Showing results by author "Kandi Steiner" in All Categories

Celebrate five years of sweet, angsty pain with this special edition of A Love Letter to Whiskey by Kandi Steiner.

Aleksander Suter has been my best friend since high school—and the only man who’s ever been able to truly get under my skin. With his reputation for trouble and a smirk that could melt ice, he’s also the NHL’s favorite bad boy. When my publicist’s plan to fix my image collides with his need to clean up his own, we find ourselves in a fake engagement that feels too real from the start.

Wren Ballard is trying to find herself. She never expected to be divorced at 27, but now that the court date has passed, it's official. The paperwork is final. Her feelings on it aren't. Spending the summer in a small mountain town outside Seattle is exactly what she needs. The peaceful scenery is a given, the cat with the croaky meow is a surprise, but the real kicker? A broody neighbor with nice arms, a strange reputation, and absolutely no interest in her.

See, I've been told I'm the "good time girl", not the one you take home to Mom. And while that label stung at first, I've since embraced it - living the wild and free life and sticking to a three-date max. That's just enough time to have some fun and snuff out the possibility of catching feelings. And it's been working for me for years...until Makoa Kumaka. Sadly, he also has a three-date rule - and it's the exact opposite of mine.

The plan is simple: a brand-new, hot, preferably funny, definitely single male will fill one of those seats for every Bears game at Soldier Field. And I'll fill the other. I can't think of a better way to use the season passes I'd bought for my ex-husband. I am a woman of plans, and this one's foolproof. Until Zach Bowen offers to be my practice round.

When you’re an artist, everything has to be perfect. Or so I thought, until my professor told me my perfection was boring and unoriginal. Studying abroad in Florence has taught me one thing: I know nothing when it comes to what makes art truly beautiful. So, with my professor's words in my ear, I step outside one evening and decide to say yes to any and everything I’m faced with until the sun rises.

I had trusted him, I had loved him, and even though my body had changed that summer, he'd made sure to help me hold on to who I was inside, regardless of how the exterior altered.

What makes you happy? That was the question Emery Reed asked me the day we met, and I couldn't give him a single answer. I could have said my dog, or my books, or yoga - but I just stared. And then, I got in his car. It was crazy to take a road trip with a stranger, but after years of standing still, he was my one-way ticket to a new life, and I wasn't going to miss it. We shared the same space, the same car, the same hotel room - and still, we were strangers. One day we'd be laughing, the next, we wouldn't speak. Emery was surrounded by impenetrable walls, but I wanted in.

It was just another day in the Emergency Department - until she was wheeled in through the doors. Amanda Parks. My childhood best friend's mom, who I may or may not have secretly kissed before leaving for college. I haven't seen her in over a decade, and in so many ways, she hasn't changed. But something new? There isn't a ring on her finger anymore...And I'm much more of a man than I was at eighteen.

It's crazy how fast the buzz comes back after you've been sober for so long. Whiskey stood there, on my doorstep, just like he had one year before. Except this time, there was no rain, no anger, no wedding invitation - it was just us. >It was just him - the old friend, the easy smile, the twisted solace wrapped in a glittering bottle. It was just me - the alcoholic, pretending like I didn't want to taste him, realizing too quickly that months of being clean didn't make me crave him any less.

The headline says it all, and my bosses are over the moon when the opportunity of a lifetime lands in my lap. Of course, they aren’t aware that I’ve already met Vince Cool at an all-star gala—and that we were at each other’s throats the entire time.

Leo F*cking Hernandez. North Boston University’s star running back, notorious bachelor, and number one on my people I would murder if I could get away with it list. And now? He’s my new roommate.

On the northeast side of town, there is a house. The house was once magical, filled with love and joy and plans for the future. Inside its walls are many things that belong to me - my books, the china from my mother on my wedding day, the beautiful cage once home to two birds, now empty, just like me. And a man. A man who also belongs to me. A man I no longer wish to keep. A man who, no doubt, has not slept, though the sun is rising. Because the house where he waits is where I laid my head to rest every night for eight years. Until last night.

Cassie McBee is a freshman, brand new to campus, and it doesn’t take her long to figure out that the rules are only set to be broken at PSU. A pre-med bio major, she’s got more important things to worry about than joining a sorority or partying at fraternity houses. But her best friend is rushing, and when she tags along, she discovers there’s more to Greek life than she thought.

I knew the fork in the road was inevitable; it was the decision I never wanted to make between choices I didn't know I had. And I love them both. My heart is destined to exist in two equal halves - one with each man. But one half beats stronger, the vein running deepest, and holds my choice in silence long before I know it for myself. The realization of what I have to do, of the heart I have to break, just might break mine, too.

Noah Becker is nothing but trouble. That's what Mama told me when I was a kid, kicking his pew in church and giggling at the games we'd play. It's what the town said when his father died and the Becker brothers went wild. And it's on repeat in my mind the day I walk into the whiskey distillery where he works to buy a wedding gift for my fiancé.

I swore I would never work at the whiskey distillery with my last name on it, that I would never be a part of my father's legacy. But when I graduated with my art degree and realized there were no jobs, the devil appeared, and I sold my soul, agreeing to work in the family business if he'd give me the art studio I'd always dreamed of.

Everyone knows not to fall in love with your best friend. But when your best friend is Michael Becker, it’s impossible not to. He’s everything our town knows a Becker brother to be: devastatingly handsome, charming as a thief, and the icing on the cake - a sentimental musician who’s never without his guitar. And he was mine. At least, that’s what I’d convinced myself. Our bond was born in elementary school, strengthened by circumstance and the promise to always be there for each other, no matter what. And the best thing about my life was being friends with Michael Becker.

When Sarah Henderson walks into my life, I tell myself she's off limits. She's my student, 16 years younger than me, and my boss's niece. It doesn't matter that I see the same pain reflected in her eyes that I have in my own, or that the dead organ better known as my heart kicks to life when she's around. I've been here before, and I know how this ends. It's been two years since I fell for the last woman I knew I couldn't have, the one with the ring on her finger that I chose to ignore. Two years of trying to overcome that heartache when Sarah slides into my life.

Clay Johnson has the abs of Adonis and the deadly smirk of the devil, himself. There’s hardly a day he’s not headline material during football season, and never a day he isn’t a bullseye target for every girl on campus. He used to be the easiest of all the players for me to wrangle as the public relations coordinator, but after a nasty breakup with his high school sweetheart, he’s a mess.