The Boyfriend Swap
Praise for Meredith Schorr
BLOGGER GIRL (Blogger Girl Series #1)
“What a fun book. The characters were incredibly well-written. I felt like I understood everyone’s personalities and quirks, almost as if I knew them personally myself. Meredith Schorr is a talented author and I’m glad she has other books out for me to read!”
– Becky Monson, Bestselling Author of the Spinster Series
“Sassy, sexy, endlessly entertaining, and full of laughs (as well as some heart-wrenching moments), Blogger Girl is one of those books that keeps you up at night because you can’t wait to see what happens next.”
– Tracie Banister, Author of Mixing It Up
“America finally has its own version of Britain’s Bridget Jones!”
– Books in the Burbs
NOVELISTA GIRL (Blogger Girl Series #2)
“A strong and confident heroine, a sexy boyfriend you can crush on, supportive friends, and plenty of conflict leading to comical results, culminating in a very satisfying ending…Once you start this book, you won’t be able to put it down.”
– Erin Brady, Bestselling Author of The Shopping Swap
“A perfect mix of romance, conflict, and humor, Novelista Girl solidifies Schorr’s place among best-sellers Sophie Kinsella and Emily Giffin.”
– Carolyn Ridder Aspenson, Bestselling Author of Unbinding Love
“Absolutely brilliant chick lit, I couldn’t put it down, and I highly, highly recommend.”
– Chick Lit Plus
JUST FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
“Meredith writes with wit, candor, humor and vulnerability that illuminates the struggles of dating and relationships.”
— Nancy Slotnick, Author of Turn Your Cablight On
“The perfect vacation read. The dialogue flows like beer at a beach party.”
– K.C. Wilder, Author of Fifty Ways to Leave Your Husband
A STATE OF JANE
“I laughed my way through this novel. A must-read.”
– Chick Lit Plus
“A witty true-to-life story that will not disappoint you, it is chick lit at its very best!”
– Jersey Girl Book Reviews
“I am a huge fan of chick lit, but this book was so much more. It has become one of my favorite reads!”
– The Little Black Book Blog
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
“Meredith Schorr is an author to watch.”
– Tracy Kaler, Founder and Editor of Tracy’s New York Life
“You won’t forget this delightful cast of characters or Schorr’s sharp, candid insights about the plight of the modern woman.”
– Diana Spechler, Author of Who by Fire and Skinny
“I think every woman will relate to Maggie and her friends, no matter her age or relationship status.”
– Chick Lit Club
Books by Meredith Schorr
JUST FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
A STATE OF JANE
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
THE BOYFRIEND SWAP
The Blogger Girl Series
BLOGGER GIRL (#1)
NOVELISTA GIRL (#2)
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Copyright
THE BOYFRIEND SWAP
Part of the Henery Press Chick Lit Collection
First Edition | November 2017
Henery Press, LLC
www.henerypress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2017 by Meredith Schorr
Author photograph by Clin D’Oeil at Photography by Mayra Ferra
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-271-9
Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-272-6
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-273-3
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-274-0
Printed in the United States of America
To the Beach Babes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you so much to everyone at Henery Press for believing in this book and for helping to make it so much better than it would have been without your assistance—Art Molinares, Kendel Lynn, Erin George, Rachel Jackson, and Maria Edwards. Thank you to my fellow Henery Press authors for always being so generous with your knowledge and support.
Even before I handed the book off to my amazing editors (Erin and Rachel above), my brutal but awesome beta readers, Samantha Stroh Bailey and Natalie Aaron, ripped it apart until it was tighter, funnier, more logical, and simply put, stronger than it was before. I couldn’t be more grateful to you both.
I offer my sincerest gratitude to Shanna Eisenberg, Andrea Bube, and Marc and Gina Vicari for offering their expertise in the areas of teaching, educational administration and budgeting, and musical education.
I am always thankful for my family for their unconditional love and support now and well before this writing gig was even a blip on my radar.
The journey of being an author can be quite lonely, which is why I feel so blessed to have so many author friends like Hilary Grossman, Stacey Wiedower, and Lily Barrish with whom to exchange ideas, experiences, and frustrations on a regular basis. On the flip side, I’m also lucky to have friends who aren’t writers. You might not quite understand that side of me, but you love me anyway, and you keep me sane (and often tipsy). I love you all. Special shout-outs to Ronni, Jenny, Shanna, Megan, and my wild and crazy vacation posse (Hilda, Abbe, Jenn, Jen, and Marisa).
Eternal gratitude to my guardian angel, Alan. Damn, I miss you!
