When Charlotte agrees to fake date bad boy Mason to make her best friend and secret crush, Ben, jealous, she thinks it will be a simple arrangement. The rules are clear and she's certain of her goal: make Ben fall in love with her. So why does it seem like the lines always blur when Mason is around? *** Charlotte Anderson has secretly been in love with her best friend, Ben Hathaway, since childhood, though he's never seen her as anything but the girl next door. After witnessing Ben kissing another girl at a party, a heartbroken Charlotte accidentally admits her crush to notorious bad boy Mason Reed... who also happens to be one of Ben's closest friends. But Mason isn't going to tell Charlotte's secret; instead, he suggests they fake a relationship to make Ben jealous. They create a set of strict rules for the arrangement: no kissing when Ben isn't around, no sex, and no falling in love. But as their fake relationship progresses, and Mason's walls break down, Charlotte finds herself questioning her true feelings for both boys, and wondering if some rules are meant to be broken-especially when it comes to love. [[word count: 100,000 - 150,000]] Cover designed by Gillian Goulet (This story is a standalone title in the Dependency series) [[Wattpad Editors Choice: June 2021]]

Lucy Carter goes to college to become someone other than Ben Carter's little sister. Then she meets Cole Bennett again. Her brother's best friend. Northwood's football captain. Campus heartbreaker. The boy who used to call her kid and now somehow makes it impossible to remember how breathing works. Cole doesn't do relationships. Lucy knows that. Unfortunately, knowing something is a terrible reason not to want it. * * * Lucy has spent most of her life knowing Cole. She just never expected to fall for him. But somewhere between football games, jealous looks, late-night conversations and one kiss that was definitely not supposed to happen, the rules start getting blurry. And Cole has more reasons to keep people out than Lucy ever realized. She falls first. He falls harder. The only problem? He's the one person she was never supposed to choose.

They were best friends before anything else. He was the boy who made her laugh when everything else fell apart. She was the girl who knew all his secrets, except the one he was scared to say out loud. But life doesn't always wait for the right moment. And love, sometimes, arrives too late... or exactly when it should.