Some people wait decades to meet their soul mate. Courtney Kaufman suspects she met hers in high school—only to lose him at seventeen. Since then, Courtney’s social life has been a series of meaningless encounters, though she’s made a few close friends along the way. Especially her roommate, Max Cooper, who oozes damaged bad-boy vibes from every pore.
Max knows about feeling lost—he’s been on his own since he was sixteen. Now it’s time to find out if he can ever go home again, and Courtney’s the only one he trusts to go with him. But the trip to Providence could change everything….
It started out so simple. One misfit helping another. Now Max will do anything to show Courtney that for every heart that’s ever been broken, there’s another that can make it complete.
Also available from Ann Aguirre and Mira Ink
I Want It That Way As Long As You Love Me
The Shape of
My Heart
Ann Aguirre
Contents
If my life were a romantic comedy, I wouldn’t be the star.
I’d be the witty, wise-cracking friend, telling the Reese Witherspoon character to follow her heart, and I’d be played by America Ferrera, Hollywood’s idea of an ugly duckling. But not conforming to societal beauty standards didn’t cause me any angst; I wasn’t harboring a secret desire to take off my glasses and flip my hair, so my secret love interest would realize I was beautiful all along. In my view, my looks supplied simplicity. Anyone who got with me wanted the real me, no question. Romance ranked dead last on my to-do list at the moment, however.
“You’re too picky,” Max said.
He was curled up on my bedroom floor, skimming emails on his tablet. With her boyfriend’s help, our soon-to-be-ex-roommate, Nadia, was currently carting the last of her belongings downstairs, and the other half of my room was conspicuously empty. I scowled and threw a common cold plushie at his head. He batted it away with impressive reflexes, still scrolling. Since he’d posted flyers around campus, along with his email, Max was handling first contact on the apartment.
“Swap with me. You and Angus can share the master bedroom and then you can put whoever you want next door.”
As expected, he passed with an as-if gesture. “We’ll keep looking. How about this one? ‘Hey, my name is Kara. I’m a physical education major, I work part-time at Kelvin’s and I’m a sophomore. I saw your flyer, and I’d love to meet you guys. My apartment fell through when the landlord sold the place out from under us and now I’m scrambling.’ She seems fine. All the words are even spelled correctly.”
I pretended to mull it over. “Basic language skills are important to me. Put her on the call-back list.”
“You make it sound like we’re casting a movie.”
“This is way more critical,” I reminded