The Next Best Fling

Book 0: Librarians in Love

by Gabriella Gamez

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romantic Comedy; Family Life

Synopsis

Two broken hearts decide that the best way to get over their first loves is with a no-strings-attached relationship in this spicy and charming debut romance.

Librarian Marcela Ortiz has been secretly in love with her best friend for years—and when he gets engaged, she knows it’s long past time to move on. But before she gets the chance, she has a bigger problem to contend with in the form of Theo Young, ex-NFL player and older brother of the man she’s in love with. When she discovers Theo's plans to confess his feelings for his brother’s fiancée at their engagement party, Marcela is quick to stop him—despite how tempting it is to let him run away with the bride-to-be. She manages to convince Theo to sleep off his drunken almost-mistake at her place and when they arrive at a family brunch the next day together, everyone wrongly assumes they hooked up.

Since Theo needs a cover for his feelings for the bride and Marcela needs a distraction from her unrequited feelings for the groom, they decide to roll with the lie. Until one late night at a bar, they take it a step further and discover a layer of attraction neither realized existed. Soon, they find themselves exploring the simmering chemistry between them, whether in library aisles or Marcela's bed. There are no boundaries for the rebound relationship they form—just a host of complicated feelings, messy familial dynamics, and uncovered secrets that threaten to tear them apart before they can even admit to themselves that their rebound is working. Maybe a little too well.  

Release date: July 9, 2024

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

A little black box sits in his outstretched hand.

The shape is so recognizable, my breath catches. It could be earrings, I think wildly. His smile is shy, hazel eyes shining with hope at the unspoken question between us. Adrenaline surges in my veins, keeping me at attention. My heart thumps so hard my ears fill with the sound of rushing blood until it’s all I can hear. Thump. Thump. Thump. When he opens the box, I let out a gasp.

Definitely not earrings.

The ring nestled inside is modest and delicate, the diamond elegantly set in a gold band surrounded by a cluster of smaller stones. My mouth opens as if to speak, but all that comes out is a muted noise from the back of my throat. The ring is stunning, but that’s hardly the most important aspect of this moment. His eyes stay trained on my face, analyzing for any clue he can. I hold out my hand for a closer look, and he deposits the box into it.

Dread settles in my stomach as I realize what this means, but I try not to show my emotions on my face. I’ve learned to become good at that when it comes to Ben Young.

“Well?” he asks, no longer able to contain himself. Then, the question that threatens to undo me completely—

“Do you think she’ll like it?”

The chatter of the restaurant dulls to a low register. We’re surrounded on all sides by the early lunch crowd, but I can’t hear a single sound. He means Alice Cho, his girlfriend of eight years and future recipient of this engagement ring. I don’t care how long they’ve been dating or what anyone else has to say about it, but twenty-seven is far too young to be thinking about marriage. But then again, anyone else would argue that I’m just bitter the man I’m pining over is legally binding himself to someone else until death do they part. And maybe I am, despite how close our friendship still is after all these years. I want him to be happy regardless of my feelings. Not that anyone aside from Angela, my other best friend, knows about these feelings.

I haven’t been close with Alice in years so I can’t say if the ring is to her taste, but the style is hardly what matters. It’s the love between them that does, and for all my years of pining, I’ve never been able to question that. I glance across the table at Ben, meeting his hopeful eyes. My mouth turns up into a smile I don’t feel, but it fools him anyway. Hiding your true feelings is easy when the person you’re hiding from has never really seen you to begin with.

“It’s perfect,” I tell him, because it is. The lasagna primavera I just scarfed down churns in my stomach. I swallow hard past a wave of nausea. I can’t tell if it’s nerves or acid reflux making me queasy, or maybe just the diamond staring up at me. Taunting. When I can no longer stand to look at the thing, I shut the tiny box with a loud snap and hastily hand it back to him. He’s too preoccupied to note any sign of agitation on my end.

