Over the course of one wild road trip,
feuding childhood sweethearts get a second chance at love.
LOVE STORY
a Love Unexpectedly novel
Lauren Layne
Releasing February 14th, 2017
Loveswept
Over the course of one wild road trip, feuding childhood sweethearts get a second chance at love in this charming rom-com—a standalone novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Blurred Lines and Good Girl.
When Lucy Hawkins receives a job offer in San Francisco, she can’t wait to spread her wings and leave her small Virginia hometown behind. Her close-knit family supports her as best they can, by handing over the keys to a station wagon that’s seen better days. The catch? The cross-country trip comes with a traveling companion: her older brother’s best friend, aka the guy who took Lucy’s virginity hours before breaking her heart.
After spending the past four years and every last dime caring for his sick father, Reece Sullivan will do just about anything to break free of the painful memories—even if it means a two-week road trip with the one girl who’s ever made it past his carefully guarded exterior. But after long days of bickering in the car turn into steamy nights in secluded motel rooms, Reece learns that, when it comes to Lucy, their story is far from over. And this time, they just might have a shot at a happy ending.
Although listed as a title in the Love Unexpectedly Series, all books in the series stand alone.
I literally devoured this book in one day, that's how much the story had me hooked. If you've read any of my previous reviews, you know I love a good friends-to-lovers romance, but even better is when it's a friends-to-enemies-to-lovers story, and that's what we get with Lucy and Reece. The story flips between past and present, with the past being presented at different times during the first decade that Lucy and Reece are friends before becoming something more, before the big fallout that led to them becoming enemies. And seriously, how great is a story in which the majority of it takes places during a cross-country trip in a beat up old car nicknamed Horny?
Now, a couple of events were predictable, but that's just because I figured it had to play out the way it did in order to move the story forward. The animosity between Lucy and Reece is palpable on more than one occasion, to the point that I felt a bit uncomfortable, and this is a work of fiction! Just shows how talented Ms. Layne is with her writing style. I had an inkling as to Reece's behavior, and that was pretty much confirmed during a confrontation between him and Lucy, but the result of that confrontation did surprise me. Even more eye-opening were conversations with Lucy's brother and sister that helped put everything into perspective for both Reece and Lucy.
“Spock,
we’re giving you Horny!” my mom blurts out, apparently fed up with my
denseness.
Her
utterance is too much for my siblings to handle and they both burst out
laughing, retreating into the kitchen to rejoin the party where there’s wine.
Oh
what I wouldn’t give for wine right now.
“I,
um . . . you’re giving me the car?” I ask.
“Because
yours broke down,” my dad explains, walking forward to thump Horny’s dented
hood.
“And
this one’s . . . not broken down?” I ask skeptically.
Look,
it’s not that I’m not grateful. My parents are trying to give me a car, I
appreciate the sweetness of the gesture, it’s just . . .
Here’s
the thing about Horny: he barely got us
three kids through high school. I mean, Horny is the car that sputtered and
shook making it the 3.2 miles to Jefferson High, no matter who was behind the
wheel.
I’m
even going to come all the way clean here and say that early on in my freshmen
year, I was embarrassed showing
up in Horny. Then I realized I was lucky to have a car at all, and well . . . I
dunno, I guess Horny became a part of us Hawkins kids’ charm, because the
station wagon was practically an institution from Craig’s high school reign all
the way through Brandi’s.
But
poor Horny quit working years ago. Much to Brandi’s chagrin, he gave up the
ghost a mere two months before her high school graduation, and I spent the last
bit of her senior year being picked up by my parents.
“He’s
going to take you to California,” Dad says, giving the car another thump.
“Really?”
I step forward and run a tentative finger along the familiar panel. He’s had a
bath, so at least that’s something. “Because last I knew, he wouldn’t even make
it out of the garage.”
“Yeah,
well, we neglected him for a while, but he’s right as rain now,” Dad says,
puffing out his chest as though Horny’s a fourth child.
“Like,
as in he actually starts?”
“Purrs
like a kitten,” my mom says with an emphatic nod, even though I know she doesn’t
even like cats. “We didn’t believe it, but we took him to church on Sunday and
there were no issues.”
I
literally bite my tongue to keep from
pointing out that this is hardly a feat. Sacred Presbyterian is 0.8 miles away
from the house.
“You
took Horny into a shop?” I ask, starting to warm to the idea of having a car
again. I’m a little touched, actually. Money is tight for my parents. Dad’s a
PE teacher, and Mom gives a mean winery tour, but the gig’s never paid much.
“Not
exactly, it was more of a bartering situation,” Mom says.
“Yeah?”
I say, going around to the driver’s seat, already giddy with the prospect of
telling Oscar I’ll be able to come see him in Miami after all, even if I won’t
exactly be riding in style.
“Reece
agreed to fix him up.”
I’m
lowering myself into the car as my dad says this, but I reverse so quickly I
hit my head. My skull doesn’t even register the pain, because I’m too busy
registering the hurt in my heart at the
familiar name. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Reece,”
my mom says, giving me a bemused look. “He’s always been handy with cars.”
“He
fixed up the car in exchange for what?”
And
then I feel—I actually feel—the air
change around me as the side door to the garage opens, and a new presence sucks
all the air out of the space.
I
don’t turn around. I don’t move. But I feel his eyes on me. Over me.
“Reece
is headed out to California too,” my oblivious mother chatters on. “It worked
out perfectly actually. Now you two can ride together, and your dad and I don’t
have to worry about you alone in the middle of nowhere with a
twenty-something-year-old car.
They
think the car is going to be the problem here? It’s not the car that’s toxic to
me. It’s him.
Reece
Sullivan. My brother’s best friend. My parents’ “other son.”
Slowly
I force myself to turn, and even though I’m prepped, the force of that ice-blue
gaze still does something dangerous to me.
He
winks, quick and cocky, and I suck in a breath, and I have to wonder . . .
I
wonder if my parents would feel differently about their little plan if they
knew that their makeshift mechanic is the same guy that popped my cherry six
years earlier under their very roof.
And
then broke my heart twenty-four hours later.
Lauren
Layne is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen
romantic comedies.
A former
e-commerce and web marketing manager from Seattle, Lauren relocated to New York
City in 2011 to pursue a full-time writing career.
She lives
in midtown Manhattan with her high-school sweetheart, where she writes smart
romantic comedies with just enough sexy-times to make your mother blush. In
LL's ideal world, every stiletto-wearing, Kate Spade wielding woman would carry
a Kindle stocked with Lauren Layne books.