Thank you to my street team and all the wonderful bloggers who support my writing—Lindsay Lorimore, Rebecca Moore, Aimee Brown, Melissa Amster, Ashley Williams, Kelly Perotti, Bethany Clarke, Amanda Lerryn, Isabella Anderson, Gina Reba, Kaley Stewart and so many more.
Finally, to the Beach Babes to whom this book is dedicated—Samantha Stroh Bailey, Josie Brown, Eileen Goudge, Francine LaSala, Jen Tucker, and Julie Valerie—you all mean so much to me. I cherish every one of you and, except for the week we are together in California, I’m always counting down the days until we’ll be together again.
Chapter 1
Robyn
If asked to choose between a world without music and one without my mother, the choice would be a no-brainer—I’d give up music. I might feel dead inside, without a song to sing or a beat to dance to, but at least my mom would be there to comfort me. The decision was easy, but sometimes, like now, when she put on her matchmaking cap, I was tempted to change my answer.
“He just moved here from Boise to work in the Treasury Service team at JP Morg
an,” she said, referring to the guy she’d befriended while standing in line at the DMV for two hours. “He said you reminded him of a blue-eyed Selena Gomez.”
I allowed a small smile at the comparison, but promptly clamped my mouth shut. “I’m flattered, but why did you show him my picture?” I already knew the answer. My mom was always trying to fix me up with eligible men, especially those employed by companies like JP Morgan, where employees were forced to dress business casual and infrequently required to use their imaginations.
“I thought you’d make a great couple. Someone like him—attractive, successful, nice, funny—won’t be single for long.”
I banged my head against my desk in frustration. “I’m already taken. Have you forgotten?” I asked in a hushed voice before glancing at my boyfriend, Perry. He was lying on his back on my bed with his t-shirt riding up to showcase his six-pack abs. I turned down the volume on my phone so he wouldn’t hear.
“Ah yes, Perry. His teeth-whitening commercial aired while your dad and I were watching the Legends of Freestyle documentary last night. Too bad he can’t cultivate an entire career around his talent for flicking his tongue across his upper teeth.”
I chose to ignore the portion of my mother’s statement aimed at my boyfriend. “You watched Legends of Freestyle again? Aren’t you sick of it by now?” My parents were high school sweethearts who performed together and even released a Freestyle album in the early 1980s. They never hit the bigtime, possibly because there wasn’t a smidgen of Latino in them, unless you counted my maternal grandparents, Sephardic Jews from Argentina. But they shared the stage at many New York City venues with some of the best, including Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, until they gave it up to raise me and my younger brother, Jordon.
“How many times have you seen High School Musical?”
“Point taken.”
“Does Perry get a lifetime supply of teeth whitener now? One less expense could come in handy until he catches his big break,” she said, her voice dripping in sarcasm. Perry, my boyfriend of almost a year, was a struggling actor/musician—struggling being the operative word.
“Speaking of Perry, I’m preparing my grocery list for the holidays. Is he coming for Chrismukkah?”
I gulped down the unease of bringing Perry home with me for the holidays. His last callback fell through, which meant he probably wouldn’t have anything promising to tell my folks when they asked about his acting career—which they would. They would then outwardly encourage him to keep on keeping on, while using the famous Lane mental telepathy to invade my brain space and urge me to choose a more “stable” boyfriend. As former musicians themselves, my parents would never discourage a performer from shooting for the stars, but they didn’t want a performer dating their daughter.
Perry sat up. “Don’t forget to tell your mom I want to demonstrate the vocal exercises my voice coach taught me.” Perry didn’t have the money to fly to his parents in Portland for Christmas and, oblivious to my folks’ discouragement of our relationship, was looking forward to an intimate family celebration.
I smiled fondly in his direction. It wouldn’t even matter if he could hear my mom’s side of the conversation. He wasn’t lacking in self-confidence, and any disapproval by others, including my parents, tended to go unnoticed by him. Unfortunately, what attracted me to Perry—his focus on the here and now rather than the long term and his ability to make light of almost every situation—was what repelled my folks. They worried he wasn’t husband material. It was their job as my parents, but at only twenty-six, I wasn’t thinking about marriage yet anyway. Perry made me happy day to day, and that was good enough for me.
“Is he still gluten-free?” my mom asked.
I sighed into the phone. I could picture my mom holding her breath and crossing her fingers, hoping I’d say she didn’t need to stock the house with gluten-free products because I’d broken up with Perry and was now dating someone new, like an attorney in a prominent law firm. Before I could tell her there was no cure for celiac disease, I heard a knock on the door followed by my roommate, Anne Marie, peeking her blonde head in my door.