“You really think so?” Ben asks, guarding the box close to his chest. A lock of light brown hair falls over his brow, making him look boyish and fragile. He glances down at the object his hands are cradling with a wary expression, like he’s looking down at his heart instead. And I suppose, to him, he is. There are enough metaphors out there to make the two synonymous.

“Are you kidding?” I ask with forced cheer, but it comes out so smooth you’d never know that internally I’m quaking. He visibly brightens at my tone. “She’d be a fool to say no.”

His tense shoulders deflate immediately, the edges of his mouth turning up as he returns my fake smile with one that is undeniably real. He flashes a full row of straight, shiny white teeth, and the sight makes me smile brighter. A hint of real amid the plaster because his happiness is ultimately what I want most for him. Even if it’s at the expense of mine.

“You really think so, Marcela?” he asks.

“She’s going to love it,” I say with as much assurance as I can muster. If I ever had another chance with Ben, that time is long gone, and has been for a while. Years, probably, if I’m being honest. Still, I’m ashamed to admit just how much time I’ve spent holding out hope that one day he’ll see that he was an idiot to ever say we were better off as just friends. God, it should feel like a lifetime ago, but our freshman year at the University of Texas at San Antonio still feels like just yesterday.

Wishful thinking.

Now, with the engagement ring between us, I’m struck by just how long it’s been. The years wear on me all at once, a wave of exhaustion crashing over me.

“Stop worrying,” I tell him, reforming my supportive-friend facade. “When are you gonna pop the question?”

“I was thinking this weekend. I have a reservation at Whiskey Cake on Friday night. I’m just not sure if I should ask during dinner or wait until after when we’re alone.”

“Whatever you choose, just please, for the love of God, don’t put it in her wineglass.” He laughs, probably thinking of the way she’d downed shots throughout college. We all went pretty hard back then, but Alice could drink us all to shame. The girl can chug a full keg of beer without thinking twice. “Otherwise, y’all will be celebrating the rest of the night in the emergency room.”

“You might have a point.” He smiles, his eyes lighting up with unbridled happiness. “I can’t believe this is really happening.”

You and me both.

“Well, believe it!” I exclaim with feigned enthusiasm. “And tell me all about it on Monday. I wanna hear every detail.”

I most certainly do not, but what else can I possibly say? The truth I haven’t once dared to utter out loud? Doubtful. We spend the rest of lunch chatting about all possible outcomes, how his parents will respond to the news when (he says “if,” but I already know it’s a forgone conclusion) she says yes, until the check arrives and we part ways in the parking lot.

Once I’m safely tucked away in my car, I allow the emotions I’ve been holding off to finally crash over me. I had no idea until today what Ben’s been planning. That he and Alice have talked about building a more permanent life together. Tears sting my eyes, but I’m too stubborn to let them fall. So stupid.

This shouldn’t have been a surprise to me. They’ve been together since they were nineteen. Nearly a decade. It’d be weird if marriage wasn’t on their minds. But even still, this, an honest-to-God engagement ring, is a gut punch I never saw coming.

I’ve known for a while now that I have to get over this silly crush, but today was a wake-up call. If Ben and I were ever going to happen for real, it would’ve happened already. Now I can move on. After a pumpkin empanada or six.

Friday night, I arrive back at my apartment from work with my second box of pan dulce this week to drown my feelings in. Stress-eating is my time-honored tradition, and pumpkin empanadas are my kryptonite. Consequence of having a Mexican mother with an all-powerful sweet-tooth gene. I’ll feel guilty in the morning but will do nothing about it until Sunday, when my best friend, Angela Gutierrez, comes over for our weekly morning walk on the trail outside my building. It’s the only exercise we get since neither of us can afford gym memberships with our salaries. Not that I would ever step foot inside a gym willingly.

My two-bedroom apartment is tiny, but it’s all I need. A plush, heather-gray couch is pushed in the corner of the living room facing a small black TV stand, where my twenty-inch smart TV resides. I’m not even sure my apartment comes with cable, but there’s no need for it when a good chunk of my paycheck is divided among three different streaming sites. The living room and kitchen are separated by this weird half wall that transitions into the dining bar past the couch. I keep most of my library books along the half wall, as well as on the antique entrance table by the front door. If I keep them with the books I already own, they’ll never get returned and I’ll be the first librarian to ever get their library card permanently confiscated.

