If Only You Knew

Book : Oakwood Bay

by Ellie K Wilde

Genres: Contemporary Romance; Romantic Comedy; Sports Romance

Synopsis

In the highly anticipated final installment of the Oakwood Bay series—“packed with sizzling tension, heat, and sweet, swoon-worthy moments” (Peyton Corinne, USA TODAY bestselling author)—childhood best friends Parker and Summer agree to matchmake each other, to disastrous results, all while fighting the fact that they’ve been each other’s soulmate all along.

Summer Prescott and Parker Woods have been best friends since they were three years old. Now thirty, neither of them feels like they have a good handle on adulthood. While their friends are coupled up and thriving, they’re struggling through career crises and disastrous dates, and frequenting the same old bars and surf spots they’ve been going to for years—until, on a whim, Summer decides to hand over her love life to Parker. After all, who better to help find her soulmate than the person who knows her best?

But when the date Parker introduces her to goes from husband material to dead end in one publicly humiliating swoop, Summer is so devastated that she breaks up with both men. And she decides to embrace a fresh start away from home by entering a surf competition that’ll have her chasing waves around the world.

Parker soon realizes the troubling truth—he’s spent nearly thirty years by Summer’s side and has only just realized that he’s in love with her. Now he’s on a mission to win back not just her trust but her heart, before she slips away for good.

Release date: February 17, 2026

Publisher: Atria Books

Print pages: 416

Sample

Chapter 1: Summer

Chapter 1 Summer
“So, how do all these big college athletes feel about a pretty little thing like you attempting to train them in a gym?”

Cory H., the dirty-blond veterinarian brought to me by one of the dozens of dating apps that’ve been letting me down for years, winks across the table as though he’s just paid me the compliment of a lifetime.

I try to decide which part of that I’m supposed to swoon over. Perhaps it’s being called a thing? The fact that he deigned to remember that I attempt to work as a physical therapist when I’m not suffering through this date?

Either way, I pull a face around the lip of my glass—tragically down to ice cubes and badly diluted remnants of margarita—hoping the sad sip absolves me from answering.

My sense of humor fled the premises around the time Cory casually grazed my ass when he hugged me at the start of our date.

I gaslit myself into believing it was an accident. Rationalized that he’d been perfectly normal when we’d texted after matching on the app. And now, I have no one to blame but myself and my expert ability to ignore the bouquet of red flags he must have been waving at me since the moment I swiped right.

I’ve been in the dating trenches for a while. Still, all of my carefully plotted strategies—born and evolved through copious years of painful first dates—inevitably led me here. Sitting across a table from a man whose hot factor took a nosedive with the very first syllable out of his mouth.

Cory’s phone trills, loud enough to hear over the bustling sounds of Oakley’s Pub around us. He silences it right away, which would be a point in his favor if he didn’t proceed to scroll through the litany of notifications that’ve appeared on his phone over the course of this short nightmare. It rings again.

I tip an ice cube into my mouth, shamelessly crunching on it. “Do you have to take a call? It won’t bother me if you do.”

Cory sneers at his phone. “Nah, it’s just some chick I went out with a couple days ago. I’ve been trying to dodge her, but she doesn’t seem to understand the concept of silence.”

I’ve never been so envious of another woman in my life.

As one of only two restaurants in Oakwood, the small town where I’ve lived my whole life, Oakley’s is packed to the brim this Thursday night. Locals occupy the mahogany tables and booths upholstered in fading tartan. The fact that none of them—usually so keen for a hint of viable gossip—are paying us any mind is an indication that they’ve had a front-row seat to so many of my dating fiascos, they’re as unfazed by them as they are by the sun setting at night.

“You’re way hotter than she is, by the way.” Cory nods to his phone. “No way you’ll be getting silence from me. I’ll be all over you until you agree to see me again.”

Ah, so we’ve graduated to stalking.

I crunch another ice cube. “That’s… very sweet of you, Cory.”

Seriously, how didn’t I see this coming? We texted for days leading up to tonight, and—Cory’s face splits into a wide smile, bright and crooked and… right. That’s how I didn’t see this coming. I was blinded by the very pretty man in the collection of pictures on his dating profile.

“You want another drink?” Cory takes a deep swig of his own. “Let’s get you another drink. You’re nowhere near lubricated enough, if you know what I’m saying.”

Yeah… screw this guy.

I’ve had no trouble simply strolling out of dates in the past, but I’ve been out with enough Corys to know exactly how he’d take that. Fortunately, after years of finding myself in these undesirable scenarios, I’ve implemented a fail-safe: a way to divest myself of these boys without awkwardness or argument, or endless follow-up texts.

Discreetly, I slide my foot out from under our table and tap the toe of my four-inch heel.

