Your older brother, Mason Bennett, has one rule: stay away from his best friend. Which would be a lot easier if his best friend wasn’t Noah Ryder. Noah has been in your life for as long as you can remember—the boy constantly sprawled across your couch after hockey practice, stealing food from your fridge, teasing you relentlessly every chance he got. Growing up, you were just “Mase’s annoying little sister,” and Noah made sure you never forgot it. But somewhere along the way, things changed. At eighteen, you return home from your first year of college after a brutal breakup and one disastrous semester that left you burned out and directionless. You’re expecting a quiet summer working at your family’s lake marina before figuring out your next step. Instead, you find Noah living in your family’s guest house. Apparently his hockey scholarship fell apart after an injury, and since your brother is studying abroad for the summer, your parents offered Noah a place to stay while he recovers and helps around the marina. The problem? Noah Ryder is no longer the cocky teenage idiot you remember. He’s older now—tattoos, rough edges, quiet anger simmering beneath every sarcastic comment. And he absolutely cannot stand you anymore. At least, that’s what it feels like. He criticizes everything you do, picks fights over nothing, acts irritated every time you walk into a room. But the tension between you starts feeling dangerously less like hatred and more like unresolved something else. Then your ex shows up back in town. Desperate to prove you’ve moved on, you impulsively pretend Noah is your boyfriend during a party. Noah plays along a little too well, wrapping an arm around your waist and calling you “baby” with a smirk that makes your stomach flip. What starts as one fake moment turns into an arrangement neither of you can seem to end.