My best friend arrives moments after I do, announcing herself by ringing the doorbell five more times than necessary. When I let her in, she’s carrying a familiar, nondescript white paper bag I immediately recognize from our favorite panadería downtown. Bless her.

“Oh, shit, you beat me!” Angela exclaims when she spots the equally nondescript white box sitting on my coffee table. “How are you already here when I got off an hour before you?”

“Erica let me go early. Apparently, I’ve been nothing but useless to myself and others all day.” Those weren’t her exact words, but I wouldn’t have blamed her for saying them. My boss was much nicer when she sent me home, telling me to sleep off my “mind fog” when the third person I’d checked out left the building to the blaring sound of alarm bells. There’s a reason we bump the books before handing them off to patrons, and three is too many times to forget in one day. Angela was buried in shelving all day, so I’m not surprised she didn’t notice.

“It was a slow day, anyway.”

“You need to get out of this funk, Marcela,” Angela says. Then she holds out her hand. “All right, let’s see it.”

I hand over my phone with a dramatic groan. Her expression turns contemplative as she reads over the profile I’ve just updated. Underneath my name and age—Marcela Ortiz, 27—is my job title and a list of my favorite authors, quotes, and drinks. Her eyes narrow the longer she reads, until finally she shakes her head in disapproval.

“No.” She hands me my phone back. “Absolutely unacceptable.”

“Oh, come on! I thought I did a pretty good job this time.”

“You cannot put an obscure quote from An Ember in the Ashes in your Tinder bio.” She rolls her eyes at my pout. “Read the room, Marcela.”

“What? I thought it was fitting, considering the circumstances.”

She rolls her eyes again so hard that I’m surprised she doesn’t get brain damage on the spot. “Your subliminal messaging is positively uncanny.”

I look down at my phone and read over the quote in my bio.

“There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.”

It had been Angela’s idea to revive my dating accounts when I told her all about my painful lunch with Ben. She wasn’t nearly as surprised as I was to learn that Ben was taking the next big step in his relationship with Alice, which only shows how far removed from reality my own feelings have made me. Loving someone you can’t have is exhausting. But loving someone who’s in a committed relationship crushes you under a thousand-pound weight of guilt and shame until it bleeds you dry. Living under that weight isn’t just unsustainable, it’s also lonely and heartbreaking and unbearable and I can’t do it for a second longer.

So, in choosing Tinder, I’m choosing the latter. Fire my soul to purpose, baby.

“Sabaa Tahir is too wise for this world,” I say, almost wistfully. Then I glance over my shoulder at my friend with an innocent look. “Too deep for Tinder?”

“I really don’t think I need to answer that.”

She snatches the phone out of my hand before I can blink, fingers darting across the keyboard to rewrite a half hours’ worth of thoughtful consideration. Angela finishes typing in under two minutes, and when she hands my phone back to me, I guffaw as my eyes trail down the screen. Apparently, I live for spontaneous adventure and am NOT looking for anything serious. She even changed two of my three profile pictures, and my teen librarian title is gone.

“Casual.” My brain sticks on the word, refusing to make sense of it. “I really don’t think I’m a ‘casual’ kind of girl.”

“No better time to start than now. You should be using Tinder for what it’s intended for.” Her curly hair bounces off her shoulders as she leans forward to grab a bright yellow concha from the box on the coffee table. “One-night stands.”

Angela, ever the commitment-phobe. She has her pick of romantic interests, being beautiful, willowy, and tall, with gorgeous hazel eyes and olive-toned skin. Although she’s quick to dole out relationship advice, she’s never actually had one of her own. Not even a fling, for as long as I’ve known her. The girl can expertly flirt her way to free drinks for an entire table, but she rejects every single advance that comes her way. I’ve always wondered if there was a reason for that.

