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How Forever Feels
Friends First #4
Laura Drewry
Releasing Oct 13th, 2015
Loveswept
Maya McKay’s heart is as big as Jack Rhodes’s shoulders are broad. Their chemistry is out of control, but it could never work between them because Jack is more than just best friends with her cheating ex-husband—they’re like brothers. Maya, the sensitive, practical florist, has given up on love and is ready to settle for like. But now that Jack’s around again, he’s stirring up old feelings—and turning Maya’s fantasies into irresistible reality.
Jack blew his chance with Maya years ago when he stepped aside for his best friend, Will, and he’s still kicking himself about it. Maya was promised forever once before, and she got burned. But when Jack realizes that second chances aren’t going to fall out of the sky, he seizes the moment—and the woman he’s always loved—to show her how forever truly feels.
Jack
lifted his hands. “Hold on. In his defense, I think they were off at that point
but were still . . . Anyway, when I saw Maya and her friend
come in, I figured there was no way someone like her could possibly be single,
so I kept waiting for some guy to show up. No one did, and I couldn’t just
leave her sitting there, looking all kinds of pathetic in her grass skirt and
plastic lei . . .” Laughing, he dodged the elbow Maya jabbed at him. “So I
grabbed a couple drinks and headed over.”
“Oh.”
Jayne’s soft sigh floated across the table, followed immediately by Regan’s
snort.
“Are
you freakin’ kidding me?” she asked. “Maya picked Dickhead over you?”
“What?”
Maya sputtered as she shook her head. “No!”
“I
think you did,” Ellie said. “Sure sounds that way.”
“That’s
not what he meant. Jack wasn’t hitting on me, he was—”
“Maya.”
“What?”
Her tongue froze the second her gaze locked on Jack’s. “You were?”
His
warm hazel eyes wide, Jack shrugged slightly and laughed over the rim of his
bottle. “There’s only two reasons a guy buys a girl a drink, Snip: He’s either
trying to pick her up or he’s trying to apologize.”
“Which
one’s this?” Ellie asked, but both Maya and Jack ignored her.
“Oh
my God, Jack.” Slapping her hands over her face, Maya couldn’t believe her
cheeks could burn that hot and not burst into flames. “Then why did you wave
Will over and introduce me to him?”
“I
didn’t wave him over; I was trying to wave him off, but
then you had to go and smile at him, and that was it. Big goofy dude like me
didn’t stand a chance, so I took my sorry self and my stupid piña colada back
to the limbo pole.”
“Wow.”
Regan couldn’t seem to stop shaking her head. “Just when I thought Dickhead
couldn’t be any more of a dickhead.”
It
was all Maya could do to look at Jack now, and when she did, it was through a
mortified wince.
“Don’t
worry about it, Snip. It all seems to have worked out in the long run, right?”
His quick wink and teasing grin made her laugh.
“Yeah,”
she said, rolling her eyes. “Worked out great.”
“So.”
Ellie sat back in her chair and crossed her arms. “He steals your girl and you
stay friends with him? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“She
wasn’t exactly my girl.” Jack chuckled. “I think we’d been talking for . . .
what . . . like ten minutes?”
Maya
nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Leaning her elbows on the table, hands folded, Regan sighed
dramatically. “Please tell us you’re not still friends with him.”
“Uh
. . .” Jack tipped his head toward Maya and pretended to whisper. “Any chance I
can lie my way out of this?”
“Doubt
it. Ellie’s like a bloodhound about things like that.”
“Great.”
Sitting straight up again, he inhaled deeply and nodded. “Then the answer to
that would be ‘Yes, Will and I are still friends.’””
Shaking
her head slowly, Ellie huffed out a long sigh.
“Jack,
Jack, Jack,” she said. “That’s too bad.”
“We
hate Dickhead,” Jayne said.
“Really?”
He smirked. “I never would’ve guessed.”
Regan,
Ellie, and Jayne nodded in unison, each one doing a horrible job of keeping a
straight face as Regan explained what was what.
“Staying
friends with him means we’re going to have to hate you on principle, which is
too bad, because you seem like a nice guy and I, for one, had such high hopes
for you. Sorry.”
“No,
of course. Completely understandable.” Always a good sport, he bobbed his head
in solemn agreement. “But before you have me lynched, would it do my case any
good if I was to . . . I don’t know, just spitballin’ here . . . maybe pick up
the tab tonight?”
“Don’t
listen to Regan.” Unable to hold her grin back any longer, Ellie gave Regan a
gentle shove and leaned closer to Jack. “I knew I was going to like you, Jack.
Now let’s see what we can do about racking up that tab a little while you tell
us all your secrets.”
She
flagged Shelley for another round.
A
flash of panic skittered across his eyes as he lifted his bottle; it was a look
Maya had seen before, the same one he got whenever anyone wanted to make him
the focus of the conversation.
“Well,
that shouldn’t take long,” he finally said. “Snip’ll tell you how boring I am.”
“Why
do you call her ‘Snip’?”
Maya
sighed over a smile. “Because he thinks I’m like a snippet of a full-grown
person.”
“Well,
come on,” he teased. “You’re what, four foot nothing—you’re like a hobbit.”
“I’m
five two!” Maya sat up as straight as she could when everyone else at the table
raised their eyebrows at her. “I am so!”
Still
blowing her off, they all sat back a little so Shelley could clear the empty
glasses and replace their empty peanut bowl.
“And
Jack isn’t even a little bit boring,” Maya said. “He has degrees in both
creative writing and media arts and he designs videogames.”
Halfway
through what she was saying, Jack leaned back, looked behind her, around her,
and then under the table.
“What
are you looking for?”
“Pom-poms.”
With an exaggerated eye roll, he turned back to the others. “I don’t design the
games, I just write parts of the scripts for some of them; the rest of the team
makes the games work.”
“Just?” Jayne
asked. “I’d guess the script is equally as important as everything else about
the game.”
“Thank
you, Jayne.” Maya stared pointedly at Jack as she spoke, as if that would
somehow finally help to get it through his head. “I’ve tried telling him that
about a hundred times.”
Loved it! Jack and Maya are so cute together and they totally deserved to find happiness with each other. I felt so bad for what Maya went through with her ex-husband, Will, but I'm glad she discovered what forever really felt like with Jack. It has not an easy journey with Maya being Jack's best friend's ex-wife and with Jack's sense of obligation to his foster mother, which also happen's to be Will's mom. He has loved Maya since he first met her four years earlier, but stepped aside for Will. Jack is so sweet, but he did frustrate me a bit with the way he always but everyone needs/wants before his own. I loved seeing finally putting his foot down with both Will and his mom, and pursue a relationship with her. Being the fourth book in the series, the friendship between the girls as well as the couples is strong and they feel like a big family. I loved the scenes where they all got together, it added fun feel to story and gave me a chance to catch up with the couples for the previous books. Overall a sweet, romantic and fun friends-to-lovers/second chance romance. I highly recommend you read the entire series!
I received an ARC via NetGalley for the purpose of an honest review. I was not compensated for this review, all conclusions are my own.
USA Today Bestselling author, Laura Drewry had been scribbling things for years before she decided to seriously sit down and write. After spending eight years in the Canadian north, Laura now lives back home in southwestern British Columbia with her husband, three sons, a turtle named Sheldon, and an extremely energetic German shepherd. She loves old tattered books, good movies, country music, and the New York Yankees.
Hi Jen - thank you so much for hosting us this morning. I really appreciate the review of HOW FOREVER FEELS and the recommendation! :)
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Laura
Thank you for hosting HOW FOREVER FEELS
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