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BLURRED LINES
Lauren Layne
Releasing Aug 25th, 2015
Loveswept
In
a novel that’s perfect for fans of Abbi Glines and Jessica Sorensen, USA
Today bestselling author Lauren Layne delivers a sexy take on the timeless
question: Can a guy and a girl really be “just friends”?
When
Parker Blanton meets Ben Olsen during her freshman year of college, the
connection is immediate—and platonic. Six years later, they’re still best
friends, sharing an apartment in Portland’s trendy Northwest District as they
happily settle into adult life. But when Parker’s boyfriend dumps her out of
the blue, she starts to wonder about Ben’s no-strings-attached approach to
dating. The trouble is, even with Ben as her wingman, Parker can’t seem to get
the hang of casual sex—until she tries it with him.
The
arrangement works perfectly . . . at first. The sex is mind-blowing, and their
friendship remains as solid as ever, without any of the usual messy romantic
entanglements. But when Parker’s ex decides he wants her back, Ben is shocked
by a fierce stab of possessiveness. And when Ben starts seeing a girl from
work, Parker finds herself plagued by unfamiliar jealousy. With their
friendship on the rocks for the first time, Parker and Ben face an alarming
truth: Maybe they can’t go back. And maybe, deep down, they never want to.
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* * * ARC given by the publisher through Netgalley for an honest review * * *
* * Review given on behalf of obsessed by books * *
if you love books where best friends fall in love than this is the book for you. Parker and Ben meet while in their first year in college the connection between was nothing but friendly with no worries of lines being crossed. six years later they are still best friends and actually live together. They have there for each other for everything , family sickness, promotions, getting rid of hook ups that want leave. Even through heart break when parkers boyfriend of 5 years decides thier relationship is working anymore. Parker decides she's going to pick up the hook up skills that Ben uses and do the one night thing, cause even though she had a boyfriend she hadn't had sex in 2 months, what's wrong with that picture. when parker talks to her mom about what she is wanting, her mother tells her that sex is more fun if you just a little bit of a feeling for the person , thinks get Parker thinking, so she recommends to Ben why don't they do the friend with benefits, he's against at first, he doesn’t really like the idea of Parker sleeping around, but really them being friends with benefits, then a light bulb goes off, his attractive to parker and you couldn't ask for a better person, but are they both headed toward a place they shouldn't be. will Ben and Parker admit the true feelings they have or will Parker get scared and make one of the worst mistakes of her life. Ben and Parker are awesome, they are cute together and Ben has such compassion for Parker that it shows that maybe he has always loved Parker. loved it.
Excerpt
Most of the time, having a girl for a best
friend is awesome.
Among the highlights:
(1) My color-blind self never has to worry
about going out the door looking like a sad clown.
(2) The Brita water filter is always replaced
on time.
(3) Parker actually likes doing laundry for fun, and she only complains when I sneak my stuff in with hers
about 30 percent of the time.
Oh, and as this morning’s adventure
displayed, she’s an excellent excuse when a person needs
to rid himself of clingy one-night stands.
But then there are the not-so-great parts.
Like when she’s spent thirty-five minutes looking at lamps.
“Just get that one,” I say, lifting my arm to
point at a random floor lamp as the noisy, child-filled scariness that is IKEA
threatens to choke me.
She barely glances at the one I’ve selected.
“It looks like a uterus.”
“What the fuck does a uterus look like?”
“Like that lamp. And honestly, for as much
time as you spend rummaging around in women’s panties, you really should get
familiar with their parts.”
“Isn’t the uterus the—” I break off, looking
for the right word to describe the random memories from eighth-grade sex-ed
class.
Parker lifts her eyebrows. “The baby cave?”
Like any normal guy would, I wince. “Christ.
Why would I need to know about that? I use a condom.”
“Several of them, judging from the state of
your bedroom,” she says, tilting her head to study the lime green lamp shade in
her hands. “Do you think this would clash with my bedspread?”
“You’re asking the color-blind guy? Like I
have any clue what color your bedspread is.”
“Seriously? Don’t act like you’ve never seen
it. Two nights ago you flopped onto my bed in your sweaty gym clothes and it
took me two washes to remove the man stank.”
I shake my head. “Poor Lance. Do you make him
wear a plastic bag when you guys hook up so he doesn’t get his man
stank on your sheets?”
“Lance doesn’t have man stank.”
