California Promises

Can you be totally, absolutely, completely, brutally honest with another person if you are not first honest with yourself?

CHARLIE SANDS

When I was fifteen, my best friend, Greyson, made me promise to be totally, absolutely, completely, brutally honest with him. Not a day has gone by that I haven't broken that promise. 

Don't worry. I'm not some sort of sick monster. 

But how can you be totally, absolutely, completely, brutally honest with someone else when you can't even admit the truth to yourself? It's much easier to hide behind the lie I've been telling myself since the day I met him. A guy like Greyson Steele could never fall for a Tomboy like me. 

GREYSON STEELE

For most of my life, I was the best at everything. Baseball. Looks. Charming the pants off women from eighteen to eighty-two. Twelve years ago, Charlie Sands proved me wrong. The first time she verbally handed me my balls, I knew I would never outsmart that girl. 

And no matter how often my mind wandered down the path of lust, Charlie deserves a guy who can keep up with her lightning-fast brain. And that guy would never be me. 

But I'm only human. And worse, a dude. So, over the years I may have slipped a time or two. Let's just hope she chalks it up to my stupidity and not to anything more insidious, like me purposely breaking her famous Poe Friends Rules. Because I would never do a thing like that. I promise. 

Author's Warning: California Promises is an angsty, friend-to-lovers romance about a brilliant, surfing tomboy and her anxious, fireman best-friend. One click for a hilarious, double-dating summer goal, a breezy escape to the beaches of San Diego and Maui, and a fantastic group of friends. California Promises is the first in the Warrior Women Series, a RomCom series full of female surfers who happen to have diabetes and other autoimmune issues and the men who are strong enough to be with a warrior woman.

This is an #ownvoices story for its portrayal of type 1 diabetes by ...