The One I’m With by Jamie Bennett

“I guess I don’t see you as a woman.” He laughed. “No, I know you’re a woman! But I still think of you as the peanut tagging along behind, the little girl whose hair got caught in her bike chain and I had to yank it free. I still remember you looking up at me, asking me not to tell your mom. That’s what you are to me, Peanut…

And therein lies the problem. Maybe Brooks and Lanie just have too much history for there to be anything more between them. Maybe there’s just too big a jump from old friendship to new love, despite what Lanie’s heart wants. After all, he has seen her in her diapers (and less), and saved her from jellyfish stings, broken bones, wayward bike chains, and more over all the years they’ve known each other.
The one thing Brooks couldn’t save her from was a lot of misery at the school they both attended, the school where Lanie now works as a kindergarten teacher. And there’s some tough stuff going on there as well, with students, and with some parents who come back from the past to make Lanie’s life more than a little challenging. Not to mention her mother…a whole other story!
Lanie has to get it together—with her job, her family, and her love life. And when she does, maybe that will include the guy she’s fantasized about her whole life, and maybe he’ll be able to see her as the woman she is, rather than the girl she was.