Cory leans in, a smirk stretching his mouth. “It’s a double entendre. Lubricated as in drunk…”

My gaze drifts to a man sitting solo in a booth at the very back of the bar. Legs stretched out on the bench seat, broad shoulders resting against the wall, facing out into the restaurant. He’s wearing a truly obnoxious Hawaiian shirt, sky blue and bright green, and frowning down at a book. Light brown hair thrown messily over the pull of concentration in his brows as he reads. He reaches to his right until his fingers close around a sweating glass of radioactive-yellow liquid and takes a long sip, all without breaking eye contact with his book.

“… but also as in your panties.” Tap, tap, tap.

“How charming.” Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—

“Summer? Summer Prescott?”

The man in the Hawaiian shirt now strides across the bar, staring me down with wide, dreamy eyes. Like he’s been toiling over that book for years—decades—trying to fill the gap left by missing pages… only to find all the answers in my face.

Cory’s gaze follows mine. “Who the fuck are you?”

I gasp. “Parker? I haven’t seen you in years.”

Parker’s face falls at that. He turns an apologetic look on Cory. “I hate to interrupt, but do you mind if I steal your date for a second?”

There’s a flush rising up Cory’s neck. “You can fuck right off, buddy. We’re in the middle of something.”

I really hate to agree with this moron, but I shake my head at Parker. “I’m not coming with you. You’ve had years to come find me. Years to come talk to me.” My voice rises, and I jump to my feet. “Years to explain why you up and left town—left me—without so much as a word. And suddenly you’re here, wanting to talk in the middle of my date? How dare you do this now?”

Parker stuffs his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans. “Summer, I’m sorry—I’ve been praying to bump into you every day since.”

“Why? What could you possibly have to say to me now?”

“I’ve… God help me, I’ve missed you. I know you’ve missed me, too. Please, just give me a minute to explain.”

I sniff hard, wiping a nonexistent tear. We’re properly hitting our stride now, and I can practically taste my sweet, sweet freedom from Cory. Parker will quote a couple rom-coms, I’ll fake a few more tears, and—

“You went out with this guy? In the ugly Hawaiian shirt?”

Damn it, Cory—not the shirts. If there was ever a way to get Parker Woods going—

His eyes narrow on Cory. My stomach pangs, starts to sink. “Yes, she went out with me.”

“Really?” Cory gives Parker a scathing up and down. “I don’t see it.”

“She did. And she still calls me.” His tone is pure outrage and I’m officially losing him. “Every day. She’s obsessed with me. And my Hawaiian shirts, which she loves.”

I widen my eyes at him. “I don’t think—”

He widens his right back. “Come on, Summer. The private number that keeps calling me? Hanging up when I answer? We both know it’s you.”

My jaw drops. “Cory, did you know that Parker gifted me his great-grandmother’s engagement ring on our two-week-iversary? Talk about obsessed.”

“Oh, yeah?” There’s a half-second twitch at Parker’s mouth, but he wrangles it quickly. “I found a shrine she had for me in her closet. She had my hair in a jar and my boxers in a frame.”

“He’s slept with a picture of me under his pillow since our very first date.”

“She cried like a baby the first time we made love.”

“Tears of epic disappointment, I assure you.”

“Oh, Summer.” Parker’s mouth stretches in a smirk, dimple popping in his right cheek. “I highly fucking doubt that.”

“Can somebody explain what the hell is going on?” Cory practically shouts. “We’re on a date, buddy.”

I widen my eyes at Parker. Land the damn plane, Woods.

He gets the message. Parker clears his throat, winds an arm around my waist, and sweeps me into his chest. “The point is… I still love you, Summer Prescott. And I’m sorry that it took seeing you with another man to knock me to my senses. But… I’m just a boy standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him.”

I force a sob, spinning in Parker’s arms to give Cory a tearful look. “I’m so sorry, Cory. But I can’t have that drink. And I can’t see you again.”

“Seriously, who is this guy?”

“He’s my best friend. And the love of my life.”

“I’m sorry to do this to you.” Parker produces his wallet and tosses some cash onto the table, enough to cover our drinks. “But what can I say? It’s serendipity…”

“Seren-fucking-what?”

“And you don’t mess with serendipity,” I finish, sighing up at Parker.

“You’re both insane.” Cory jumps to his feet so aggressively he sends his chair skittering across the worn hardwood. He storms across the bar, throws open the door, and disappears into the night.

Parker and I stare at each other for one long, loaded moment filled with love, lust, and—

“I had your boxers in a frame?” I sweep my purse off the back of my chair, trying so hard to be mad at him even as my body shudders with laughter. “Really, Park?”

Parker laughs. “It was that or the used tissue I—”

“Okay. We’re done here.”

