Blurb:
Crush (n.): a strong and often short lived infatuation particularly for someone beyond your reach…
Darcy Barrett found her dream man at age eight – ever since, she’s had to learn to settle for good enough. Having conducted a global survey of men, she can categorically say that no one measures up to Tom Valeska, whose only flaw is that he’s her twin brother’s best friend – oh, and that ninety-nine percent of the time, he hasn’t seemed interested in her.
When Darcy and Jamie inherit a tumble-down cottage from their grandmother, they’re left with strict instructions to bring it back to its former glory and sell the property. Darcy plans to leave as soon as the renovations start, but before she can cut and run – her usual strategy – she finds a familiar face on her porch: Tom’s arrived bearing power tools, and he’s single for the first time in almost a decade. Suddenly Darcy’s considering sticking around…
Soon, sparks start to fly – and not just because of the faulty wiring. But a one percent chance with Tom is no longer enough. This time around, Darcy’s switching things up. She’s going to make Tom Valeska ninety-nine percent hers.
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Side Notes:
- YA Romance Novel
- Highly recommend for 14 years and up
- Written by the incredible author of The Hating Game
- Reference to explicit language and sex
Book Quotes:
- “That’s because pizza is a precious natural resource. It can heal tiredness, bad mood, falling morale, and a fading will to live. Pizza realigns the heart chakras.”
- “Everything. If you were mine, I’d do everything.” Our gold bubble locks shut, and a little universe fills it. The possibilities are infinite. “I have a big imagination. Could you be more specific?” I put my hand on the side of his neck and stroke down to the hard bar of his collarbone. His skin is hot satin. His pulse nudges me. Mine, mine, mine. One thousand percent mine until the end of time. He looks like he agrees. “Everything you wanted or needed, I’d do it.” Amazing how he can keep it clean, but it feels so dirty. That’s the thing about good boys. “I want and need a lot.” A big white smile now. “No kidding. Well, I’m a hard worker.”
- “No one else is kissing you anymore,” he tells me in a conversational hush, not breaking our contact. “Your mouth is mine.” The thought is more than he can bear; now we’re twisting each other’s clothes and the kiss is like a conversation with no words — louder and louder, talking over each other: Listen to me. No, you listen to me.”
- “I can never decide if Tom’s hair is the color of caramel fudge or chocolate. Either way, yum. The texture is like a romance novel that’s fallen into the bath, then dried: vaguely sexual crinkle waves with the occasional curled edge and dog-ear. I want to jam my hand in it and make a gentle fist.”
- “The look he gives me makes me wonder if I’m in trouble. “I thought you were going out.”“I wanted to come back and say I’m sorry,” I tell him, and I put my arms around his waist and hug. “You shut the door in a way that made me sad, and I wanted to tell you that I’m going to do better.”“Do better at what? How’d I shut the door?” His other arm wraps around my shoulders. He crosses his feet behind my heels, and now his entire body is hugging me. Warm, soft, hard. I thought my mattress was heaven, but that’s before I laid myself on this person. How am I going to ever peel myself off?I inhale his birthday-candle pheromones. I want to know what his goddamn bones smell like. Let me start down in his DNA structure and work my way back out. I speak into his muscles. “You shut the door like you’ve just accepted that I don’t come back. I’m going to start being like you. Completely, one hundred percent honest.” I hover on the precipice and decide to try. “This is the best hug of my life.”
- “He has the kind of density that makes me constantly guess to myself how much he’d weigh. Does muscle weigh more than fat? He’s a ton. He’s six-six, and I watched him get this tall, but it’s a surprise every time I see him. It’s the body you see on first responders. Think big-ass firemen kicking in doors, ready to save you.“How do you cope with a skeleton that big?” I ask, and he looks down at himself, mystified. “I mean, how do you coordinate all four limbs and actually ambulate around the place?”My eyes are back on his shoulders, following the round lines down, the flat sections, the dips and shadowed lines, the creases on the cotton. I can see his belt, which doesn’t know how lucky it is to be strapped around that, and a lush half inch of black underwear waistband, and my cheeks are burning and I can hear my heart and—“Eyes up, DB.” He’s busted me. Not that I was very subtle. “Me and my skeleton getaround just fine.”
