The single mom
Sam
Wounded. Guarded. Loving. Learning to open up and let people close.
The Novel
A friends-to-lovers, single-parent romance.
“How do you come back from almost?”
Best friends. Single parents. Three kids.
Years ago, they decided friends is all they can be.
Still, they built something that looks like a family.
And neither of them is brave enough to say the word that would change
everything.
Sam has spent two years rebuilding her life after a marriage that broke her. She has her daughter, her work, her routines—and Nick, her best friend who became her safe place without either of them meaning for it to happen.
Nick has spent eight years as a single father, holding his world together with quiet discipline and the kind of love that shows up in packed lunches and bedtime stories. He has his girls, his rules, and Sam—the one person he can’t afford to lose.
They’ve built something that looks like a family. They just haven’t called it one.
Until Nick asks Sam to help him prepare for a date with another woman.
Until she—of course—says yes. Because that’s what friends do.
But when a slow dance turns into something friends don’t do, long buried fears resurface and tear them apart.
Now Sam is running from the one man who keeps showing up. Nick is spiraling in the silence she left behind. Three girls are caught in the middle.
And the only way back to each other is through the truth.
All of it.
I Meant You is the first book of The Reframe Series — emotional, closed-door romance about wounded people learning to trust again.
Content note: emotional abuse (past), anxiety/panic representation, and themes of parental abandonment.
The People
The single mom
Wounded. Guarded. Loving. Learning to open up and let people close.
The single dad
Structured. Cautious. Protective. Learning to hope again.
Sam’s daughter · 14
A teenager who’s grown up too fast. Highly protective of her mother. Learning to function within a family again.
Nick’s daughter · 11
Quiet. Watchful. Distant. Waiting for love without asking for it.
Nick’s daughter · 8
Loud. Playful. Impossible not to love.