He throws an arm over my shoulders, steering me to our regular booth at the back of the pub—the one he’d been reading at prior to the rescue mission. There, he settles into his seat, facing the bar, legs laid out on the bench as I do the same across the table. I wave at Lisa Parsons, who owns Oakley’s with her husband, and with a nod she moves to pour my usual Diet Coke.

“So, what was wrong with Mr. Seren-fucking-what? That barely lasted twenty minutes.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” My head hits the wall behind us. “These guys keep getting worse and worse, I swear.”

Parker hands me my Kindle from under his book, proof that at least he’d seen the writing on the wall with tonight’s date. “Was he worse than the one who spent the entire date trying to convince you that the moon landing was faked?”

Jeremy. He blinded me with his abs. “Worse.”

“Worse than the one who kept trying to lure you to the washroom for a quickie?”

Stephen with the bright blue eyes. “Worse.”

“What about the one who dined and dashed while you were getting another round of drinks at the bar?” Parker asks darkly.

I grimace, remembering how I’d come back to our table to find a furious Parker forking over cash to cover our bill after witnessing Garrett’s vanishing act. He’d then plied me with Diet Coke and Thai food from my favorite place in the next town over to cheer me up. I’d actually been hopeful during that date—thought it had been going well for once.

But I’ve been trapped in a string of bad first dates for the last three years.

Three years without even a glimmer of hope for a second date. Three years of navigating a slew of hook-up-type, moon-landing-denying men that seem to look at me and think, Yep, she’s the one.

My last boyfriend, who dumped me when I started feeling him out on an eventual engagement after four years together, was normal, at least.

Well, normal adjacent.

His idea of quality time involved me watching him drive tricked-out cars through video game streets, hitting innocent pedestrians along the way. He broke it off, then turned around and got engaged to his next girlfriend a year into their relationship.

The wedding bells in my life didn’t stop there. Our friend Zac and Parker’s twin sister, Melody, who split their time between Oakwood and the city, got married just last month. Brooks, who we met in college, and his fake-girlfriend-turned-real-fiancée, Siena, shipped across the country when he signed with an NFL team out in Los Angeles. Even our newest friend Shy has a husband and three-year-old daughter.

I stare over our table at Parker taking a deep sip of his soda. It’s an undeniably pretty view that’s evolved plenty over the years—from preschooler with a perma-smile to baby-faced teen to this nearly-thirty-year-old man with his mess of thick hair, a subtle bump on the bridge of his nose from taking a bad tackle in his college football years, and a jaw dusted with stubble.

Even he’s started dating more seriously after years of happily living the single life, and seeing as he’s pretty much the best person I know, it’s only a matter of time until he’s paired off, just like the rest of them.

I’ll be happy for him once he finds someone. Thrilled. The first to champion their relationship, celebrate their eventual engagement. Because he’s my best friend, deserving of all the love in the world.

But then… it’ll be me. Single, thirty-year-old only-child-of-her-practically-estranged-parents Summer Prescott.

It’s hard not to feel like I’m constantly chasing after a high-speed train, scrambling for a foothold, trying not to get left behind. Trying to silence the voice in my head that points to all the departures in my life and concludes that I’m the problem. It’s not just my friends who’ve left me behind, after all.

“Serious question. What is it about me that says, Weirdos, nymphos, and grown men with mommy issues welcome here?”

Parker squints at me from over the top of his book. “That felt like a personal attack.”

Lisa appears with my soda. “Another bad one, hon?” I pull a face in reply, and she pats my outstretched calf. “I’ve been saying it for years. That picker of yours gave up on you a long time ago.”

I give her a look over the rim of my Diet Coke. Lisa is withholding her favorite, incorrect caveat about said picker.

According to her, it did its job when I met my true love at the ripe age of three. When he barged into the pillow fort I’d built on my first morning at day care in Oakwood, and announced we were now friends.

Worst meet-cute ever, but it was the perfect introduction to the mischief that would go on to follow me for twenty-seven years in the form of a blue-eyed, dimple-smiled, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing tornado of a man.

It followed me all the way through high school, when we, plus Melody and Zac, would let Parker pull us from our homework and into some middle-of-the-night misadventure we’d get grounded for later. Through college, when our passion for biomechanics meant we shared an identical class schedule that led to our physical therapist jobs at the University of Oakwood Bay’s athletic rehabilitation center. Even after, when Parker moved into the apartment above this very bar, only to find me moving into a place directly across the street just a few months later.

Parker huffs a laugh across the table, but Lisa turns a sharp look on him. “You’re in no shape to laugh given your own track record with ladies.”

“Lisa, please. Tonight’s about Summer.” Parker reaches over the table to lay a hand on my arm, giving Lisa a reproachful look. “She’s just been through a terrible ordeal—shockingly, the guy whose pictures she spent a week salivating over turned out to be all chiseled jaw, no decency.”

