[PREORDER] Treading Water

By: Piper Rayne

Release Date: December 12th, 2026

Preorder now and receive an art print and bookplate while supplies last. 

I’ve been secretly texting my brother’s best friend for two years, and I knew the first time that we’d crossed a line we couldn’t uncross.
It isn’t the first secret Fowler Briggs and I shared.
When my father turned me away at sixteen, Fowler drove three hours to get me and never told a soul. That night, I promised myself no one would ever get close enough to hurt me again.
Fowler was safe. He was a thousand miles away, on the other end of two years’ worth of Saturday night calls.
Until the life I’d built in Nashville started closing in, and I did what I do best—I ran.
Now I’m working behind Fowler’s bar, sleeping in his spare room, and discovering he’s a lot harder to keep at a distance when he’s right down the hall.
He’s not supposed to see straight through me. Or make staying feel easy. And he definitely isn’t supposed to become the one man I can’t walk away from.
I always run. We both know that.
The problem is, I can’t stop wondering what would happen if, for once, I didn’t.
If I stayed.