The Score

by Elle Kennedy

4 out of 5 stars

Three books into the Off-Campus series, and I thought I knew the formula. Dean Di Laurentis seemed like its riskiest test case: the designated ladies’ man of the Briar hockey team, all flash and trust fund and zero apparent depth. The pleasant surprise of The Score is that Kennedy knows exactly how thin that persona is, and spends the whole book gleefully dismantling it.

The setup is a rebound gone sideways. Allie Hayes: aspiring actress, longtime girlfriend of a guy who never quite deserved her, is freshly single, graduating in a few months, and thoroughly uninterested in becoming another notch for Briar’s king of one-night stands. One reckless night with Dean was supposed to stay one night. Dean, who has never once had to chase a woman, suddenly finds himself on the wrong end of “let’s just be friends,” and his bewildered, escalating campaign to change her mind is some of the funniest material Kennedy has written in this series.

What worked for me is how much both leads get to want things beyond each other. Allie’s career anxiety feels real. The auditions, the pressure to take the safe path, the pull of an ex who mistakes persistence for love, and she never loses her spine just because the romance heats up. Dean, meanwhile, gets the most interesting arc of the three heroes so far. Where Garrett was steady and Logan was guilty, Dean is hiding, using charm the way other people use armor; and when the book finally lets you see what’s underneath, it lands hard. There’s a stretch in the back half where he’s forced to figure out who he is when nobody’s laughing at his jokes, and Kennedy writes it with a seriousness it deserves.

My reservations are small but real. The banter occasionally tips from delicious into exhausting. Dean at full wattage is a lot, and a few chapters test how much cocky-golden-retriever energy one reader can absorb. And the conflict engine relies on a late emotional swerve that feels slightly abrupt in the moment, even if the fallout is handled beautifully.

If you’ve liked this series at all, The Score is an easy recommendation. Funnier than The Deal, lighter on angst than The Mistake, and warmer than a book about a friends-with-benefits arrangement has any right to be. Four enthusiastic stars, and yes, I’ll be finishing the series.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5)

Tropes/Themes: Friends with benefits, sports romance, playboy with hidden depths, college romance, heroine with career ambitions, humor with a soft center

Tea Pairing: Golden tipped Assam with honey. Showy and bold up front, surprisingly smooth underneath

Song Pairing: “Late Night Talking” by Harry Styles — flirtation that keeps circling back until it turns into something real

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