Oh boy, this one is a good one, and it definitely made me cry a few times. Davis is a twenty-one year old that is about to finish college, and she seeks out her brother’s best friend to help her solve a “problem”. What is this problem, you ask? She is still a virgin. She writes an essay. Yes, you read that right, AN ESSAY, with all the reasons Crew should help her. It takes a while but finally Crew comes around, but he makes some changes to the original offer. He will help teach her, but he won’t be the one to take her virginity — he will find someone else to do it. Well, we follow along as they get to know each other again after four years of them not talking, and we learn that with Crews’ shitty home life when they were teenagers, Davis’s parents took him in and got custody and he lived with them. We get some moments of jealousy from Crew, and classic overthinking from Davis, but it all works out: Crew takes her virginity and they are dating. Yay. Well, that is until Memphis, Davis’s brother shows up. He was sent to rehab three times, thanks to his parents paying for it, and he claims he is sober now. Crew doesn’t believe him, but feels like if he causes a problem, Davis will pick Memphis over him, so he is very watchful, but lets Davis do her thing and they allow Memphis to stay with them. One night, Davis wakes up to some banging in the living room, and she goes out, and realizes that Memphis is not only drunk, but has a weird dude with him that is acting sketchy as all hell. A dude, who has come into the diner almost everyday and is talking to her, comes out of the bathroom and when Davis tries to call Crew for help, they take her phone. Crew calls their neighbor, Jess, whom he beat one night thinking Davis was seeing him, to get her and while Jess is trying to get her out of the apartment, Crew comes in and takes care of the assholes. They spend the night in a hotel, and go back to the apartment the next day to get some stuff, and Crew goes in first, not wanting Davis to see the mess, and finds Memphis still passed out. They start talking and it comes up that all the trouble they got into was actually due to Memphis and he talked Crew into being the fall guy. Davis got tired of waiting for Crew and went inside and heard the last part of the conversation and demanded answers, which she got, and the answers were extremely disappointing. Crew also finally mentions that the bar she thought he was only managing, he actually owns it. Later, after they got back to the hotel, Crew’s little brother, Drew, and best friend, Willie, show up and tell them something bad has happened at the bar. They go look at the bar, and it’s completely destroyed. Davis notices some business cards outside and picks them up and hides them. They finally go back to the apartment, and Drew goes with them, and Crew invites Jess over for a Pizza night, like Jess and Davis used to have. This time, instead of making the frozen pizzas, they ordered one, and when the knock on the door comes, Crew makes Davis go to her room and lock the door, and have Jess go with her. There was a fight and yelling, and Davis heard the name Kaleb, and remembered his name being on the business cards outside the bar, and called the number on the card. Davis traded her truck, that was originally her brothers, to pay off the debt because it was worth twice what the debt was. All that, just to find out, Kaleb actually wanted Crew to fight for him. There is a meeting with Kaleb where the gang all goes and when Kaleb offers Crew three hundred thousand after he wins the fight to rebuild the bar, our little math genius, Davis fights back and they end up with a deal to get half a million and Davis’s truck back. They go to the fight, and Crew is a beast, but his opponent is fighting dirty and a couple of guys hold him while the opponent stabs him in the sides. But then, Memphis enters the ring, and stabs the dude with a broken alcohol bottle, and the dude stabs Memphis in the chest. They all make amends right before he dies, and I cried like a baby. We flash forward to a year after that, and Crew is in a legal fight this time, and when he wins, he proposes to Davis on TV that was in such a Crew and Davis was my it made me cry happy tears. Then, Flash forward another five years, and they already have one son, the men have opened MMA gyms and have seven fighters, and the girls took over running the bar, and combined their businesses and we are at the grand opening for a new night club. Crew knows Davis is pregnant even though she’s tried to be sneaky about it, and we get a happy ending that, again, made me cry.
I absolutely loved that while Davis is an over thinker, she’s also not afraid to speak her mind. I loved seeing that even though Crew had his moments where he was a possessive asshole, when it came to Memphis, and he knew Memphis wasn’t back just because he wanted to see his sister, he still let Davis do what she wanted. I also loved seeing how Crew had a healthy relationship with his new chosen family, and how they just instantly accepted Davis into it. I did not like, and this has nothing to do with the book or author, but I absolutely hated it when we learned that Memphis took advantage of the fact that Crew’s dad was a drunk, and a failure and whatever else anyone said about him, as a way to get Crew to be the fall guy. I also hate that right when they finally opened up about how they really felt, Memphis died. I really wish we got more of that relationship healing and being fixed. I would absolutely read another book by Meagan Brandy. I love this author and am working my way through all the Meagan Brandy books even though the ones I’ve read so far have all made me cry! I gave this book 5/5 stars!
Did you think Memphis died at the beginning, before he came back, or did you think that it was something like what was actually happening like him “being in rehab”?
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