You & Me and You & Me and You & Me

by Josie Lloyd, Emlyn Rees

Genres: General Fiction; Family Life; Romance; Contemporary Romance; Time Travel

Synopsis

“If you read just one book this year, read this one—a time-bending love story full of nostalgia and ‘what-ifs.’”—Sophie Cousens, New York Times bestselling author of Just Haven’t Met You Yet

“A grown-up love story that captures the beauty of not only finding your person but holding on to them. Throw in some time travel, great music, and ’90s nostalgia, and you have an unforgettable read.”—Laurie Gilmore, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Meet Adam and Jules.

Married for nearly twenty-five years and stuck in a rut, their future looks, well, boring.

Then Adam stumbles across a box of old mixtapes he and Jules made for each other when they were young and falling in love. He dusts off his vintage stereo, inserts one of the cassettes, presses “Play” …and the unbelievable happens.

With the power to travel back in time, Jules and Adam can recapture the headiness of falling in love. But they soon realize that visiting the past could be as dangerous as it is addictive, because the temptation to change just a few tiny things is irresistible.

As the consequences start to spiral out of control, can they find a way back to their messy and imperfect, yet glorious, real life? Or will they lose each other forever?

Release date: February 10, 2026

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons

Print pages: 352

Sample

Time," I call, hitting the service bell before wiping a tiny basil emulsion smear from the edge of one of my signature risottos and tweezering the homegrown micro herbs perfectly into place. The handsome waiter takes the dish from the pass.

"Come out. They want you, Jules," he says with a smile.

I turn to look at my kitchen brigade. Delicious smoke rises from the chargrills, knives flash, and the air is filled with focused commands. They can cope without me for a moment.

Following the waiter through the service doors, I see the sun is setting over the magical view of the Golden Gate Bridge, bathing the restaurant in ethereal warm light. I greet the diners around the white-clothed tables on the veranda, most of whom have been on the waiting list for a year. Their hands press mine, but I demurely bat away their congratulations. Hey, I'm just me . . . doing me.

At the private table, I sink into the comfortable batik cushions beside my business partners, both of them famous Hollywood actors, as this season's must-have Zinfandel from Paso Robles is poured into my outstretched glass. They're here to persuade me to re-create my culinary alchemy elsewhere, but seriously, no, I can't. Didn't they read the profile piece in Time magazine about how I've got my work-life balance just right?

We chat briefly and, as the stars twinkle, I tell them to hang around. This place always turns into the hottest nightspot after dark. Later, when the DJ arrives, I hear the familiar tango beat of Gotan Project's "Mi Confesión" bleeding louchely from the speakers. Then suddenly Adam's here and my heart soars at the sight of him striding confidently across the restaurant in his svelte ivory Tom Ford suit. My Adam. He extends his hand and I take it, feeling a heady, thrilling jolt of connection as we touch. He twirls me onto the small dance floor, tipping me over his arm before flipping me up against his firm body, his hand caressing my face as he stares into my eyes with such intense passion, it takes my breath away. His lips a breath from mine, he sensuously smooths his knee between my thighs . . .

Although . . . hang on . . . no, he'd better not do that . . . because I really, really need to . . .

What the . . . ?

Huh?

Oh . . . You've got to be kidding me.

Squeezing my eyes shut against the piercing daylight splaying around the sides of our threadbare bedroom curtains, I try desperately to go back to sleep, but it's no good. My dream has vanished. And I really do need to pee.

Yawning, I remove my earplugs, the squalling seagulls outside suddenly competing with Adam-the real Adam, not dream-tango Adam-who is snoring loudly beside me. I swing my legs out of bed and he subconsciously, yet somehow victoriously, snatches my portion of the duvet and re-cocoons himself, wrapping it tightly around his furry belly.

In the bathroom, as I notice he's left the loo seat up, as per usual, I turn on the masochistic mirror light.

Bloody hell. I look like Shrek.

This hydrating avocado and apple cider vinegar face mask was meant to "invisibly absorb overnight." Instead, I look more like I've face-planted in the dip section at a wedding buffet.

Washing it off hardly improves matters. Rather than having fewer wrinkles, if anything, I seem to have more. Given I was clearly living my best life in my dream a minute ago, it feels like an extra slap round the face.

Great. So much for looking younger. For being party-ready.

Adam's best mate, Darius, is hosting a "Pool, Fun, Barbecue, and DJ Beats" get-together today to celebrate moving back from the States, having sold his video gaming company there for a whopping fifty million bucks. He's just bought a humongous mansion overlooking the whole of Brighton, which he'll no doubt pack with the kind of cool, beautiful people I'm always seeing on his Insta feed-the fairest-of-them-all kind of people that this old magic mirror tells me I am not.