“Almost ready?” Anne Marie and I had played together in a recreational kickball league a couple years earlier and quickly discovered we were both about to lose our current roommate to a serious boyfriend. Neither of us made enough money to live alone in pricey New York City so we decided to move in together. Our complex was advertised as a “luxury” apartment, but it catered mostly to twenty-somethings like us, who were happy to share very little square footage with a roommate to live in a doorman building with a pool on the roof.
“I’ve gotta run. We’re hosting a wine party tonight. I’ll call you over the weekend, okay? Tell Dad I love him. And you too.” I hung up the phone and let out a deep breath. Then I walked over to the bed and pulled Perry up by his hands. “Time to go.”
“I seriously can’t stay?” Perry asked, pushing out his full lower lip.
I shook my head and gave him a sad smile. “Sorry. Girls only.” Perry’s large eyes were blue like the deepest part of the ocean, and his longish blond hair managed to look masculine even when pulled into a man bun. With biceps that toiled to break free from his well-fitted t-shirts, I was sure if the girls saw him, they’d wish I’d made an exception to the “no boys allowed” rule.
Giving himself a once-over, Perry said, “Suit yourself, but I think a room full of your girlfriends would be more exciting if I tagged along. It would be like an episode of The Bachelor.”
I placed my hands on my hips. “Are you in the market for a bachelorette?”
“An episode after the final rose which, of course, I gave to you.”
“Good save,” I said with a laugh.
Perry took my hand and kissed my pointer finger. Running his thumb along the chipped sea-green nail polish, he said, “Maybe you guys can give each other manicures too.”
“It would be a waste of time and nail polish and you know it.” I pushed him out of my room and toward the front door of my apartment. “Will you be home later?”
“Eventually, yes.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Have fun at ladies’ night. If it breaks out into a pillow fight, record it on your phone.”
“Don’t be a douche,” I said before closing the door behind me. Then I smiled at Anne Marie, who was returning the vacuum cleaner to the hall closet. “What can I do to help?”
Sidney
I logged off my computer, slipped into my Burberry trench coat, and turned off the light. It was almost eight o’clock—past the acceptable time to leave work on a Friday night, even for a lawyer—but I’d never take off for the weekend without responding to all my client’s emails. The advent of the smart phone meant I could communicate remotely from anywhere with cellular service or wi-fi, but once I left the office on a Friday night, I liked to unplug at least until the morning. My assistant, Anne Marie, had invited me to a wine party she was throwing with her roommate, and I wanted to get there before all the bottles were empty.
When I opened my office door, I came face to face with my father. My hopes of making a quick escape dashed like a reindeer through the snow on Christmas Eve.
“Sidney, I’m glad I caught you.” His eyes, the same jade color as mine, twinkled. If I didn’t know him so well, I’d think he was going to share a humorous anecdote or even invite me out to dinner to celebrate another successful week at the law firm where he was one of the name partners and I was a third-year associate. But I knew better—he wanted to talk shop.
“You’re leaving?” He gestured to my coat and pointed toward my dark office.
“I’m guessing the answer is ‘no’ if you have anything to say about it,” I mumbled. The man was my boss, but he was also my dad, which made maintaining professionalism at the conclusion of a long work week more challenging.
He waved me away. “I was going to ask you about a case, but
we can do it tomorrow.” It didn’t matter that the next day was Saturday—lawyers didn’t do weekends. “Is it a date? Your mother will ask me.”
“No comment.” I was seeing someone, but since my father was privy to all my professional activities, keeping my personal ones from him and my mom helped maintain a sense of independence (and my sanity). I was twenty-eight years old and some aspects of my life, specifically ones pertaining to love and sex, screamed for privacy.
He scratched at his hair—salt and pepper and impressively thick for a man in his late fifties. “Fine. Keep your secrets, but she’s planning the Christmas party and will ask who you’re bringing.” He paused. “Preferably someone in a leadership position in the field of power and construction. The industry is booming, and the firm can use an in to a new client.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll see what I can do, Dad.” I stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind me for emphasis. “I’m late for a party, and you should head out soon too before Mom loses it.” She was accustomed to my father’s late hours, but her patience ran thinner on Friday nights and weekends.
My dad glanced left and right as if finally noticing the lights were off in nearly every room on the floor. With a wave goodbye, he headed in the direction of his office, which was blessedly on the other side of the hallway from the elevator bank.
I grimaced as my stomach growled in hunger. Anne Marie had said there would be food at the party, but I was positive the pickings would be slim to none two hours into a gig attended by all women. I’d purchase some goodies on the way to both satisfy my appetite and apologize for showing up late.