Happy Birthday, Ryan! (And a giveaway!)

As promised, I'm bringing you a giveaway to celebrate Ryan's birthday. Ryan is the leading lady from You Before Me in case you don't know. Also as promised, this giveaway is open internationally. So my international readers that have been waiting for the chance, this is the time!

Up for grabs: 2 YBM swag packs, and a bunch of my ebooks.

This is the second-to-last chance to win a YBM swag pack, so you better enter! I'm saving the very last one for something big. ;)

The swag pack is shown on the left, which includes: a signed paperback, a signed bookmark, a lip balm, a YBM magnet, a YBM Get Out of Jail Free card (which relates directly to a scene in the book), a bath bomb, and a YBM t-shirt!

Good luck! Be sure to keep scrolling because there's an excerpt as well!


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Here's an excerpt from You Before Me in Gabe's POV on Ryan's birthday! Gabe is on the job with his partner, Fredrick, when they see Ryan and her best friend, Vivian, drunk and walking down the sidewalk.

“Woah, hey, Ryan.” She clumsily wraps her arms around me.

“Best present ever!” she yells into my ear. Ryan sloppily kisses my neck. “You coming home with us?”

“Is that where you're going?”

“Yep! Well, we can't find my car, and we know we don't need to drive, so we were going to sleep there. See? Drunk but smart, Gabe!”

“Fredrick and I will take you home. Come on. Fredrick, help her please,” I say, referring to Vivian.

“Should we be doing this?” he asks skeptically.

“Help her,” I snap. He isn't about to question me right now. Ryan's hands start to wander down my chest as she mumbles something about missing me. “Ryan,” I tell her softly, grabbing her hands. “We need to walk.”

“Always a downer. Damn goody-good. Let's walk then!”

Once I wrap an arm tightly around her waist, it's like Ryan gives up. She leans into me completely and lets me lead her to the car. We get them both into the back seat, Ryan mumbling to Viv about her birthday. Surely, it's not her birthday. For one, she is drunk on Halloween, so maybe she's just wanting it to be her birthday. Wouldn't she have told me that today is her birthday? I could have tried harder to get off work to do something with her or bought her something had I known before right this second.

As we head to her apartment, the mumbles cease. I glance in my rearview mirror to see that they are leaning on each other, asleep. Great. It's going to be fun getting them up those stairs and into the apartment.

“I'm, uh, sorry about what I said,” Fredrick tells me.

“Don't worry about it. Just help me get them up to her apartment when we get there, and I'll forget you ever said it.”

When we get to the complex, I wonder what Ryan was talking about. Her car is here, so they didn't drive downtown. She wouldn't have ever found her car because it wasn't there. What trouble would they have gotten into if we hadn't have seen her?

Fredrick helps me wake them up enough to get them out of the car. He walks behind me with Viv as we go up to her place.

“So sweet,” Ryan whispers.

“You owe me,” I tell her, although she probably won't remember tomorrow. “Is today really your birthday?” I can't help but ask.

“Yes. That's what I said, Gabe.” She laughs softly. “Funny, right? I was born on Halloween and I'm my parents' worst nightmare. How fitting.” Ryan starts giggling like it's actually funny.

It kills me when she says things like that, but I know what she means. I've seen it firsthand. I want to ask her why she didn't tell me about her birthday. Instead, I ask where her key is as we reach her door. She reaches into her bra and I remember how she did that when that prick had her up against her door that one night.

“Safest place,” she says, handing it to me.

I hold her against me and unlock the door. “Fredrick, we're just going to lay them in her bed and then we're leaving.”

“Okay.”

“You know,” Ryan starts. “I could have fucked four different guys tonight. Four.”

I clench my jaw as we get the girls into bed. “Oh yeah?”

“Yep. But I didn't,” she sings, shaking a finger at me. “I'm supposed to be behaving, and I would have felt bad. Because of you, Gabe. Are you mad?”

We pull the covers over them. They look ridiculous in their costumes while they lay in bed. Viv has already passed out. Fredrick leaves wordlessly.

“No, I'm not mad,” I answer.

“I didn't tell you about my birthday. Are you mad about that?” Ryan squints her eyes, pulling her brows together as she frowns, looking worried over the possibility that I might be upset with her.

I lean down and kiss her forehead. “No, not mad. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?”

She nods, already drifting to sleep.