Of course, I'm looking forward to hanging out with Darius again, we both are. We haven't seen him since his last fleeting visit a couple of years ago. Since then, he's developed that same chiseled, mega-wealthy, multivitamin sheen as the rest of his Insta buddies. What if he finds us horribly parochial? What if that's all we are to him now? Just people from his past?

Stop it. It'll be fine. It's Darius. I'm being ridiculous.

I open the posh moisturizer Ngozi got me on her last breeze through duty-free, accidentally dropping the little plastic disk covering the product onto the floor. Cursing, because that always happens, I scrape the expensive gloop from the faded lino with my finger and apply it to my face. Disgusting, I know, but three-second rule and all that.

As I rub it in, I glance down at the glossy cover of last Sunday's newspaper supplement magazine, left beside the sink. if you don't use it, you lose it, the dubious headline reads. The woman on the front, a self-proclaimed "sexpert," has enviably pert breasts underneath her tight top. I suspect she's airbrushed, though I do recognize that smug sex-glow that I used to have.

The article inside is all about the importance of regular "relationship maintenance sex," along with some dire warnings about the consequences of women my age failing to be spontaneous and not putting out. As if worrying about my face wasn't enough, apparently I've also got to "make an effort" to keep toned . . . you know . . . down there.

But Fridays and Saturdays I'm out cooking for private dinner parties in the posher parts of town, if I'm lucky. The weekdays go by in a flash and most nights after supper-invariably cooked by me-Adam and I end up vegetating on our separate sofas in the living room. Me craving a foot rub while secretly snaffling my stash of Maltesers I keep hidden down the side of the cushion, and him channel-hopping between the several subscription services the kids insist are their birthright, before switching over to some obscure retro rock biopic, or other boysy documentary, like Secrets of the Neanderthals, his current favorite.

The sound of the News at Ten music usually wakes me up, leaving Adam muttering at all the doom and gloom in the world while I slope off to bed.

Which means that if we are going to have "relationship maintenance sex," or any kind of sex at all, it has to be in the morning.

As in . . . I suppose . . . now.

I pad back into the bedroom, past Adam's dirty socks and T-shirt, lying near the wicker laundry basket, and sit on my side of the bed.

"Shall we have sex?" I ask him matter-of-factly. I know he's only pretending to be asleep.

My husband of nearly twenty-five years looks at me like I'm a stewardess who's just asked him if he wants to be upgraded to business class. With complimentary drinks.

"Hell, yeah," he says, after a beat just to check that I am being serious.

We begin the once titillating and fun, but now somewhat perfunctory, task of getting up close and naked. We don't kiss. Or talk. Or giggle. Not like we used to. Back in the day, Adam and I used to jump all over each other all the time. So much so, it used to feel like being between the sheets was our real life and everything else was just a distraction.

Right now, though, there's not much "mood setting"-something else the article recommended. We both know how to get the mechanics going on autopilot and soon I'm groping about in the bedside drawer for some lube and trying not to mind that his stomach squashes my diaphragm. Or that his beard really does sometimes make me want to scratch.

Even so, a few minutes later, the movement we're creating makes my body remember what it's supposed to be doing. All of which leaves me thinking: Get me! I've spontaneously instigated relationship maintenance sex on a Saturday morning! But then my mind starts wandering and I'm thinking about the catering job I've got on for the council tomorrow. How about I knock up some Key lime pies for dessert? Oh, actually, that's a great idea.

No. You're having sex, I remind myself. Concentrate. Whip out a fantasy. Get in the zone.

My sexual fantasies are largely informed by eighties rom-coms, and these days they're a little tatty and worn, but I mentally dust off a scene at a retro Hollywood-style pool party. It's got a sleazy vibe and there's a Tom Cruise peak Top Gun-era look-alike approaching me in just a skimpy white towel.

Oh yes, now we're talking . . . I'm on the pleasure tracks. Oh . . . oh . . . and yes, enjoying it . . . very, very-

"Mum!" Nelly's scream from downstairs pops my erotic bubble.

"Ignore her," Adam says, burying his face in my neck.

Good. I'm not the only one having a good time. But just a few seconds later, as we happily get going again, Adam freezes mid-thrust as our bedroom door bursts open.

Glancing over his shoulder, I see our twenty-four-year-old daughter, horror-struck in the doorway at the sight of us humped on top of each other under the duvet.

