Good Boy Next Door

Free with Kindle Unlimited

He said “good boy” once. It rewired everything.

Kai Mitchell is a grumpy, tattooed mechanic who lives alone with his rescue pit bull and a life so quiet even the cockroaches know his schedule. He fixes things — engines, faucets, other people’s problems — because being useful is the only way he knows how to earn his place. He hasn’t let anyone in since his last relationship ended with the words you don’t know how to love.

Miles Carter is a sunshine barista who just moved in across the hall after leaving a relationship that spent two and a half years telling him he was too much, too needy, too soft. He’s rebuilding his life one terrible latte art design at a time — and developing an extremely inconvenient crush on the silent, broad-shouldered man next door who swept his broken mugs off a staircase without being asked.

When Kai starts fixing Miles’ leaky faucet, his sticking doors, and his shattered confidence, what begins as neighborly repairs turns into shared dog walks, storm-night sleepovers, and a slow, devastating slide from just friends to I can’t stop thinking about your hands. Miles discovers that the grumpy mechanic communicates through acts of service the way other people communicate through words. And Kai discovers that the sunshine barista responds to praise — specifically, two words in a low, rough voice — with a surrender so complete it terrifies them both.

But Kai is convinced he breaks everything he touches. Miles is convinced he exhausts everyone who stays. And the distance between I want this and I deserve this is the hardest repair either of them has ever attempted.

You’ll love this if you enjoy:

✓ Grumpy mechanic / sunshine barista with maximum contrast
✓ Praise kink that starts as instinct and becomes a love language
✓ Neighbors to lovers with thin walls and thinner excuses
✓ A rescue pit bull who chooses the love interest first
✓ Slow burn that detonates in a kitchen at midnight
✓ Touch-starved men learning to ask for what they need
✓ Acts of service as foreplay (toolkits, jackets, swept floors)
✓ A man who says “good boy” and means it with his whole body
✓ Dual POV with deeply emotional heat scenes
✓ A guaranteed HEA earned in every chapter