Lisa cinches her graying ponytail, looking back and forth between us. “Don’t you think you two should cut to the chase already?”

“What chase is that?” Parker asks around a sip of his Mountain Dew.

He’s being difficult on purpose, and the blank look I give her is just as phony. We know exactly which chase she means—the one where we supposedly wake up after almost three decades of platonic friendship to realize it was more than that all along.

Never gonna happen, for a multitude of reasons.

We’ve never kissed. Never had a sleepover, not even the kind with sleep involved. The most we’ve shared are friendly hugs and humiliating secrets I’d never dream of telling a guy I was trying to win over. And while I’m perfectly aware that my best friend is wildly, ask-me-to-join-his-cult-and-I’d-happily-sign-on-the-dotted-line attractive, inherent awareness and a desire to act on it are entirely different things.

“The chase. The chase.” Lisa waves an impatient hand at us. “There’s a reason all your dates keep failing, isn’t there?”

“We know exactly why my dates keep failing,” Parker says darkly.

We’ve all heard the rumors about Parker, the excited chatter among Oakwood’s female population. And the things they say he’s into in bed… Well, there’s a reason women keep cutting their dates short to proposition him instead, eager to see if the rumors are true.

Lisa’s nose wrinkles. Meanwhile, I shift on my bench as an image of Parker breaches its confines inside my brain, where I’ve actively buried all thoughts of the small-town rumor since the first time I heard it. It’s not even a real image—just a synthesis of the different versions of him.

The way he looks when he focuses on a book. The way the tight pockets of muscle over his stomach flex when he works out. How his hair turns to waves when it’s damp with sweat, how his chest moves while he pants from exertion. That smile of his—tilting slightly to the left, the long, shallow dimples bracketing plump lips. How it exudes endless reserves of playfulness, but the wholesomeness is completely offset by the mischievous spark in his deep blue eyes, telling you exactly which kind of adventure you’re in for in his hands. Illicit. Middle of the night. Either waking up behind bars or butt naked and sore as hell.

And all of it pointed at the woman sprawled underneath him, squirming into his sheets, French braids turning more dishevelled by the thrust—

For fuck’s sake, Prescott. Stop picturing your best friend naked.

I shove the thought back from whence it came. It’s not even that I want to see my best friend naked. It’s that godforsaken rumor, putting crazy thoughts in my head.

“Perhaps it’s the universe trying to tell you something,” Lisa tells Parker.

“What, that my dating life is so dire I may as well join a monastery?”

“Good grief, you’re both hopeless.” Lisa heaves a resigned sigh. “Keep on going like this and you’ll end up alone.”

With those awe-inspiring words, Lisa heads back to the bar.

“Thanks for that, Lisa. Excellent pep talk. Truly life-changing,” Parker calls after her, before giving me a look that says, Can you believe her?

Except…

Lisa is dead wrong about me and Parker, but it’s not as though she doesn’t have a point—there is a reason our dates keep failing. I eye Parker’s profile as he returns to his book, the very beginnings of an idea forming in my head.

As much as Parker’s dead-end dating life brings relief to my co-dependent heart, it makes me a little frustrated on his behalf. He’s incredibly funny. Self-deprecating. Smart and supportive. And he can weave a damn good French braid, too.

It’s not as though he was the one to spread that rumor about himself, but he is the one who keeps asking out the wrong women.

Distractedly, I rub my nose, wincing when it jostles my tiny hoop piercing. “You know what? I think Lisa’s right.”

Parker’s gaze darts to me. “About which part?”

“About us being hopeless.”

He returns to his book. “You, of all people on this earth, are not hopeless.”

“No, hear me out. I think we’re the problem. Well, not us—our pickers.” I swing my legs off the bench and under the table so that I’m facing him. “I bet I could find you a girl who at least finishes her drink before trying to strip for you.”

Parker’s eyes narrow in thought. “To be clear, she will strip for me eventually?”

“See, that’s exactly what I mean—you’re letting your dick do the picking. Maybe this requires a woman’s touch.” I laugh when Parker opens his mouth. “Don’t. Do not joke about my touch in the context of your dick. You wish, Woods.”

“Harsh, Sum.” Parker’s hand slaps over his stomach, exaggerating as though I just punched him.

“Focus—I figured it out. How to remedy the train wrecks trying to pass for our dating lives. No monasteries required.” The more I think about it, the better the idea becomes. We know each other better than anyone. Have each other’s best interests at heart. This idea isn’t just good—it’s brilliant.

Parker sobers the longer he stares at me, squinting over the top of his book. “You’re scheming. I’m officially worried.”

“Don’t be. It’s genius.” I sweep my Diet Coke off the table and toast my increasingly skeptical best friend. “I’m going to become your picker. And in return, you’re going find me the love of my life.”