Dear Zany Romcom Readers,

I hope you are all reading some amazing books this spring! Do you listen to many audiobooks? I've recently been trying to listen to more so that I can read more books. So far so good!

Do you have a specific audiobooks you like to recommend?

RANDOM STUFF:

I made the BEST cinnamon rolls ever and am completely moved in to our house. Are those two things related? Not really. But they both seem like huge accomplishments at the moment, and I'm not sure which one I'm happier about. 😂 If you need the best cinnamon roll recipe, I'll share it! If you need help moving, I am NOT your person. I hope I don't have to do that again for a very, very long time.

BOOK STUFF:

It's official. April 20th is only 28 days away!

28 days until World's Worst Boyfriend enters the world. 4 weeks.

Fletcher, Saidy, the bad guy, family and friends are coming for you soon!

Until then, I wanted to share a sneak peek of the first chapter of the book.

So if you want to read the first chapter, you can sneak a peek down below. 👇😜

Lots of love and awkward hugs,

Carina Taylor

Chapter 1: Saidy

Fletcher was napping.

On. My. Couch. 

While I’d sat in the restaurant getting questionable looks from the waitstaff and patrons alike because he stood me up—he’d been at my home napping.

I slammed my front door hard enough to make the floor creak.

The. Jerkface. Kept. Snoring.

That miserable cretin always came over and slept on my couch like the dead—or like he paid rent here. Which he didn’t. He had his own little dumpy-duplex as I liked to call it, so why wasn’t he napping there? 

All I was to him was a doormat. Someone who would always be there whenever he called. It didn’t matter that as my boyfriend he got to stand me up not once, but multiple times now. He’d apologize, say he wouldn’t do it again, and then, like the leopard that he was, not change his spots.

I set my purse down on the entryway table. I walked over to him and hovered over his prone form. That jerk. He was still wearing his shoes. In my house.

Disgusting. 

He was breathing deeply.

How annoying.

I poked his side. 

He didn’t move.

I planted my hands on my hips. I wanted to teach him a lesson. I wanted him to recognize that I wasn’t someone to be so easily forgotten. And although I didn’t consider myself a needy girlfriend—how could I be with him as a boyfriend—I did enjoy talking to my boyfriend occasionally. And he should have had the decency to text me or call at least and tell me he was going to be asleep on my couch, rather than leave me to grow old in the restaurant. By myself. 

But then that would have meant that he was aware that he should have been with me. Jerk.

So, I turned around and carefully pushed my coffee table toward the center of the living room.

I didn’t want to risk it getting damaged with what I was about to do next. I leaned over Fletcher and grabbed the thick leather belt wrapped around his trim waist. My fingers bumped against something hard. He must have had his phone in his back pocket. Honestly, it wouldn’t be a big deal if it broke. He had a work phone as well.

He never answered his personal phone anyway, so would he even realize it was broken? My reasoning was sound, I was sure of it.

I pulled with all my strength. Those power barre workouts were paying off. He rolled off the couch and onto the ground. Onto my original hardwood floor, to be precise. There was a satisfying thump. Well, satisfying for me…him, not so much.

It was like the symphony’s last clang of the cymbal. Glorious. I brushed my hands together and headed to the kitchen to make myself a soothing cup of tea. After all, it wasn’t good to stay angry too long.

“Huh?”

It spoke. Finally.

Fletcher climbed to his feet slowly, his eyes were still partially closed. He rubbed his forehead. “I must have fallen off the couch.”

I pursed my lips and glared at him as I ripped open the tea packet with a little more force than necessary. My open concept living space meant I didn’t even have the satisfaction of slamming a kitchen door in his face.

“Yes,” I replied as I yanked the teabag out of its package, accidentally ripping off that little paper tag.

The electric tea kettle clicked off, and I turned around to pour the water into my mug.

“Are you ready to go to dinner?”

I glanced at the clock. Eight thirty pm. I added a dollop of honey in the mug. I was trying to cut out refined sugar—I realized it affected my moods, and not in a good way—so I’d taken to drinking a cup of honey with a hint of tea to fight my cravings.

That little splash of honey may be the very thing that keeps him alive tonight.

