Playing His Game

Playing His Game begins years before the main romance, when fifteen-year-old Moritz “Mo” Du Pont meets eighteen-year-old Adam Murphy at the NHL draft. Adam has just become the first openly gay man drafted into the league, selected fifth overall by the Arizona Canyons, the team owned by Mo’s wealthy parents, Orson and Claire. Mo dislikes Adam’s carefully controlled public image, while Adam finds Mo’s loud, campy personality irritating. Years later, after Adam has become Canyons captain, they meet outside a bar on Mo’s birthday. Drunk, Mo stumbles into Adam, and a bystander records a video that makes the encounter look intimate or possibly violent. Adam takes him safely home. The video spreads online. At a meeting with Mo’s parents and PR manager Audrey, Mo panics and claims he and Adam are dating. Adam supports the lie because it gives an innocent explanation for the video and protects the team’s image. They invent a dating timeline and begin staged public appearances. At an animal shelter, Mo shows a softer side with kittens, but he misreads Adam’s discomfort with public affection as…