“When have you ever used Tinder for a one-night stand?” I shoot back, raising my brows at her.

“I’ve never used dating apps in general. I have no interest in them.” I’ve always suspected as much, but I’m still a bit surprised by the confirmation. “My time will come when it comes. But you”—she shakes a bony finger at me—“you need all the help you can get.”

I heave a sigh. She’s not wrong about that.

“I still don’t think a one-night stand is the answer.”

“Not according to every rom-com out there,” she insists, voice slightly garbled around a mouthful of pan. Once she swallows, her expression turns serious. “They’ve been together a long time, Marcela. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.” I look away from her, not wanting to go down this rabbit hole again. “I know it’s tough, but you should’ve done this a long time ago.”

“It’s not like I haven’t tried. I don’t like the idea of random hookups. It all seems too nerve-racking.”

I’ve been on a string of failed first dates, enough talking phases to test my sanity, and exactly two relationships (if you could call them that, given that both fell apart almost as quickly as they came) since Ben. Maybe if any part of me found dating exciting, I wouldn’t have so much trouble. As it is, my body confidence is in constant fluctuation depending on the day and dating only adds more pressure to that. Sure, when I’m feeling particularly confident, I can appreciate the hourglass figure my soft curves form—a large bust that dips into a slightly tapered waist before widening into rounded hips and thick thighs. My butt, however, is surprisingly flat. Of all the departments to fall short in, it would be the one area I wish a little more fat would travel to.

But I never know how the men I date, and potentially become intimate with, will react when they see my body. I’ve been burned before, the few times I actively participated in hookup culture. And that was with men I spent time getting to know, only for them to turn around and treat me like crap in bed. They got what they wanted from me, but what did I get? Certainly not what I’d (ahem, didn’t) come for. Not decency, not respect. Not even a call or text back after, though the ghosts were almost preferable to the ones who’d attempted to let me down easy directly after sex. As if telling someone you’d just been inside that you never wanted to see them again wasn’t gross enough, there aren’t enough showers in the world to wash off the shame of hearing I wasn’t their “usual type,” or even worse, that they weren’t attracted to me. That one was a head scratcher until I realized it was a coded way of saying what they were too afraid to.

Score one for fatphobia, followed by another point for every time I internalized that shit. Which is why until now, I’ve practically given up on dating entirely. I’m able to love my body so much more when I’m not bombarded with the reminder that there are plenty of men who don’t. I’m not interested in putting myself in that position again.

“Okay, then how ’bout a fling?” Angela suggests instead, brows waggling suggestively. “Get to know the guy a little bit before jumping into his pants, and then never speak to him again.”

I scrunch up my face. “That sounds mean.”

“Or let him loose gently into the wind for the next girl to find,” she amends. “Happy?”

“Not particularly.” I let out a sigh, knowing I don’t have much of a choice if I’m serious about getting over Ben. “But I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try.”

Angela finds the vodka stashed on top of my refrigerator as I swipe left and right with no real meaning. I take a shot when I get my first match, and then another when the guy never responds to my message. When the bottle is halfway gone, Angela takes my phone and sticks it with hers inside the lock case under my TV stand. The two of us have too many shared secrets not to secure our phones somewhere far, far away when the booze comes out.

By midnight, we’re both trashed and laughing for no reason. It’s the best I’ve felt all day, which I drunkenly gush to her.

“This is how I know it’s time to cut you off.” She snatches the bottle out of my hand. When I pout, she says, “Pobrecita. You’ll get over it.” I’m not sure if she’s talking about the vodka or Ben. Either way, I don’t believe her.

She crashes onto my bed right beside me, fast asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow. Her soft snores fill the bedroom, keeping me up. I lie awake next to her, my head swimming with thoughts of diamond rings and randomized Tinder profiles.

The next morning, after retrieving my phone from the lock case, my first text message of the day is from Ben.

She said yes!!!

