Professionally: college professor, counselor, boring.
Personally: whiskey drinking, rock and roll lovin, gluttonous reader with a foul mouth and a dirty mind.
Antonella "Nell" Bennett is having the worst day of her
life.
Long-term boyfriend broke up with her? Check.
Drove through the pouring rain to a small roadside restaurant, only to be told
all the tables were reserved for "Couples Night"? Check.
Definitely no longer one half of a couple? Check.
So maybe she got a little heated with the restaurant's host, and maybe her
voice carried a bit as she lamented--loudly--that she's never anyone's
"plus-one." At least an attractive stranger comes to her rescue,
inviting her to be seated with him, and when it turns out to be one of the best
nights she's had in a while, even ending in an innocent kiss that becomes
anything but? Check please.
Fast forward a week, and Nell's rant has gone viral. Sure, her tiny hometown of
Arbor Bay is collectively buzzing over their latest Internet celebrity, but
Nell's no stranger to attention. Drama seems to follow her whether she likes it
or not.
But even she never expected to show up to work only to discover her brand-new
boss is a very familiar face...
Anne Harper
writes romantic comedy that embodies the shenanigans of an I Love Lucy episode
and the awkwardness of saying "you too" after the waiter tells you to
enjoy your meal. She lives in South Alabama with her husband, their four cats,
and a humidity that threatens to destroy them all. Anne is an advocate for
coffee, selfies, and adoption from foster care. When she isn't dreaming about
meeting her future kiddos, she's getting herself into wild situations and
hilarious misunderstandings. #ItsFine
Hearing the disbelief from my best friend's mouth makes the events of my failed date sting that much more.
I would like to make it known, I have a lot more swagger than what it seems. I don't normally ask a girl out, have her fail to recognize it's a date, and then give me a high five--as if I'm her wingman--and take off with someone else.
No. Normally I'm the one taking the girl home but with Stella, it's been one failed attempt after another and frankly, I'm done trying.
But thanks to my best friend getting married in Hawaii right before the school year starts, I'm stuck on a tropical island, watching Stella parade around in what she claims is a bathing suit.
Now I'm navigating through purgatory while trying not to get turned on by the way she holds my hand or kisses my jaw. It's all fake, that's what I keep telling myself, even though it feels entirely too real.
EXCERPT:
“Do you want to sit next to Stella on the airplane?” Arlo asks.
“What? Fuck, no,” I say while turning up the game so I can hear the announcers over my tedious, wedding-planning best friend.
Arlo snatches the remote from my hand and turns off the TV. The room is silent for a moment before uproarious objections fill the air.
“Gentry is up next,” Gunner, my other best friend and former teammate, complains from next to me. “He’s three for three so far.”
I reach for the remote but he swats my hand with a resounding thud, causing me to yank my hand back. “What the actual fuck, man?”
When I decided to have the guys over to my loft, I assumed we’d tear up some wings, drain some brews, and watch the Bobbies game. Never in my wildest fucking dreams would I have pictured Arlo Turner, the grumpy curmudgeon of the Forest Heights English department, to roll in like a beaming bride, holding a wedding planning folder to his chest, and consume the night with questions about what he should wear and if coconut cake is too “Hawaiian-y” for his Maui destination wedding.
But here we are.
“Cut the crap, Romeo.”
“Cut what crap?” I reach over to the coffee table and pick up my almost empty glass of beer.
“I’m not about to have the Bickersons attend my wedding, so what the hell is going on with Stella?”
“Nothing is going on,” I answer, then take a small sip of my beer, making the liquid last so I don’t have to get up for a refill.
Gunner leans in and asks, “If we get to the bottom of the problem, can we turn the TV back on?”
“Yes,” Arlo answers.
“Then it was the baseball game he took her to.”
“Dude,” I say in protest while sitting up on the couch. “What the fuck happened to don’t say anything?”
Gunner unapologetically shrugs. “I really want to watch the Bobbies kill the Rebels in interleague play.”
“What baseball game?” Arlo asks. “Do you mean the game you took her and Cora to?”
“Yup.” Gunner pops a chip in his mouth from the bowl on the coffee table. “Except Cora wasn’t supposed to go. It was supposed to be a daaate,” Gunner drags out.
