Knox

What do you do when the love of your life chooses someone else?

Easy, you find a nice rebound. If it just so happens to be his hot, dumb hunk of a brother, even better.

Elton Hill is everything wrong with people. He’s loud, annoying, way too intense, and pushes too hard. But he’s available and our secret friends-with-benefits relationship turns out to be exactly what I need.

When I start to see a different side of him, things change. Apparently, the intense, sensitive, flamingo-loving golden retriever is perfect for me, and I’m not willing to give him up.

Except, I’ve been keeping a secret that threatens to ruin the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t know how long I can put off the inevitable, and I can only hope we’re strong enough to weather the aftermath of my mistake.

Rhys

My life hasn't turned out the way I wanted it to.

Because of one stupid stunt by a kid I used to care about, I'm now slinging cocktails in a Miami club instead of getting my degree. In a split second, Everest Hill ruined my future, and I'm too jaded to ever move past it.

Only Elton—my best friend and his brother—connects us, but thankfully, Everest has made himself irrelevant in the last four years.

Until now.

When Elton heads off on a summer European adventure, I'm forced to babysit his little brother through his first semester in college, but I'd rather eat shattered glass than be a shoulder for him to lean on.

All the things I used to admire about Everest are tainted. He's nothing more than a nuisance, a reminder that I'm going nowhere with my life, and when he starts to push my buttons? I prove that I can bite back.

We become trapped in a twisted game of loathing, always trying to one-up the other, never satisfied until one of us is crowned the winner.

But when I start to see the vulnerabilities that lie underneath his skin, the truth behind the facade, I can't help but cave to the side of me I thought I buried.

Because Everest is not only mine to hate—

He's mine to keep.