Abby Jimenez

A brilliant and touching romantic comedy from the USA Today bestselling author of The Friend Zone and The Happy Ever After Playlist.

When Vanessa Price quit her job to pursue her dream of traveling the globe, she wasn’t expecting to gain millions of YouTube followers who shared her joy of seizing every moment. For her, living each day to its fullest isn’t just a motto. Her mother and sister never saw the age of 30, and Vanessa doesn’t want to take anything for granted.

But after her half-sister suddenly leaves Vanessa in custody of her baby daughter, life goes from ‘daily adventure’ to ‘hourly nappy change’. The last person Vanessa expects to show up offering help is the hot lawyer next door, Adrian Copeland. After all, she barely knows him. No one warned her that he was the Secret Baby Tamer or that she’d be spending a whole lot of time with him and his geriatric Chihuahua.

Now she’s feeling things she’s vowed not to feel. Because the only thing worse than falling for Adrian is finding a little hope for a future she may never see.

Life's Too Short

Makayla Reed

Hey man. Stop repeating that statement 😭😭

Keira 💫

“That’s Grace. My name is Vanessa.”

“Nice to meet you, Vanessa. Now go. Take. A shower.”

         I’d had the thing less than three hours, and I was already counting down the seconds until I got to hand him back to Becky.

         The diapers wrapped around his belly and stopped only the urine from getting everywhere—which I suppose I should have been grateful for. But it did nothing for the pudding-like stool he was shitting all over my apartment. Luckily, he’d done this only on the hardwood so cleanup had been minimal, but it was far from pleasant.

“That’s a nice photograph,” I said, nodding at a framed picture. It was a copper-colored dog on the shore of a lake. Looked like up north.

         She closed the space between us to stand next to me. “It’s not a photograph. It’s a painting.”

         I raised my eyebrows. “Really.”

         “Yeah. I got it at a MADD fund-raiser. I had to pledge a fortune for it. It’s a Sloan Monroe.”

         “Oh, Jaxon Waters’s wife. I know her,” I said, studying it.

         “You know her?” she said to the side of my face. “How?”

         “My cousin Josh is married to her best friend. He lives next door to them in Ely. And I went on a date with her once.”

         I looked at her and her eyes were wide. I pulled out my cell phone and went to Instagram. I found Sloan’s private page and handed her the phone.

         “Oh my God,” she breathed, scrolling through the pictures of Sloan and Jaxon, my cousin and his family intermingled in the feed, sitting around a campfire, at the table for Thanksgiving, playing with each other’s kids.

         “This is so cool! You just got cooler by association,” she said, smiling at me. “I’m a total fangirl. I love her—she is so talented. There’s like a three-year waiting list for one of these.”

         “I can see why,” I said, looking back at the artwork. 

“It was like the whole Price family was headed for extinction. Faulty genes, predisposed conditions, and Murphy’s fucking Law.

         And poor Grace. An addict mother, a narcissistic granddad, a deluded uncle, and a dying guardian.”

Grace smiled at me from her stroller. She’d been doing that now for the last few days. Every time she had her pacifier in and I made her smile, it popped out and she’d beam up at me, all gums and twinkling eyes. And if I tickled her, she giggled. I couldn’t get enough of it. I loved playing with her.

         I reached down to scoop her into my arms and nuzzled her with my nose. She had on a tiny blue fleece onesie with snowflakes on it and she smelled like baby powder and Vanessa’s perfume.

This is a rendition of “why did you come?” “You called.” Situation 😭😭🦋🦋🫶🫶🫠🫠😩😩❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥🥰🥰

“How did you get here so fast?” I looked over all the stuff he brought. “I called you and you came in, like, ten minutes. How’d you get all this ready and steal a garnish and still make it to rescue me in under an hour?”

         He cleared his throat and talked to the food he was setting out. “I was already on my way with it.”

         I pulled my face back. “You were on your way home when I called you? Your thing started at six thirty. It’s seven fifteen. Did you just show up with a bag and start pillaging? You weren’t planning on staying?”

         I watched him opening more containers. “Why?”

He didn’t answer me for a long moment. “I just figured you had a rough day and might want to watch TV with someone.”

“Why do grown-ups stop doing things like this?” I asked, lolling my head to look back at the ceiling. “Why do we forget?”

         “It’s not very sophisticated. I think I’d have some explaining to do if I brought a woman home and this was the ceiling in my bedroom.”

         “Oh my God. I would love if a man brought me home and this was the ceiling in his bedroom. I’d be way more excited to have sex with him.”

         I could feel him look at me. “Really? You think these are available on Amazon Prime?”

         I giggled. “Just so you know, I’m not having sex with you just because I come over and you have glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling.”

         “Is there anything you will have sex with me for? I’d like to get started on it.”

😭😭🥹🥹🫶🫶🦋🦋😩😩❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

“Let’s make this the best time of our lives. Live every day like it’s your last.”

         I sniffed. “And when one of them is my last?” I asked, looking at him.

         “You’re my soul mate. I’ll find you in the next life. Like I found you in this one.”

Life's Too Short quotes

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