Trick Play might be one of my favourites from the series. Though, all are my favourites becasue I just adore all the characters and feel all the emotions in the stories. Matt and Noah's story is a classic Fake Boyfreind trope with a realtionship set up to clear Matt's bad rep after he was forced out of the closet by an unfortunate photo in a gay club. Noah is volunteered to be his happy boyfriend for a few months to clear his image and get Matt a contract after he was let loose from his previous team. Matt's stroy is first mentioned in Fake Out when he's introduced as Maddox's ex-roommate who he fooled around with in freshman year. And he appears for a little while when Maddox goes to be his friend after his story broke and introduces him to Damon to get a new manager for him. Noah also appears in the first book as Damon's close friend and an entitled, rich guy. Noah enters the fake realtionship out of spite for his father while Matt agrees to save his football career. They are NOT fond of each other at the beginning as Matt is angry and sad because of his situation while Noah is his usual obnoxious, easygoing and rudely honest self. But while they get to know each other and see behind the walls the other's created to protect them form heartache and failure they slowly fall for each other. They also have scorching hot chemistry from the beginning so that helps too. Yes, the romance is great in this one as expected but it also deals with some serious topics in politics and the sport industry. Matt is let go from his team because of the nature of his coming out but also probably the fact that he's gay. (Not representing real circumstances in the NFL today). His pushed into the limelight as the first out NFL player and his lovelife is in the news for everyone to see. He's also from a southern, very conservative and not accepting at all family who he still tries to help even after he was basically disowned and thrown out. His story is very sad but we can learn a lot about strength and goodness from it. Noah, who everyone sees as a rich, entitled d*ckhead, is hiding behind thick and tall walls of self-preservation to protect his heart from being broken again by people who love his money, his reputation and his connections more than him. It really shows in the story that being born on the right side of money is not always easy and there are lots of pain and manipulation behind. It was really sweet how Matt slowly broke down his walls and sneaked into his heart. The amount of angst was perfect, the sweetness and hotness was in right proportions and the love was off the charts. I adore this series because all the books in it is so intertwined that our favourites from the other books pop up from time to time, and we also get introduced to future main characters early on. This series and this book is just perfection for me.