Fact or fiction: proposing to your best friend so she can inherit her family business is a great idea.
When Addison “Roe” Monroe tells me she’s going on a husband hunt at the local lumberjack competition so she can inherit her father’s lumberyard, desperate times call for desperate measures.
She’s sworn off romance. Says she’s been through enough tragedy. So I offer myself as an alternative, 'cause that’s what best friends are for.
But my stubborn friend, who would rather drive a forklift than get her nails done, refuses to accept my help, and now I find myself training to become a lumberjack.
I refuse to let Roe hitch her wagon to some hulking ax wielder who might be a serial killer. She means too much to me.
And I swear there are moments where she looks at me like I mean something more to her, too.
On the surface, I’m offering a marriage of convenience to protect her. But the truth is…I’m hopelessly in love with my best friend.
So if I have to marry her and move her up to Fletcher Mountain just to see if she could love me back, so be it.
Because my only regret would be losing her forever, and that’s a fact.
Why You Should Read This Book
Tropes
Trigger Warnings
Honeymoon Phase
“It’s climbing a fucking pole. How hard can it be?”
“Like I mean nothing. Like it’s just another day. Like I’m forgettable and meaningless and just a friend and that our marriage isn’t fucking real.”
“I’m not lost at all. I have a growing new business and a girlfriend who tells me she loves me and my cat all the time. I’m in fucking heaven.”
“The marriage is real for me, by the way. I don’t want out. It’s real and it always has been for me. I don’t think it’s the same for your daughter, but I’ll be whatever she needs me to be because that’s how much I love her . . . for whatever that’s worth to you.”
“We’re going to lie in your bed and we’re not going to touch. We’re just going to sleep. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring yet. I haven’t decided. But I need to sleep and damn you, Fletcher, I can’t do it without you anymore.”
“The next time you leave for a fire without telling me, I will kill you, Luke Fletcher. Do you hear me?” I pound my fist on his chest. “I’m your wife and you have to tell me where you’re going.”
“Casual sex with my husband sounds just crazy enough to work. Bring on the loggers!”
“We can do one-night stands or casual fucks or random hookups. We can satisfy our needs however we need to, but we don’t do girlfriends. Ever. We sure as hell don’t do wives. All relationships do is bring trouble.”
“Oh, don’t worry, Roe. You’ll love it up there. Fletcher Mountain . . .It feels like finding a secret that the whole world should know about, but you’re the only lucky one.”
“I’m really grateful to you, Jo. I don’t know most of the details of this wedding and I already know it’s going to be one of the best days of my life.”
“Now it feels like if I don’t give it everything I’ve got, I could lose her to someone else and will spend the rest of my life regretting it.”
“It’s fucking exhausting to live with the what-ifs.”
“Trust me, Addison Monroe, when I kiss you with intention, you’ll know it.”
“You’re my husband and I want to feel all of you.”
“Luckily, you two kids started off as friends, so your hearts opened to each other slowly over time. You always knew it was in safe hands. Which is why none of us were really that shocked to find out you got married on a whim without telling anyone first.”
“She loves you back. Even if she don’t say it. It’s still a fact.”
“To elope and not even tell me is unforgivable. I’m heartbroken. If your father were here right now, I would make him kick your sorry ass!”
“We’re better together. You’re in this with me and it’s going to hurt if you lose me now or if you lose me fifty years from now when we’re old and gray and sitting on my front porch looking at our grandkids and marveling over the life we made. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d like option two.”
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