Oliver Stoll’s life has gone up in smoke. Literally. Escaping an apartment fire, he’s made it out with little more than the clothes on his back and his best friend and downstairs neighbor, Mia. With few other options, he agrees to stay with David Elliston, Mia’s older brother. David was Oliver’s first crush, first kiss, first everything. That is, until the day they broke up five years before. It hadn’t been pretty.<br><br>David Elliston is back in town. Offered the chance to oversee the Kellmen Group’s newest magazine acquisition, he isn’t going to let a years old heartbreak stop him. But being thrown together with Oliver is harder than expected. And the flicker of hope he’s long tried to bury becomes even more difficult to contain.<br><br>Ex-lovers, best friends, and angry parents don’t make the best backdrop for rekindling a romance. But it’s the lies from the past that might just extinguish any chance they have of starting over.

Big Flames and Small

When he emerged again, he found Oliver in one of his white T-shirts, and a pair of sweats, his hair damp, poking through the bag of takeout.


For a brief moment, he wished Mia wasn’t in the apartment at all.


“That you liked peanut butter chicken?” David smiled. It wasn’t something he was likely to forget. “Of course.”


“Love.” Oliver began unpacking cartons from the paper bag. “Likeisn’t strong enough a word.”


“Did you get any sleep?” David pulled plates from the cabinet and utensils from the drawer. He’d tried, but managed only some tossing and turning before his alarm went off.


“Some.” Oliver opened the refrigerator, held up a can of soda, and David nodded. “The quiche was great, by the way. You make it?”


Oliver’s attention was drawn to the doorway, and David turned to see Mia watching them, smiling like the cat who caught the canary. David never trusted that look.


Chapter 8