by Ann Aguirre
Nadia Conrad has big dreams, and she's determined to make them come true—for her parents' sake as well as her own. But between maintaining her college scholarship and working at the local day care to support herself, she barely has time to think, let alone date. Then she moves into a new apartment and meets the taciturn yet irresistible guy in 1B….
Daniel Tyler has grown up too fast. Becoming a single dad at twenty turned his life upside down—and brought him heartache he can't risk again. Now, as he raises his four-year-old son while balancing a full-time construction management job and night classes, a social life is out of the question. The last thing he wants is for four noisy students to move into the apartment upstairs. But one night, Nadia's and Ty's paths cross, and soon they can't stay away from each other.
The timing is all wrong—but love happens when it happens. And you can't know what you truly need until you stand to lose it
Excerpt:
after
There’s always a meet-cute, right?
The girl trips and the boy catches her, they’re stuck together on an elevator, or she leaves her phone behind in a bar and he returns it to her. Later, when people ask the inevitable question, “How did you meet?” the story unspools with the woman telling part of it and the man finishing, or vice versa, while everyone admires them for staying together. I don’t have a story like that, or at least, I have a story, but it’s mine alone, and there’s nobody finishing my sentences.
I want it that way.
Right?
during
CHAPTER ONE
The first time I saw Ty, I fell down the stairs and tore my pants.
A superstitious person might call that an omen. He had nothing to do with it, of course; that was just a quirk of timing. While Lauren and I struggled with the sofa, a guy I presumed to be a new neighbor came into the building. He had auburn hair, brown eyes and a strong jaw dusted with gold scruff. I’d always had a soft spot for gingers, probably a result of growing up on Harry Potter movies. He was also tall and lean with a sculpted, ascetic face, like an austere warrior who would be at home on the prow of a ship. Okay, it was possible I’d watched too many episodes of Vikings this week.
When he saw us wrangling such a heavy piece of furniture, he only sighed, stepped around the boxes cluttering the foyer and checked his mailbox. No greeting, no “welcome to the complex.” I was halfway up the stairs to the landing, heaving my end of the sofa when my hands slipped and the couch bounced away. I lunged for it, missed and came tumbling after. Lauren jumped aside like it was a sled on the slalom track, so the brown plaid monstrosity thumped ahead of me back down to the floor. The couch just missed slamming into the wall; I wasn’t so lucky. In honor of moving day, I had on old comfy pants, and they’d been washed one too many times, judging by the audible rip as I bounced off the wall and landed at Lauren’s feet.
She pulled me up, eyes wide. “You okay?”
“Just bruises to pride and pelvis,” I mumbled.
She tilted her head at the workload awaiting us. “Maybe we should wait for the guys to get back from their beer run?”
I surveyed the mess we’d created in front of the entrance and just outside, conscious that we were inconveniencing our neighbors. “We can’t really leave things like this.”
“I’ll help you with the couch.” As greetings went, it wasn’t the warmest. Grumpy Ginger strode toward us, rolling up the sleeves on his dress shirt to reveal very nice forearms: lightly tanned and dusted with auburn hair, lean but strong with prominent wrist bones. His hands appealed to me just as much, long-fingered and elegant, without being overly manicured. You know, if you liked that sort of thing. I was bad at estimating ages, but he was probably out of school, judging by the business casual he had on.
Belatedly, I realized I’d been studying him for thirty seconds too long. “If you’re sure.”
“It’s fine. I’ll walk backward and guide it up.”
“Thanks,” Lauren put in. “We’d prefer not to commit soficular homicide our first day in the building.”
Since my back was to the wall, I escaped the ignominy of the new neighbor seeing my panda underpants. He slid by and hefted the sofa up a few stairs on his own. Lauren and I worked together, and it was much easier with him doing the heavy lifting up top. With a minimum of fuss, we maneuvered the couch up to the second floor, where GG paused.
“A or B?” he asked.
“B.” I should win the prize for hilarious banter.
Nodding, he helped us carry it down the hall and into the apartment. We’d left the door open since we had so little in there. Most of it was still cluttering the lobby downstairs. Max and Angus had taken off as soon as we got everything unloaded: my car, Angus’s and the rental truck. After that, they were gone like the wind with the excuse that moving in would be more fun with pizza, cold beer and a buzz on.
“You’re right above me.” He didn’t look particularly happy about it, either.
Check out the rest of Chapter one on Ann Aguirre's Blog
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| Ann Aguirre |
Ann Aguirre is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author with a degree in English Literature; before she began writing full time, she was a clown, a clerk, a voice actress, and a savior of stray kittens, not necessarily in that order. She grew up in a yellow house across from a cornfield, but now she lives in sunny Mexico with her husband, children, and various pets. She likes books, emo music, and action movies. She writes all kinds of genre fiction for adults and teens.
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Jen's Review - My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love this book!!
Give me a book with a cute little kid in it and you've got a winner :)
Sam is by far the cutest :)
Nadia is living her life doing what she loves. Teaching kids and getting her degree to do it as a career - but she's struggling to keep her grades up, and working her job and doing her internship - she's only 21. She isn't ready to settle down, especially with the guy in 1B who has a kid.
Ty's life is as full as he wants it to be. Him and Sam are on their own. He's struggling through night school while working a fulltime job. But he has dreams to be better.
When Nadia and her 3 other friends move upstairs, he knows they are going to be the fun partying college kids that he'll never be.
The chemistry between the two is great. They have that pull. But with Sam in Ty's life, he knows there could never be anything more. He gets one weekend a month to life his life without Sam, and usually he sleeps that weekend away.
Until Nadia gives him hope - a friendship that will work with his schedule. But they can't stop the heart from wanting more.
I read this book in one day - it was really cute and easy to read :)
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