The Dating Coach by Riley Keenan

The problem with teaching someone how to be the perfect boyfriend is watching them become exactly that—for other women.

Rock bottom looks like this: failing organic chemistry, potentially losing my med school dreams and swimming scholarship, and secretly harboring my runaway sister in my dorm room.

Liam is a hockey hero, campus heartthrob, and inexplicable chemistry genius. When he offers to tutor me, every alarm bell in my head starts ringing. In my experience, attractive men offering academic help always come with dangerous strings attached.

But desperation makes people do stupid things, and I’m running out of options.

His proposition catches me completely off guard: he’ll save my academic career if I teach him how to actually date women instead of waiting for them to throw themselves at him. Apparently, being devastatingly handsome doesn’t automatically translate to dating skills. Who knew?

Our arrangement should be straightforward. He explains covalent bonds, while I explain how to plan dates that don’t involve group hangs at sports bars. He breaks down reaction mechanisms, while I break down the art of showing interest without seeming desperate.

Simple exchange of services, nothing more. Except Liam keeps breaking the rules. He gives my sister sanctuary in his house without hesitation. He practices his newly learned dating techniques on me with an intensity that makes me forget this is supposed to be fake.

When he looks at me like I’m the only girl at the entire carnival, I start to wonder if maybe he’s not practicing at all.

Every successful practice date he reports back feels like a punch to the gut. Every chemistry concept he patiently explains while sitting just close enough for me to smell his cologne tests my resolve.

With two weeks until my make-up exam and my heart performing chemical reactions I definitely didn’t authorize, I’m starting to realize the most important formula might be the one I’m too scared to solve: what happens when fake dating starts to feel dangerously real?