4 stars
OVERALL: A quick, easy read full of sexy times and rivals to lovers. Jay was a great guy and I liked that Kayla held her own and was a strong powerful athlete. Also loved the way Jay treated Kayla in bed!
Content warnings: sexually explicit scenes, adult language, mentioned infertility and child death

This is a sports romance that is taking place between a guy who goes to Michigan University and a gal who goes to Ohio State University, two real-life schools that have a legit rivalry in the region. I grew up in Ohio, (in the northeast, so this rivalry wasn't really a thing) and have spent a lot of time in central Ohio, where this rivalry very much IS a serious thing, and where love for Ohio State is a legit obsession. I have actually, multiple times in my life, been asked 'blue or scarlet?' by COMPLETE STRANGERS. (I actually did a summer internship in Toledo, a town in OH midway between these two schools, and it was nuts how many people told me I had to declare a side, so they knew where I stood...??? It was like, almost a safety concern at times...)
Anyway, the point of all that is to say that this rivalry does exist, and the scenes where our characters were in the respective 'opposing' bars and are yelled at, that is actually something you'd find/hear in this region of the country.
And so, I thought the way this was handled in the book was pretty realistic and decent! I mean, I was a bit surprised when Kayla's mom was so rude to Jay when they first met, but also, I wasn't surprised, because that's just the expected treatment of 'the enemy'... And I think that the population is split into people who don't care and people who care wayyy too much.

Overall, this was a fun and quick and steamy sports romance featuring two student athletes. I really appreciated the handling of Kayla's cheerleading as a sport/athletically significant. There weren't any moments of belittling her because she's a cheerleader.
I did feel like I wanted more between our characters? The wedding was cute, and a good start and a little bit of connection. But after that, the bulk of what we saw on page was physical chemistry. That was hot, and I liked it for sure, but most of the mentions of further 'getting to know you' were brief "and we spoke on the phone a lot and texted daily". This is where the book lost a star from me--I need that emotional development to happen.
I will say the sex was hot (imho) and I really loved the discussions about Kayla needing a little more 'work' to get to completion, and how Jay was like "sounds good, let's do this together" totally supportive and determined--was super attractive.
I did appreciate that Kayla was willing at the end to make a sacrifice because she'd realized the depth of her feelings for Jay. I would have liked for him to also make a sacrifice, but she really needed to make up for the fact that she lied to her parents about him.
Also, what was the point of Jay having a dead older brother? It was brought up and then... dropped? Was it just to bring him a little sympathy, this brother he never knew?

I'd have punched that Lisa cheerleader, I admired Kayla's restraint there, haha.
Want to read more by Nikki Sloane--though I think a lot of her other books are much darker in content/tone...

Epilogue was super cutesy, but brought it back around to parallel the prologue.
I read 3/4 of this book very quickly to try to finish it before it was due back to the library.

I've been a fan of Nikki's books since her days of writing the Blindfold series. This has to be her best yet! It's so different from the Blindfold series but the NA fan in me loves how she wrote the story and the characters. I didn't think Nikki could write a good NA suited for me, and boy did she prove me wrong. This is a definite oneclick folks. 

Having grown up in Central Ohio, the OSU/UM Rivalry is well known and OSU football is a religion. This book captures that perfectly and then some.