* * *

One hour earlier

An annoying staccato beat filled the restaurant. There was no real rhythm. Just repetitive, muted thumps. The sound was separate from the soft Italian operatic voice floating softly through the room.

Yet, I began tapping my foot in time with the disjointed sound since it was obvious I had nothing better to do.

The door at the front entrance opened and a middle-aged couple walked in. 

Ugh. Not who I was waiting for.

The waitress rushed forward to greet them and usher them to their seats, holding two menus in her hands.

Quiet laughter filtered my way.

I tapped my foot faster, no longer able to keep up with the staccato beats. They needed to play a new mix. Find themselves a DJ who didn’t mix an Italian operetta with an off-beat rap song.

The door opened again; this time it was a young woman followed by her boyfriend. 

Of course, it was.

I blew out a loud breath, then scrunched my lips together, wishing I could conjure a person—a specific person named Fletcher Williams—into the room. I reached for my phone, only then realizing that the thumping beat was coming from my fingertips beating their prints into the oak table. 

I jabbed at my phone screen, checking for apologetic texts and finding none, as I hit the call button again—it was the fourth time I’d tried in twenty minutes. 

“Hello, you’ve reached Fletch. Please leave your name and number and he might get back to you someday.”

Hearing my own voice speaking back to me on his voicemail only served to irritate me further. Setting up my boyfriend Fletcher’s voicemail had been a joke between us, since he rarely listened to his voicemails anyway. Now it didn’t seem so funny. This was the third time in two weeks that he had stood me up.

He’d had excuses the last two times. Car trouble and had forgotten his phone. (Unfortunately, that last excuse was completely believable. He was always forgetting his personal phone.)

But just because those were legitimate reasons, didn’t mean he couldn’t have found a way around either of them.

Problem One: Car trouble.

Two little phone calls could have had him on his way to me in minutes. First call should have been to the tow truck, the second call should have been to a taxi so that he didn’t miss our date.  

Problem Two: He forgot his phone.

While this was completely in line with Fletcher’s life patterns, it didn’t excuse the fact that he actually forgot our date and still could have borrowed someone’s phone to call me. Forgetting his phone and forgetting our date were two different things, but he couldn’t seem to separate the two of them.

I tapped my fingers against the tabletop again. 

One hour. I’d sat at that table for one whole hour.

With a frustrated sigh, I waved the waiter over and handed him my credit card. Might as well pay for the Italian soda and pile of bread I’d eaten. I’d been craving the seafood scampi, but there was something too pitiful about sitting in an Italian restaurant surrounded by couples on first dates and anniversary dinners, only to eat by yourself. I’d go home and microwave a pizza and eat by myself there. 

This dinner had been Fletcher’s idea, even. I think that was what frustrated me the most. 

Over the last month, he had routinely become more neglectful. Not answering calls, bringing over dirty laundry for me to wash, forgetting events he said yes to. My irritation with him had become blatantly obvious in my curt replies, because he told me he wanted to make up for his behavior by taking me out to a nice dinner. (See: his idea.)

And here I was doing the walk of shame away from my empty table. Again.

I kept my head down, letting my long, dark hair shield my burning face, as I walked out of the restaurant. No need to catch a glimpse of any pitying looks. 

The crisp evening air was like a slap in the face as I walked down the sidewalk alone to my car.

Hitting the unlock button on my key fob made my car beep cheerily from where it sat under a streetlamp. Even it seemed happy. My car hadn’t done anything to me, but I slammed the door anyway after I climbed in.

When I made it back to my small, craftsman-style house in an older neighborhood, I discovered Fletcher’s car parked in the center of my driveway. In my spot. I parked in front of the house out on the street. My nostrils flared as I stepped out of my car into the street. I swear to you, this is the stuff Lifetime movies are made of—you know, where the woman goes off the deep end and hides the body.

All I know is that his appendix better have burst and he’s in surgery for him to get out of this. It was the only acceptable excuse when he stood me up for the third time and didn’t answer his phone.

I unlocked my front door and stepped inside—then gasped.

Fletcher lay prone on the couch.

My heart dropped to my toes. He was really hurt. 

This was my fault.

I’d brought this on him by that appendix and woman murderer thing. All of my reasons for hoping that he’d missed our date for a legitimate reason had come true. 

Here I’d been upset and angry at him, all while he was succumbing to his injuries on my couch.