I type out a quick reply, “Knew she would!” and roll over with a loud groan. Angela remains fast asleep, and I envy her. My head is pounding from last night, and my heart is pounding for reasons too early in the day to abuse myself with. But what’s done is done. Yet another outcome I can’t change.

Please Join Us For an

Engagement Party

In Honor of

Ben Young and Alice Cho

Saturday, September 30th

At Seven O’clock in the Evening

I look down at the gold foil, the afternoon sunlight bouncing off the lettering as dread sinks low in my stomach. Reality settles over me for the second time, as if knowing I’d willfully overlook it the first. He’s getting married. It’s real now, as real as the embossing beneath my fingertips.

Surprisingly, Alice was the one who came over to hand-deliver the invitation. She’s wearing light-wash jeans and a cream mock-neck sweater that hugs her frame in all the right ways. I envied her that, when she first started dating Ben. Her straight black hair falls sleekly past her shoulders, her light brown eyes narrowed slightly, as if she can see right through me. There’s no malice in her expression, but it’s always unnerved me how keen her gaze is. How naturally inquisitive. I’ve never breathed a word of my feelings for her boyfriend—fiancé now—to anyone besides Angela, but I can never quite shake the feeling that she knows. Not that she’s ever breathed as much, either.

Maybe it’s just paranoia.

Her smile is warm despite the knowledge shining in her eyes. “It’s gonna be at the Gardens. Our families are all coming down for it, and then there’ll be brunch on Sunday at the Guenther House with close friends and family. You’re invited to brunch too, of course. It’s a wonder we’ve been able to get everything together so quickly at the last minute!”

“Right? It hasn’t even been a week.” I glance up at her from the invitation. “How’d you guys manage to get the venue so soon?”

“Turns out Ben’s been doing some planning of his own,” she says idly. “He had the place booked over a month ago! I’d be shocked at his presumption if I wasn’t floating on cloud nine.” She chuckles lightly at this and I join her, hoping she doesn’t see through the fake sound.

There was a time in college when we were close. She was the first friend I made at freshman orientation and we carried that over into sophomore year. Then she and Ben started dating. Before they became serious, we remained close, but I also felt betrayed on a level I could never convey to her. Ben and I had only been out on a few dates, and we remained close friends afterward. We hung out with our group of friends, night after night, and I never once let it slip that I was still holding out hope that we might try again one day.

I kept it cool at the time, but I also kept my distance from Alice from that point on. Ever since, there’s always been a discernible awkwardness that hangs over every conversation we have by ourselves. Even years later, when I should be over it. But I’m not even over her boyfriend—fiancé. I can already tell I’ll never get used to saying that. The betrayal she doesn’t even know she committed still stings, even as the guilt heats my skin and makes me break out in a sweat each time we interact.

“Well, let me know if you need any help setting up,” I offer, if only to seem like I’m not slowly dying on the inside. The least I can do is redeem myself by helping ensure the party goes off without a hitch. Not that she needs to know there’s an ulterior motive to my kindness. “You can count on me to make any part of the process less stressful.”

“Oh, that’s such a sweet offer.” She puts both hands over her heart, the engagement ring on her finger catching the light like a warning sign. “Actually, since you brought it up, do you think you could pick up Ben’s brother from the airport? He’s coming back from an away game in Atlanta.”

Right. I always forget about Ben’s NFL player brother. Why can’t I be like the rest of Alice’s friends and lust after him instead?

“His flight arrives Friday morning, and I’m having such a hard time getting the day off.”

“Of course. Happy to do it.” I’ve met Theo only a handful of times. He and Ben used to be inseparable when they were younger, but they drifted apart when Theo left home for college. Over the years, I’ve pieced together that there was some sort of rift between them, but I’ve never gotten a clear answer from Ben about what happened to cause it. They barely speak now, but of course Theo would still want to celebrate with them. He’s family. I’m sure whatever their differences are, he’d still want to congratulate them.