“You asked Stella out?” Arlo asks, shocked.
“Way to sell me out for a game, you dick.”
Not showing an ounce of remorse, Gunner stands from the couch and takes my glass from me.
“I’ll top you off. You’ll need it.”
Seething, I pass my hand over my head and say, “Yeah, I asked her out. She invited Cora. End of story.”
“That’s not the end of the story,” Gunner says from the kitchen, the open concept of my loft allowing his voice to carry to us easily.
When you think a friend is trustworthy and then they go and shock your fucking nuts right off by divulging everything you told them in secret . . . without even a blink of an eye. Gunner is dead to me.
You’re probably wondering why I didn’t say anything to Arlo about what happened, given he’s one of my best friends, right? It’s simple. Gunner got me drunk and I relished in the comfort of far too many cold beers and a listening ear. If it wasn’t for that, I’d have kept my mouth shut, because the entire incident was fucking humiliating.
Between you and me, I’ve liked Stella Garcia, the Spanish teacher at Forest Heights, for a while now. Far too long actually. I can’t quite pinpoint when it happened, but all I know is over the three years I’ve known her, I’ve been pining after the girl for the majority of the time.
Fucking bold, quick-witted with a sharp tongue, loves sports, shy when it counts. Flat-out gorgeous with her long, wavy brown hair and fascinating green eyes that have a ring of brown around the pupil. She’s had my attention for a while and last year, I decided to finally make a move.
Enough was enough. We shared too many dinners together as friends. She’s pressed her lips to my beer glass without a second thought way too many times. The moment presented itself, I grew a pair, and asked her out to a baseball game knowing she loves watching the sport as much as I do.
But fuck did it backfire.
“What’s the end of the story?” Arlo asks, growing agitated. His patience runs thin, which is surprising, given his profession of educating the youth.
He’s not going to drop it.
Arlo’s relentless when he wants to know something.
Dragging my hand down my face, I say, “It was supposed to be a date.” Gunner sits next to me and hands me my refilled glass, which I gladly take. “She invited Cora. Which was fine. We had a good time, I still sat next to Stella, and we shared jokes even if there was a third wheel. But it was what happened afterwards that—”
“That gutted him,” Gunner finishes for me. When I snap a look at him, he smirks. “That’s what you told me. Just thought I’d help tell the story.”
“I wasn’t gutted.”
Maybe I was a little.
Hell . . . I was humiliated.
Gutted isn’t a strong enough word for what happened.
“What the fuck happened after? Christ. Why are you taking so damn long to get to the point?” Arlo practically growls.
“Go easy on our guy.” Gunner grips my shoulder. “He was embarrassed, man.”
“It’s fine, I’m over it now,” I say in a passive-aggressive tone.
“You’re clearly not if you and Stella can’t even be in the same room together. I don’t want anything ruining this trip for Greer, and your constant arguing with Stella is driving everyone fucking crazy.”
“Great, then I just won’t talk to her. Simple.”
“Just tell him,” Gunner says, nudging me.
Christ.
Staring down at my beer, I quietly say, “She went home with someone else that night.”
The room falls silent.
They don’t have to react for me to know what they must be thinking. They know I’ve liked Stella for a while. They know I’ve been trying to figure out a way to ask her out.
And this . . . hell, this was an epic fail on my end.
It wouldn’t be as bad if I weren’t already carrying a chip on my shoulder about the way I was forced to twist my life around.
Five years ago, everything changed.
Five years ago, I was stripped of the one thing that brought me life.
A ruptured Achilles tendon ended everything for me.
I never got the chance to appreciate my last game.
I never had the opportunity to sit on the field and say goodbye.
Instead, playing professional baseball was stripped from me and I was forced to fall back on my teaching degree I earned while playing in college.
To say I’m bitter, resentful, and fucking angry . . . yeah, that’s an understatement.
I live with regret daily and harbor more animosity than anyone should.
So, when I took Stella to the game, on a date, hoping to tell her how I feel, and she went home with someone else, it fucking stung.
Do you know what stung more, though?
The fact that she looked right past me and instead went for a rookie on the Bobbies.
Why go out with a washed-up baseball player turned phys ed teacher with a slight limp in his walk, when you can go out with an unmarred professional baseball player?
