I'm not sure how to feel about this one.

It sort of amped up everything I didn't like about how Xavier treated Clara in My Scorned Best Friend and made it worse. We missed the build-up of the childhood part of their relationship since it was teased in The Greene Family and Bailey Family series, and the flashbacks of the "since they got scholarships at different colleges" portion of their relationship seemed like they were pretty much only the low points. For example, they ran into each other in LA their sophomore year, had condomless sex, didn't make promises, but then Rylan was photographed with his tongue down someone's throat a mere week later and was confused and butthurt that Calista's feelings were hurt the next time he saw her after he also didn't even try to stay in touch? Seriously, how was she not supposed to interpret that (or several other similar situations) as him thinking she was convenient for sex but that he didn't value her as a person, much less a life partner? And his reaction to her injury was... not great. Sure, she was depressed, but he also wasn't interested in accommodating her at all or finding new things for them to do together, and then he would just stay out late partying with his team instead of coming home and trying to coax her to do maybe a non-soccer thing? And he didn't even attempt to get her to stay or come back to him or be willing to discuss spending the off-seasons together. Like, I get why her finding out he was going to propose and then DIDN'T made her think it was a rejection related to her professional demise. And he just rubs it in her face that he definitely wasn't waiting around -- because he's NEVER believed in long distance -- with a "don't worry, babe, you're the only one I don't use condoms with." Literally, he could have tried A SINGLE TIME to be celibate during a portion of their history where they weren't officially together, and I bet that would have gone a LONG way toward convincing her that he wanted her for reasons beyond convenience.

I think I kind of hate him? And that's rough in a romance novel. It felt like he just kept digging the pit deeper, and I know the pit digging was mostly in flashbacks, so it's not new to Calista stuff, but I didn't see much of any attempt from him to convince her why this time would be different.

Writing-wise, parts of it felt like a set-up for a redemption arc that didn't happen was was instead replaced with another installment of the constant friend/from-the-grave/parent setups. I definitely understand why the long-awaited story of Rylan and Calista, a series starter and spinoff of TWO series made sense to plot as an homage to the recently deceased meddling grandmothers, but.... If your relationship needs THAT much meddling as a supposed course-correction, does it really work on its own? And couldn't it have been an homage that was contained to only SOME plot elements rather than all the pivotal current-day relationship milestones? The book was seriously missing the character growth that a good second-chance romance relies on.

If there were a takeaway to the story from Rylan's POV, I'd say it's "being a manwhore is way more important than making your partner feel valued in any portion of her life except how good she is/was at soccer even when you're supposedly want to marry her up until literally everyone in your life including your meddling-from-the-grave grandmother says you're making a mistake not prioritizing what's truly important in life, but don't worry, nothing really has to change: they'll have your back because they successfully guilted your ex into moving back to Chicago where she has nothing except you, so you don't even have to do the work to convince your ex that you value her for the sake of more than convenience because she made the grand gesture first." ( )