Just Friends, My Ass

Free with Kindle Unlimited

He said “goodnight” every night for thirteen years. He meant “I love you” every time.

Alex Morgan has been in love with his best friend since high school. He’s never said a word. Instead, he’s spent thirteen years drawing Jamie’s face in secret sketchbooks, making his coffee exactly right, and perfecting the art of wanting someone from twelve feet away through a very thin wall.

Jamie Turner doesn’t do feelings. He does code, caffeine, and sixty-hour work weeks at a startup that steals his work and never says thank you. The only person who makes him feel like more than his output is Alex — his roommate, his best friend, the one person he can’t afford to want. So he doesn’t. Or he tries not to. He’s been trying for thirteen years. It’s not working.

When their friends’ wedding forces them into a shared room at a venue dripping with romance, string lights, and one very inconvenient queen bed, the careful distance they’ve maintained since college starts to collapse. A fire escape kiss at two AM. A “friends with benefits” arrangement that’s fooling no one. A slow, devastating escalation from stolen touches to explicit encounters that leave them both wrecked and wanting more.

But Alex is terrified of becoming his father — a man who loved someone too close and destroyed everything. And Jamie is terrified of needing someone — because needing things is the one luxury he’s never been able to afford. When the walls finally come down, what’s left is either the beginning of everything or the end of the only good thing either of them has ever had.

You’ll love this if you enjoy:

✓ Thirteen years of devastating mutual pining
✓ Roommates who share a wall and hear everything
✓ A praise kink that rewires both of them
✓ “Everyone sees it but them” energy from every friend in their life
✓ Slow burn that detonates on a fire escape at 2 AM
✓ Heat that escalates from a three-second kiss to full power exchange
✓ Found family that includes two moms, a bartender, and a feral cat named Craig
✓ Secret sketchbooks revealed after a decade
✓ One bed at a wedding venue with a pond view
✓ A guaranteed HEA earned over thirteen years and 102,000 words

Just Friends, My Ass is a 102,000-word high-heat MM contemporary romance featuring a golden retriever artist who draws his best friend in secret, a guarded software engineer who counts heartbeats through walls, praise that dismantles every defense, a wedding weekend that changes everything, and a love story thirteen years in the making. Standalone. No cliffhanger. HEA guaranteed.