I covered my mouth to stifle a scream, readying myself for immediate action. I needed to call 9-1-1. I stretched my numb fingers, ready to dial the number.

But just then, a loud snore erupted from the area of the couch. 

My silent screaming stopped. My angry screaming was about to commence. 

* * *

Present time

“Saidy?” he said around a yawn, as though he didn’t know why I was mad at him.

I marched past him and down the hall to my master bedroom. He was right behind me.

I slammed the door and locked it. It should have felt childish, but thanks to his lack of concern it didn’t.

“Saidy? I thought we had dinner plans?” His sleepy words were broken up with a yawn in the middle.

“So did I,” I called through the door. I set the mug of tea on my dresser as I shimmied out of my date dress. I’d chosen it specifically because Fletcher told me once that he liked it. I threw it at the door. I didn’t bother putting pajamas on; instead, I grabbed my mug and climbed into bed.

With a sigh, I set the mug down on the nightstand and stood up to quickly hang my dress up in the closet. I wasn’t a savage, after all. Besides, I liked this dress too.

“Why aren’t we going to dinner?”

His gravelly voice reached through the door. I hated how sexy he sounded. It wasn’t right that I could be so mad at him but still be attracted to his jerk face. I wanted to stay mad.

“Look at the clock. I sat at that restaurant for over an hour waiting for you.” 

Muttering sounded from the other side of the door. “I’m so sorry, Saidy.”

He sounded sincere. But he sounded sincere the other times too. I was beginning to think he didn’t mean it.

His track record wasn’t helping him. We’d only been dating four months. It had practically been love at first sight—for both of us. The L-word had come out after only six weeks of dating. I thought for sure he was the one. But he’d slowly started to pull away. The last month had made it painfully obvious that I wasn’t a top priority anymore. At least not for him. Quick to love, quick to leave seemed to apply to him well.

“I thought you were coming back to your house after work. That’s why I came straight here.”

“You thought I was coming home,” I mumbled. Standing up again, I grabbed a giant sweatshirt that covered all the important parts. I threw it on, pulled the hood up, and risked looking into Fletcher’s face as I marched down the hallway toward the kitchen again.

Fletcher was right behind me when I pulled a frozen pizza from the freezer. “Do you mind?” I walked around him and slammed it on the counter. I ripped it out of the packaging and shoved it into the microwave. I had to bend up the edges slightly to make it fit. Typical for how my night was going.

“Saidy…” 

Curse that low voice. 

I shoved the cardboard box into my recycle bin.

I had to be strong. Had to showcase my inner warrior. I am woman, hear me roar and all…but I was already softening toward him. He sounded so sad. I knew if I looked him in the eye, he’d have a big, sad, puppy dog look, and I wouldn’t be able to resist kissing his big, dumb face.

Two large hands grabbed my shoulders and spun me around to face him.

I tugged my hood lower so I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. Instead, I focused on a wrinkle in the middle of his soft T-shirt. A wrinkle that sat on top of some pretty spectacular abs.

“You know I can still see you, right?”

“But I don’t have to see you or look at your remorseful face.”

He groaned, squeezing my shoulders gently. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I thought I’d just rest a little before you got home from work.”

I harrumphed, doing my best to imitate my eighty-year-old, disapproving grandma.

His large hands reached up and grabbed the sweatshirt strings, tugging me closer to him.

“You know you’re the most important thing to me, right? Why didn’t you call me?”

I jabbed at his chest with my index finger a couple of times, pushing him back. “Why didn’t I call…why didn’t I call!” I laughed maniacally and turned around to reposition the pizza in the microwave for another couple minutes. “Call, flare gun, telegram. I’d have a better chance with the Pony Express than your current cell phone.”

I slammed the microwave door, folded my arms, and turned around to give him the full force of my glare.

He winced; his usual smile lines tugged downward. “You didn’t wait for me at the restaurant this whole time, did you?”

“Ha! You mean the restaurant where you said to meet you at seven? You mean that restaurant?”

Fletcher raised his hands and took a step back. “Okay. I understand the reason you’re upset.”

“Upset? Me?” I laughed, a high shrill piercing the air. I opened my junk drawer and pulled out my paint swatches. “I’m not upset in the slightest.”

