4.5 SMOOCHES!
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SYNOPSIS:
Cricket
Success is what you make of it. That’s my motto and the premise of my speech; the one I’m heading back to Southern Illinois University to give at my college alumni reunion. As the morning co-host of Good Morning, San Francisco, I was asked to be one of the keynote speakers, and while I’m honored to do so, there’s only one problem. The other speaker is Danny Ohara, my former boyfriend. Throw in an issue with my credit card that leaves me stuck at the airport, no rental car in sight, until a familiar face appears like a guardian angel in sexy black glasses.
Here’s my dilemma with my attraction to Rueben Rigsby, my airport savior and old friend from college: I’m not supposed to be attracted to him. At all. He’s my ex’s former roommate. Yet that doesn’t stop my big mouth from lying about the status of our relationship when we come face-to-face with said former roommate. As in, we have one.
Together.
Rueben
I don’t know why I agreed to come back to SIU for the alumni reunion, but I’m damn sure glad I did. When I found the familiar face stranded at the airport, I readily agreed to give her a ride. It’s great to catch up with Cricket Hill, as we make our way back to the place we ultimately met. What I’m not prepared for is this overwhelming attraction I feel for her. I’m not supposed to notice how amazing her butt looks in a pair of black yoga pants. She’s a friend. Period.
But Cricket has other plans. When she lies about our budding relationship to my former roommate and her ex, I have no choice but to go along with it to save face. I have to pretend to be her boyfriend. I mean, it’s one little white lie, right?
Wrong.
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REVIEW:
A sweet, funny romantic comedy from Lacey Black was exactly what I needed to read. I’ve read all of Lacey’s work, and for me, her small town romances, set around big families, are the gold standard of that genre. While Pants on Fire wasn’t that, it was the warm, feel-good love story I hoped for from her.
A friends-to-lovers romance that begins on a bit of a white lie turns out to be the most real thing Cricket and Ruben have ever felt. Friends from their college days, they run into each other at their ten year reunion. Cricket had been in a relationship with the charismatic big man on campus, who also happened to be Ruben’s best friend, and she and Ruben shared a strictly friends relationship at that time. That boyfriend broke up with Cricket in epic fashion, and when she left that relationship behind for her dream job in San Francisco, she left Ruben behind.
Fast forward to the reunion where she is approached by the ex, and the lie just slips out of her mouth. Ruben, stand-up guy that he is, was never really cool with the way that his friend unceremoniously tossed Cricket aside, and he was more than happy to fill in as her fake boyfriend. The thing neither expected, however, was the chemistry zapping between them. Lines blur, fake starts to feel real, and they extend their time together. But Cricket lives in San Francisco and has a job as an on-air news personality, and Ruben is an IT professional based in Tennessee.
Ruben, with his Clark Kent glasses sexiness, and Cricket, with her cute, quirky confidence, were a couple I couldn’t help but root for. Pants on Fire is another winner from Black with endearing characters, a charming, sexy romance and a satisfying blend of heartfelt emotion and humor. Lacey Black’s Pants on Fire gets 4.5 smooches from me!
~Danielle Palumbo
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