- “Unpack the equipment,” Tom says in a bass tone I’ve never heard in my life. It’s the kind of voice that should be saying, On your knees. My joints loosen and my body replies, Okay.”
- “The vintage St. Patty’s Day T-shirt he’s wearing, probably out of politeness, is stretched wafer thin, trying to cope. If it were a person, it would be an exhausted wraith, gasping, Please, help me. It fits like a dream.”
- “Sunday night is my personal weekly Halloween.I walk along slowly and drag my fingertips along the bars of chocolate. Goddamn, you sexy little squares. Dark, milk, white, I do not discriminate. I eat it all. Those fluorescent sour candies that only obnoxious little boys like. I suck candy apples clean. If an envelope seal is sweet, I’ll lick it twice. Growing up, I was that kid who would easily get lured into a van with the promise of a lollipop.Sometimes, I let the retail seduction last for twenty minutes, ignoring Marco and feeling up the merchandise, but I’m so tired of male voices.“Five bags of marshmallows,” Marco says in a resigned tone. “Wine. And a can of cat food.”“Cat food is low carb.” He makes no move to scan anything, so I scan each item myself and unroll a few notes from my tips. “Your job involves selling things. Sell them. Change, please.”“I just don’t know why you do this to yourself.” Marco looks at the register with a moral dilemma in his eyes. “Every week you come and do this.”He hesitates and looks over his shoulder where his sugar book sits under a layer of dust. He knows not to try to slip it into my bag with my purchases.“I don’t know why you care, dude. Just serve me. I don’t need your help.” He’s not entirely wrong about my being an addict. I would lick a line of icing sugar off this counter right now if no one were around. I would walk into a cane plantation and bite right in… “Give me my change or I swear to God …” I squeeze my eyes shut and try to tamp down my temper. “Just treat me like any other customer.”He gives me a few coins’ change and bags my sweet, spongy drugs.”
- “Meet your new alpha, bitch.”
- “I bet she put it in her bullet journal. Saturday, six P.M. A special gold star sticker indicating sexual intercourse completed.” Truly drifts half-asleep again, emitting the occasional cackle.”
- “I just get crabby and irritated. Big surprise, I know I’m always like that. But I just need to feel someone else . . . It eases off the sharpness inside. It really is an actual thing. Skin hunger. I read a study about it.”
- “I crank the shower and it spits and steams. Then I stand in the water and when I cry, the tears wash away. The perfect crime”
- “That important, impossible thing that you have nearly given up on ninety-nine times? Finish it. Whether it’s a success or a failure, no one can take your The End prize away from you. Finishing is the most important thing there is. It’s proof of how hard you tried.”
- “There’s still one solid-gold good man left out there. He’s the high-tide mark in a world of inch-deep puddles.”
- “A memory of last night drops through my body like a coin. Ripples spread through my stomach, shimmering down.”
- “Are you okay?” I want to grab him by the shoulders and check for physical damage. I’ll crack open his chest to check how bad his heart looks.“Me?” He thinks for a second. “Everyone just asks if she’s okay.”“Yeah, because she’s just lost you . Are you okay? Do I need to go and beat the shit out of her?” I notice one of the cabinets above me is ajar. For something to do, I put a hand up to close it. When my fingers hook into the tiny handle, the web-thin hinge breaks. Now I’m standing here with a broken door in my hand. I lean it against my leg and try to look cool, but I’m practically auditioning for SmackDown. Unwillingly, he laughs. I am going to beat Megan with this door until she realizes what a fuckup she’s made. He knows exactly what I’m thinking.“You’re always so vicious, DB.”
- “He smells like birthday-candle wishes.”
- “I need your hands more than I’ve ever needed anything.”
- “He takes my mug from my hand and takes a slow sip. Every guy watches him do it. They understand what their boss is telling them. Speculation is now in expressions and I wire my jaw shut to stop it from dropping open.”
- “No one else is kissing you anymore,” he tells me in a conversational hush, not breaking our contact. “Your mouth is mine.”
- “You are not looking after me,” I tell him in my most firm voice. “No matter how much you want to, I’m not yours to look after.”