family dinner where Dean performs and no one asks about his grades or bruises. She holds his hand under the table and does not comment after. Later, when Dean drinks too much after a loss and a call from home, Allie sets a line. Fun does not mean careless. Get help or lose her. He chooses counseling and fewer nights out. The book treats that choice as start, not cure.

Allie's career wobble feels true to senior spring. She acted in school shows, loved it, fears it as a plan. Friends say follow passion. Parents say find pay. She tempers, waitresses, auditions badly once, nails one later for a touring company with small pay. Dean does not rescue with connections, though he could. He runs lines, drives to tryouts, sits in back. When she gets a ensemble offer that pays little and moves her away, they must decide about distance. No easy fix. They talk about schedules, money, and what monogamy means on tour. The answers are provisional, which I liked. Twenty two year olds should not solve everything by June.

Dean's mother got to me more on reread. She is warm and scattered and drinks too much at the wrong times. Dean loves her fiercely and covers for her without thinking. He pours out wine when no one looks. He steers her away from toasts. Allie does not push him to label what is happening at first. She just stays near. Later she asks gentle questions about what home felt like at sixteen. He answers in short bursts, then jokes, then goes quiet.

That talk about help felt honest too. Allie does not phrase it as fix yourself or else. She says I like you sober and present, and I will not watch you blur out to dodge your dad. Dean bristles. Of course he does. Then he shows up a few days later having called the campus counseling center and asks Allie to drive him because he is nervous to go alone. I loved that ask. Big strong hockey guy admitting nerves in a parked car. Allie does not make it a moment. She just puts on his hype playlist and walks him to the door. Small kindness, huge trust.

Allie's dad and his surgery bring a parallel pressure. He is funny and scared and trying not to load his fear onto his daughter. Allie feels guilty for caring about auditions while her dad waits for a hospital date. Dean sits with her while she calls home. He offers his car for the drive without making it a grand gesture. When he slips and offers money too quickly, Allie snaps, and they have to repair. He apologizes cleanly. That repair scene sold me on them as adults in training.

Heat and humor that hold up

Let me talk about the jokes, because Dean carries this book on timing. Some lines are bro humor that made me roll my eyes. Many others landed hard enough that I read them aloud to my partner. His inner voice in his point of view chapters is self aware in a way his public voice is not. In public he performs. Alone on the page he admits he is scared of ending up hollow like his father. That split keeps him from becoming a cartoon. Allie's humor is drier. Lists. Sarcastic asides. Comebacks she thinks of an hour later and texts anyway. Together they ping pong fast. I marked at least a dozen exchanges I want to reread when I need a lift.

The steam holds up too because aftercare is part of it. Water offered. Blankets pulled up. Sore muscles checked. Laughing about a position that did not work. Asking if something felt good without fishing for praise. Those soft minutes after heat tell you who these people are. Dean, who once left quickly with a grin, now stays and talks about nothing. Allie, who once stayed quiet to keep peace, now says louder, slower, again. Friends, that growth is sexy in its own right. It shows trust building in the body, not only in dialogue.

Rereading helped me catch setup I missed the first time. Early throwaway lines about Dean avoiding his hometown return later with weight. Early jokes about Allie hating phone calls return when she starts calling Dean nightly on tour prep. Even Logan's sleep deprived dad jokes foreshadow the theme. Everyone performing ease while tired to the bone. On second pass the 384 pages felt tight rather than long. Scenes I thought were filler, like a long drive with bad radio and gas station snacks, turned out to be where they tell the truth because eye contact is easier when you both face the road.

Who will love this most. Readers who want banter with heart and steam with checking in. Readers who liked Garrett's loyalty in book one but wanted more chaos. If you need a slow burn with no explicit scenes, this is not that. If you need a hero who starts healed, Dean is not that either. He starts funny and finishes still funny but more responsible. That arc felt enough for book three of Off-Campus.

The third act uses an ex and an injury. Sean returns with apologies timed to Allie's success. Dean gets checked hard and misses games. Jealousy flares. Allie handles Sean plainly. Thanks, no. Dean handles injury by resting, a growth for a player who played hurt to prove worth. Their reunion is public but not grand. A rink talk after hours, no crowd, no kiss cam. Promises about calls and visits, not forever. Kennedy trusts readers to believe in steady over spectacle.

What works is voice and heat with aftercare. Dean narrates some chapters, and his voice is distinct from Allie's. Jokes, deflection, then sudden plain sentences when it matters. Allie narrates with lists and nerves that settle as she acts. At 384 pages the pace never stalls. Campus, rink, hospital, road trip rotate. Consent and humor coexist without lectures.

What drags is formula. Playboy tamed by good girl, rich boy learns real life, third act split for growth. If you read The Deal and The Mistake back to back, beats will echo. Dean's father is sketched fast. Allie's acting path resolves neatly with an offer that fits plot timing. Side conflicts, like a teammate's drinking, appear and vanish. Readers wanting new structures should adjust. This is comfort with better jokes.

Content notes. Explicit consensual sex with contraception. Strong language. Alcohol use, including binge drinking at parties. Past parental neglect and a mother's drinking. Sports injuries described briefly. No assault as romance. Breakup grief handled lightly but present.

How to read in series. Read The Deal first for Hannah and Garrett, The Mistake second for Logan. You can start here; Allie is new enough. After, go to The Goal for Tucker and Sabrina. The Briar U spin off continues the world if you want more hockey.

I closed the Bloom paperback liking Dean more than I expected to. Not because he scores, on ice or off, but because he learns to sit still. Hospital chairs. Late drives without music. Early mornings after choosing water. Allie learns to ask for spotlight without apology. Audition, take the small part, tour if it feeds. Their last scene, packing a car with snacks and playlists for a summer of distance, felt honest. Love as logistics with jokes. Call nightly. Text the boring parts. Meet when possible. No one saved. Both showed up ready to try adult things badly at first. For a book titled The Score, winning turns out to be the least interesting part, and that is why it works.

FAQ

When was The Score published?

It was published January 11, 2016 by Bloom Books. The paperback runs 384 pages with ISBN 9781775293958.

What is it about?

Allie Hayes rebounds with hockey star Dean Di Laurentis after her long relationship ends, then must decide if fun can turn steady.

Is it part of a series?

Yes. It is book three of Off-Campus, after The Mistake, following Dean with Hannah and Garrett returning as friends.