Yeah. There’s resentment for a reason. She chose the star. That’s who she wants.
That’s who I’ll never be.
And that’s why I plan on staying as far away from Stella Garcia on this trip as I can.
And when we get back to Chicago and the school year starts, everything will go on as planned.
Chasing Romeo, an all-new opposites-attract standalone romantic comedy from author Sarah Ready is coming May 25th and we have the incredible cover!
A laugh out loud, soul mate chasing rom-com romp, Sarah Ready’s Chasing Romeo is a perfect feel-good novel about finding love where you least expect it.
Chloe Daniels is a starry-eyed romantic who believes in true love, soul mates and happily ever afters. So when a psychic predicts the identity of her soul mate Chloe will do anything to find him.
But there’s a tiny problem.
Chloe’s soul mate is 1 of 7 men, spread across the U.S. and she has only one week to reach him.
Out of desperation she hires Nick O’Shea, a cynical private investigator who thinks soul mates, love and happily ever afters are a load of crap.
Chloe and Nick have nothing in common. She wants her soul mate. He wants to get paid.
But on their crazy, true love chasing road trip across the U.S. Nick starts to wonder if maybe he was wrong about love, and Chloe starts to wonder if she was wrong about the identity of her Romeo.
Soon, Chloe will have to choose between her soul mate and the man she hired to find him.
Opposites attract in the first book of a heartwarming new series by romance author Sarah Ready.
Pre-order your copy today! Amazon: https://amzn.to/3msWNsM Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/ChasingRomeo Nook: https://bit.ly/3cOkoAH Apple Books: https://apple.co/3cMHuaZ Kobo: https://bit.ly/3fHCd6p
Add Chasing Romeo to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3mlYqZh
Graphic Designer: Elizabeth Turner Stokes
About Sarah Ready Author Sarah Ready writes contemporary romance and romantic comedy. Her books have been described as “euphoric”, “heartwarming” and “laugh out loud”. Her debut novel The Fall in Love Checklist was hailed as “the unicorn read of 2020”. She loves to write fast-paced, emotionally compelling romances about quirky, smart women and the men who love them.
Before writing romance full-time Sarah had lots of fun teaching at an Ivy League. Then she realized she could have even more fun writing romance. Her favorite things after writing are adventuring and travel. You’ll frequently find her using her degree at a dino dig site, crawling into a cave, snorkeling, or on horseback riding through the jungle – all fodder for her next book. She’s lived in Scotland, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland and NYC. She currently lives in the Caribbean with her water-obsessed pup and her awesome family. You can visit her online at www.sarahready.com
Connect with Sarah Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PVEe4j Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3wt7D6B BookBub: https://bit.ly/3wtATKA Website: http://sarahready.com/ Stay up to date with all the things and subscribe to Sarah’s mailing list: https://bit.ly/3sWxUbe
No man has ever been able to
rattle Isabel Ward. Until Aiden Hennessy walks in the door of her gym—ownership
papers in hand.
The former fighter is a lot of
things- a devoted single dad, a widower trying to start over, and a watchful
presence that knocks her off her very capable feet.
To make matters worse, Isabel had
a crush on him for the entirety of her teenage years. Doodles in her diary, and
letters declaring her admiration—while never sent—haunt the absolute crap out
of her now that she has to face him every single day.
She’s not the only one
affected.
No woman has tempted Aiden to move
on from the memory of his wife—until Isabel. But she’s too young, too feisty,
too much of everything he should avoid.
Working together makes avoidance
impossible, and so is pretending like the blistering chemistry between them
doesn’t exist.
Now that the unshakeable woman is
shaken and the un-temptable man is tempted, Isabel and Aiden have to decide
what they’re willing to risk for a taste of the forbidden.
Well, let’s see ... I’m a
wife and a mother. If the things that I write bring a smile to someone's face,
then I've done my job. I am obsessed with Outlander (both the books and
the show). I’m almost exclusively a romance reader, which means some people
will never consider me a literary snob. If I could meet one historical figure,
it would be Jane Austen. I received my Bachelors in Public Relations and worked
in health care marketing before I had my babies. I hate Twitter. I do it, but I
hate it. Also, if you want to get on my good side, bring me wine and I'll love
you forever.
