Hi and welcome to my blog tour stop for Andie J. Christopher's Unrealistic Expectations! I'm excited to feature this romance--out today--and to share an excerpt! Summary.UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS follows relationship therapist Jessica Gallagher after a sudden break-up with her long-term boyfriend turns into a PR nightmare. How will she be able to sell her newly releasing dating handbook as someone who failed to make her only serious relationship work? At first, all Jessica wants is to return to the comforts of a stable relationship, even if the spark fizzled out a long time ago. But when she unexpectedly runs into her old crush, Galvin Baker, Jessica is presented with the opportunity to not only bring some spice back to her life, but also save face with a fake relationship. Luckily, Galvin seems game. Excerpt."What the fuck is going on?" That startled Luke out of his furious packing. He turned, and his normally pale skin was tomato red. Probably because Jessica rarely yelled, but she was yelling now. "I . . . uh . . . I was going to tell you-" "Tell. Me. What?" She'd managed to quiet her voice, but she knew there was still rage in her tone. "Because it looks like you are moving out of our home. And that seems weird to me, because you haven't said anything about us moving somewhere new together. So this must mean that you are moving someplace else on your own. Which is also weird, because you haven't mentioned anything about wanting to break up. But of course this means we're breaking up. People don't just live together for a decade and then not live together but remain romantically involved. Especially when they've been talking about having a baby." Jessica took a step toward Luke, and he wouldn't meet her gaze. "Do they?" Everything below her neck was cold and numb, and she couldn't hear anything but her own thoughts screaming at her. "Listen-" "That's all I do, all day. I listen to people." For some reason, him telling her to listen to him, when she'd been his steady confidant for the majority of his adult life, made her want to scream. She'd often felt a little superior, despite herself, during sessions with clients who talked about having screaming arguments with their partners. She and Luke had never had a screaming argument. They had discussions and made agreements. They-well, she-expressed feelings and needs, and Luke tried to meet them. They'd never been the kind of couple to make rash decisions or even the kind of couple who went to bed angry. Because they never made each other angry. Irritated-yes. So angry that she wanted to drag him out of the closet by his receding hairline and demand answers-no. "I was going to tell you last night, at dinner." "You were going to tell me that you were moving out and abandoning our relationship last night, at dinner? The special dinner that we were having to celebrate the release of my book?" Luke flinched. "You just seemed so excited about your little book, and I couldn't stand to see you upset." He made a lame hand motion at her. "Like this." "I'm not upset right now that you're moving out. I'm glad you're moving out. If you weren't moving out right now, I would be tempted to kill you and then retile the bathroom with your rotting bones behind the new tile." "That would really start to stink after a while . . . the decomposition." "I would dissolve your flesh with lye." This was probably not the time to make jokes about murdering him, but that had always lightened the mood before. He'd joke about giving her an air embolism in her sleep. She'd imply that she could deadlift his body easily enough to hide it-all the while knowing that they were adults, and they'd made a commitment to one another. "You really do watch too much true crime." "You mean that I watch too much television, when I'm at home, waiting for you." The only reason that she'd ended up writing the book was that she had most of her evenings and weekends on her hands and shows about murder had started to give her nightmares. Luke put his hands on his hips and looked down at his feet. They'd had this conversation before, but the stakes had never been this high. Even though she'd had her moments of feeling lonely with him, their relationship had never been about their passion for each other-she'd thought that they were both passionate about the life they'd built together. He might have chosen her because she was convenient, but she'd chosen him because he'd never once made her worried that he would abandon her. He'd never given any indication that he wasn't ready to stick around for the long haul-not until now. But here she was, standing in her half-empty closet, looking at a man that she'd spent almost her entire adult life with become someone she didn't recognize-someone who would leave her without warning. She'd been grateful at the beginning of their relationship that he'd been kind and friendly and it seemed to come from a place of wanting to get to know her, not from any compulsion to see what he could get from her. "Is this because we haven't been having sex?" Their sex life had never been bad, but it also hadn't rocked her world at the very beginning-or the very end, it seemed. Over the last fifteen years, they'd gotten into a good rhythm. And most long-term couples didn't have much sex. That aspect of their relationship had never been the most important thing to Jessica, and she hadn't thought it was that important to Luke, either. But the way his skin flushed, when she asked him that, told her that she'd been making assumptions about their sex life, too. Luke finally met her gaze again. "I care about you, and I want you to be happy." "So, you were planning to disappear without telling me?" Jessica was shrieking again, and Luke looked a little befuddled. But that didn't stop him from pulling the few articles of clothing he hadn't packed off the rack. "You think I'd be happy about you leaving without a word? Without a discussion? Without even trying to work out whatever is making you unhappy?" "I knew that if we had a discussion, you'd get me to go to couples counseling, and we'd talk things out like logical adults. And I'd never really leave, but neither of us would ever be happy." Luke sounded so defeated, and Jessica started shaking. Her body literally could not hold on to the shock. "It almost sounds like you feel like a prisoner . . . in our life." Luke stepped toward her with his hands outstretched, as though he was going to pull her into a hug. As much as she could use a hug right now, she couldn't accept one from him. Not right now. Not ever again. Excerpted from Unrealistic Expectations by Andie J. Christopher Copyright © 2023 by Andie J. Christopher. Excerpted by permission of Berkley. [ID: Jess's white hand holds the ebook in front of a weathered gray and white barn wall.]Praise for Andie J. Christopher.“Thank You, Next is snarky and sharply funny but with a rich, tender heart. Andie J. Christopher is a master satirist of the absurdities of modern womanhood even as she renews our faith in the power of love.”—Jenny Holiday, USA Today bestselling author of Duke, Actually “A wild and delightful ride from start to finish. Christopher delivers a stern, grunting hero, wildly sexy chemistry, and an alpha heroine that owns every page.”--Mazey Eddings, author of A Brush with Love “As witty as it is sincere, Thank You, Next is the most refreshing take on second chance love I’ve read in a long time. Alex’s journey to self-love is perfect—and Will’s unconditional acceptance of his fierce and wonderful woman is everything I want to read in contemporary romance.”--Therese Beharrie, author of And They Lived Happily Ever After About the author.USA Today bestselling author Andie J. Christopher writes sharp, witty, sexy contemporary romance about complex people finding happily-ever- after. Her work has been featured in NPR, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and New York Post. Prickly heroines are her hallmark, and she is the originator of the Stern Brunch Daddy. Andie lives in the nation’s capital with a French bulldog, a stockpile of Campari, and way too many books. Who's up for a fake dating romance? I love that trope. Let me know what you think if you check this one out!
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