"Oh, Jesus!" she says, shielding her eyes with the arms of her pink terry-cloth dressing gown.

"What do you want?" I shout, pulling the duvet even tighter around us.

"It's done it again. The Bot thing." She now has her back to us, but she hasn't left the room, like no matter what we might or might not be doing, her need is still greater than ours.

"We're coming," Adam groans, before his eyes flash wide at me, clearly realizing just how this might sound.

"To help," I quickly add. "We're coming to help."

With a pained yelp of disgust, Nelly storms off downstairs, her curly ponytail swishing.

"For God's sake," I mutter, squeezing out from underneath Adam and flinging on my cotton robe.

The Kooks's "Seaside" is drifting out from Liam's room as I hurry past, along with the stale stink of that disgusting weed he smokes, even though Adam and I have been over all the reasons why he should quit countless times. He's usually so nocturnal, I'm surprised he's awake at this hour. Or maybe he's been up all night again?

I find Nelly in the kitchen doorway downstairs, her nose buried into the crook of her arm.

"It's a shitshow," she winces, as I squeeze past. "Literally."

Liam, twenty-one, really is up. Wearing boxers and a black T-shirt, he's squatting on a kitchen chair clutching a mug of coffee, while Groucho Barx, our senile-and frequently incontinent-black-and-white collie, peers up at me with guilty brown eyes from where he's quivering by the back door.

"We can't find the remote," Liam says, nodding down at Mop Bot, the new robot vacuum cleaner, as it continues merrily smearing one of Groucho's more exuberant deposits over the tiles in blissful, space-age arcs.

Striding across the kitchen, I pick the damn thing up.

"Mum! Gross," Nelly cries.

I jab at the button on Mop Bot's top until it dies abruptly in my arms. Gagging from the smell, I dump it on the floor.

In the moment of silence that follows, Liam snorts with pent-up laughter.

"Not funny," I snap, glaring across at him and his pale skinny legs, rife with line tattoos. I hate the fact that he's done this to himself over the past year, but it's not like I'm in much of a position to criticize him. I got a drunk tattoo myself in my misspent youth-to my everlasting shame. A cartoon rat on the back of my shoulder in honor of my boyfriend at the time, Mickey Ratty. But at least I very rarely see mine.

Climbing down from his kitchen chair, still laughing, Liam half hops, half dances across the messy tiles into the hall like he's playing Twister.

"Oi. That's mine!" Nelly exclaims, pulling at the hem of his T-shirt. "You pig! It stinks of smoke."

Backing off, his slopping coffee cup held aloft, Liam sidesteps her as she gives chase, like they're both still kids, just as Adam arrives in his pajama bottoms and faded Nirvana Nevermind T-shirt. He flattens himself against the wall as Liam and Nelly tumble past, shrieking and swearing.

I slowly survey the wreckage Mop Bot has left in its wake. The kitchen floor looks like a Jackson Pollock if he ever had a Brown Period.

"I didn't want that bloody thing anyway."

Adam holds up his hands, as if fending off a bear. "Only trying to help," he says.

It takes all my self-control not to yell that this isn't helping. He's not helping. He never helps. None of them do. Or never enough.

Which is why I called a family summit last month and pointed out that, since Liam had dropped out of uni and Nelly was working from home, and since they're both now technically adults, they could start helping out around the place. But it fell on deaf ears, until my "aggressive tone" was noted by Nelly, while Liam, who never misses an opportunity to gang up with his sister, added that I was "having a go." Then Nelly accused me of being menopausal in such a condescending way that I honestly wanted to stab them all with a fork.

Adam decided that the best solution was to buy me a robot vacuum for my birthday.

Yeah. Right. Lucky me.

Negotiating his way across the clean patches of tiles, Adam lets Groucho out into the back garden from the utility room and starts wafting the door to get rid of the smell. He looks at me as I snatch the mop from the cupboard.

"Um, you wanna leave that and maybe . . . ?" He gives me a hopeful smirk, glancing back upstairs.

I can't actually believe what I'm hearing. "No, Adam," I tell him. "I really think the moment has passed."

It takes an age to wash the floor while Adam takes Groucho Barx for a loop around St. Ann's Well Gardens in case he does it again.

When I'm finished, I survey the kitchen with its ancient green cabinets that Adam refuses to get rid of because of their "sentimental" value. It's like he's trying to keep his parents' kitchen as it was when they were still alive and lived in this house, as a kind of mausoleum to his childhood. He even had the cheek to say the other day that everything here's so old, it's come back into fashion, but I don't buy it. It looks like what it is-a dump.