After dumping her first real boyfriend after graduating high school, Sam is ready to grab life by the balls. Tired of being the "cute one", and not ever the sexy one, the "little sister type", and never the badass, she sets her sights on doing one brave thing before the summer ends, kissing James. The way-out-of-her-league college boy, who just happens to be her ex's friend home for just the summer.
Dealing with failing friendships, all but absent parents, slut-shaming, and what it really means to be "that type of girl", Sam vows to break out of her shell, even if it kills her.
(Story is finished - adding chapters as I edit them.)
After enduring years of neglect and cruelty from her mother and stepfather, Ariana's life changes drastically when tragedy brings her under the guardianship of five brothers she's never met and they never even knew they had a sister.
For her brothers, learning they have a sister is an unwelcome surprise. Suspicious and reluctant, her brothers see Aria as an outsider, a stranger disrupting the fragile balance of their lives.
For Aria, their home is both a new beginning and a constant reminder of the family that left her behind.
Haunted by the pain of her past, Aria struggles to adjust, her every action guarded and her trust hard to earn.
As her brothers try to understand her, they begin to glimpse the scars she hides and the strength she carries. Little by little, resentment turns to empathy, and the walls between them start to crumble. But just as the siblings begin to find common ground, the secrets and trauma of Aria's old life threaten to tear them apart. Together, they must decide whether they can overcome the shadows of the past to forge a family and whether Aria can finally find a place to belong.