“You’re a lifesaver! Thank you so much. He’ll be staying with me and Ben. I actually have a spare key on me, hold on.” She digs through her purse for a moment before coming up with the shiny silver key. “Here.”

“Oh, cool.” I force yet another smile I don’t feel. “You can count on me.”

“Thank you so much, Marcela.” She wraps me in a hug, smiling sweetly as we say our goodbyes. “You’re too good to us. I’ll see you at the party.”

“Can’t wait!” I lie, my face stretched into the fakest smile of my life.

When I return to my bedroom, I swipe through Tinder for half an hour. Just when I’m about to give up, my phone pings with a match. I wait for him to message first this time, continuously skimming over profiles and swiping until I let out a groan. Needing a distraction from Tinder, I open up the message app and tell Angela about the engagement party. Her reply comes right away.

You need to bring a date.

I groan again, furiously typing that there are no good men left on Tinder. We argue back and forth for a bit before I finally give a half-assed reply that I’ll try harder. This is so obviously a lie that she doesn’t bother to send more than an eye-roll emoji. I leave her on read and take a shower, hoping to wash off the stench of despair and longing before next weekend arrives.

The first time I met Theo Young, he was drunk off his ass.

It was three months into my sophomore year of college, and until then I’d only encountered fun drunks. Sorority girls dancing on tabletops. Frat bros stripping themselves of all clothing before cannonballing into the pool at the activity center. Even I had been a fun drunk at the few parties I’d been to thus far. Lost my inhibitions as well as myself to the music and talked way too much for my own good. But Theo was far from fun that night.

He was… angry, maybe? Not at anyone in particular, except maybe himself. If there’s a word to combine rage and sorrow, Theo was that. He drank himself into a stupor in Ben’s student apartment, shattered two bottles of tequila and then a mirror with his own hand. When his face was scrunched with incoming tears, I had the oddest feeling it wasn’t due to any sort of physical pain. His scream woke half the building, but by the time we got a noise complaint and a visit from campus security, he was already out cold. I’d been scared seeing him like that, but not for myself. Not even for Ben, though he had been backed against a corner the entire night, face sheet white. I wondered what could drive a person to destroy himself like that, and not care who was watching.

It wasn’t until he was asleep that Ben tended to his brother’s wounded hand. I watched over his shoulder as he cleaned it, my stomach churning at the amount of blood gushing from such a deceptively tiny cut. He looked so small, wincing as he wiped down the cuts with rubbing alcohol wipes, as if scared his brother would wake up from the sting of pain and continue on his rampage. Looking back, that night is what made me fall for Ben even more. We were broken up by then, but my heart ached as I watched the careful way he cared for his brother. Even when I was sure Theo didn’t deserve such kindness, after visiting Ben only to act like that the entire time. I made my excuses and left soon after, not imagining the morning after could be any better.

Later, Ben told me about Theo’s injury. A torn ACL had shot his chances at playing pro football and had been the reason for his drunken furor. “He pushes himself too hard” had been Ben’s explanation. “He’s had problems with his knee before, but he never lets himself heal properly.”

For the meantime, that was that. The end of a career before it could begin. Or so we thought. The sideline turned out to be only temporary, but none of us knew it back then.

The second time I saw Theo I hardly recognized him, and not just because a year and a half had passed in the time between. Not only was he sober, but he was also smiling as wide as his mouth could stretch, genuine happiness shining in his eyes. We were at a brunch date with Alice and Ben the day after they moved in together.

Theo pulled me aside later to apologize for the first time we met. I was struck by his earnestness, so at odds with the thrashing man I’d been faced with before. Even more so that he even remembered I’d been there that night. He was so drunk, I assumed he’d blacked out. He wouldn’t let me wave off his apology like it was nothing, my usual gut response when anyone tries to apologize to me for any reason, even a warranted one.

“Truly, Marcela. If I scared or hurt you at all that night, I’m sorry,” he said, a gentle hand laid on my shoulder. “I should’ve controlled myself better. But believe me, it won’t happen again.” I wasn’t . . .