A large hand grasped mine, sending an electric pulse up my arm, even though I was raging mad. “Saidy, now is not the time to paint something.”

“Now is the perfect time to paint something. It’s not like I have anything else to do. It’s not like I’m on a date or enjoying a nice meal with my boyfriend or anything.”

He scowled and wrapped a hand around my wrist, his fingers easily overlapping each other.

We struggled over the paint chips. He won easily, prying them from my fingers and holding them out of my reach. “I’ll give these back to you when you’re calm and rational again. In fact, I’ll take them home with me tonight, and we can talk about this tomorrow. You need a good night’s sleep.”

He gave me a placating kiss on the forehead—still mindful of keeping the paint chips out of my reach.

“I’ll call you in the morning when I get a chance.”

He beat a hasty retreat out the front door. “Oh, so you do know how to work a phone!” I called after him as he shut the door.

The microwave beeped, telling me my sad cheese pizza was cooked. I carried the whole thing back to my room. If I couldn’t eat shrimp scampi, then I’d make do with a heavy carb load any way I could get it.

The greasy smell of fake cheese mingled with the softer smell of chamomile tea. Closest thing to heaven you could get without actually being there, in my opinion.

As I waited for the pizza to cool, I turned on a new podcast my friend Zoe had demanded I start listening to. She swore that it would revolutionize my life—I wasn’t sure I agreed at first since it was her friend that ran it, but I’d been hooked on it for the last few weeks. I was finally caught up to date. It was called Bee Best and it was all about self-improvement. Something everyone could use a little of. I took a deep breath, focusing on the podcast and determined to not let my anger at Fletcher ruin a perfectly horrible, greasy pizza.

I folded my legs under me and wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket while I listened to the podcast host interview a relationship specialist on today’s episode. I listened in righteous fury as they talked about the many ways boyfriends and husbands neglected their wives and girlfriends.

My word. If this wasn’t the icing on the proverbial cake of how my night is going.

“Choose yourself. Always choose you. Make everyone around you choose you. You can’t be the best version of you if you’re constantly bending over backward to please your significant other. You need to be treated like the queen that you are.” The guest being interviewed spoke with conviction. The guest was speaking directly to me, it seemed.

Bee hummed in agreement. “That’s right. Which leads us to another point. How many of you are currently second best?”

“Oh, Bee. I’m sure so many women are choosing second place. Or even worse, third or fourth place! Letting your significant other put their work, hobbies, friendships, whatever they put ahead of you, means you’re not important to them.”

“It’s so sad, but true. Which is why we are hosting a little contest. We need our listeners to participate. We want to hear how your relationships really are. Tell us exactly what your boyfriend is like. What kind of gifts does he buy, how does he prioritize your time together, where does he take you on dates? We’ll rate how he treats you, and based on the outcome, we’ll announce the winner—or, more aptly, the loser—on the next podcast, and even spotlight your story in our monthly magazine.” She added with a little laugh, “Anonymously, of course.”

Bee and the guest laughed gleefully together before Bee continued, “We want to know, who the World’s Worst Boyfriend is. Are you dating him? Or is your best friend dating him? Be sure to sign up at the link on our website. If you are deemed the winner of having the World’s Worst Boyfriend, we’ll send you a sympathy five-hundred-dollar gift card, our monthly magazine, and our relationship guide, Me First. And of course, a trophy to remind you to choose yourself. We are rooting for you, girl.”

They went on with instructions on how to enter the contest and reminded the listeners about what they’d get if they were awarded the title of having the World’s Worst Boyfriend.

Five-hundred-dollar gift card. That’s pretty tempting.

I set my mug down and opened their website up on my phone.

I really shouldn’t do it. I shouldn’t enter Fletcher into a World’s Worst Boyfriend contest. 

It was petty. 

Uncalled for.

And yet it called to me.

Spoke to me in ways that nothing else had lately.

But I shouldn’t. He was my boyfriend, after all.

On the other hand, it could be therapeutic and keep me from harboring any anger toward him. It was like an emotional outlet, if you will. It’s not as if anyone would know it was him, right? Or know it was me since it was anonymous.

I clicked ‘Enter’ and stared at the form. 

No one needed to know.

Preorder World's Worst Boyfriend Here!