I frown. “Hold up. If I
have man stank, Lance has man stank.”
“No.”
I open my mouth to argue, but instead I
shrug. That’s another thing you learn having a girl best friend. You pick your
battles.
“You have two more minutes to pick your
lamp,” I say. “I’m starving.”
Parker adjusts her purse strap on her
shoulder. “Oh, I’m not buying a lamp. I was just browsing.”
I inhale deeply to rein in my women
suck rampage when I catch her smirk.
“Oh, I get it,” I say as we move toward the
end of the store where we’ll pick up my dresser. “This is payback. You’re mad
because I made up that story about you having a creepy doll collection.”
“Actually, it was more punishment for
destroying the house rules. I’m totally laminating them next time.”
“Or you could just create an online version
and keep them in the cloud like normal people born after 1980.”
I see a little lightbulb go on in her head
and almost regret giving her the idea. Not that it matters much. I’ve never
really followed her fussy rules anyway, although for the most part I try to not
be too much of a dick. The towel incident this morning notwithstanding, it’s
like I said, Parker loves laundry. I knew she had extra
clean ones stashed away.
“Seriously, don’t get that color finish,” she
says, shaking her head at the dresser box I’m about to pull off the shelf.
“Wood is wood,” I say with a shrug, starting
to maneuver the huge box onto our flat cart.
“No, there’s old-man wood and there’s modern
wood.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Old-man wood, huh? You
and your kinky fetishes. Do you make the dolls watch?”
She ignores me, and uses her hip to push the
box I’d started to move back onto its shelf. “That one.” She points.
“Espresso?” I ask, reading the label.
But Parker is now typing away on her phone. I
shrug, pushing her out of the way so I can get at the box she indicated.
“How about tacos?” she asks, glancing up
briefly from her phone.
“I just had Mexican last night,” I say
through a grunt as I move the box into position.
“You said I could pick.” She gives me a
challenging look, her goldish brown eyes practically daring me to argue with
her.
“If it was a unilateral decision, why’d you
even ask?”
“Unilateral. Good word.
And it was a test. You passed,” she says, trotting to catch up with me as she
replaces her phone in her purse. “So how did you and Airhead meet? The Beta Phi
party last night? She looked like she was eighteen.”
“Airhead?” I ask.
“It was written on her pants. Literally.”
“Oh, right. Those weren’t her pants. Lindsay
left them last week.”
She makes a disgusted face as she pulls her
long dark hair into a messy bun. I don’t notice most things about Parker as a
girl, because, ya know, it’s just Parker, but she does have some damn good
hair. It’s all Victoria’s Secret model–-like, long and dark with lightish
streaks running through it.
The rest of her is kind of Victoria’s
Secret-ish, too, but other than an initial moment of whoa
when we first met, there’s never really been anything between us. I guess you
could say I like her too much.
That and she’s dating Lance, and I like the
guy. I mean, we’re not best friends or anything, but it’s impossible to live
with Parker and not have some sort of friendship with her significant other.
Lance and I stop short of braiding each
other’s hair, but we watch games together on occasion. I’d never make a move on
his girl—even if I wanted Parker.
Which I don’t.
“So let me get this straight,” she says, as I
swipe my credit card through the self-checkout machine. “One of your booty
calls leaves her pants, which is weird, by the way, and
then a week later, an underclassman sorority girl willingly puts them on?”
I shrug and give her a look out of the corner
of my eye. “What’s wrong with that?”
Parker closes her eyes and sort of scratches
at her eyebrow. “You don’t tell your mother any of this, do you?”
“Sure, we actually have a family blog, and I
list my sexual activity for the week every Sunday. Is that weird?”
She ignores me, pulling out her phone again.
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Lauren Layne is the USA Today
Bestselling author of contemporary romance.
Prior to becoming an author, Lauren
worked in e-commerce and web-marketing. In 2011, she and her husband moved from
Seattle to New York City, where Lauren decided to pursue a full-time writing
career. It took six months to get her first book deal (despite ardent
assurances to her husband that it would only take three). Since then, Lauren's
gone on to publish ten books, including the bestselling Stiletto series, with
several more on the way in 2015.
Lauren currently lives in Chicago with her husband and spoiled
Pomeranian. When not writing, you'll find her at happy hour, running at a
doggedly slow pace, or trying to straighten her naturally curly hair.
