Noah Brooks has spent three years being the guy who comes off the bench.
Not because he isn't good enough. Because it's safer that way. If you're not the first choice, you can't really lose anything. You just wait, make the right read, pass to someone else, and go home.
It works on the court. It's been working with Maddie Cruz too.
Maddie works the counter at the Howling Wolf Diner four nights a week, knows how to read a room, and learned a long time ago not to wait on people who don't know how to show up. When Noah waved from the doorway one too many times, she stopped waiting. Simple.
Except nothing about Noah Brooks is actually simple, and nothing about Maddie Cruz is easy to walk away from.
It's senior year. The Kingswood Wolves are three losses deep against Sterling and the conference tournament is on the line. Noah's father has reappeared with questions that don't have clean answers. And somewhere between the soup of the day and a jukebox that only works if you know exactly where to hit it, Noah is running out of ways to be the sixth man in his own life.
First choice means something. In basketball. In everything else.
He just has to decide if he's ready to be it.

Sixth Man, First Choice is Book 2 of the Kingswood University Series , a college sports romance for readers who like their feelings earned and their banter real.