We are so excited to share the cover for Again, by Lisa Burstein! We also have an excerpt from chapter one. Be sure to let us know what you think!
How far would you go for a second chance?
Eleven years after flunking out of college, Kate has finally hit rock-bottom. Losing her job and boyfriend in one drunken night, she’s determined to fix her life by going back to the moment when she let partying and sex take over and do things right. At twenty-nine, she heads back to freshman year of college, with a catch.
Pretending she's nineteen with a new roommate and full class schedule is easy. When she meets her shy, sexy and seven-years-younger RA Carter, following her self-imposed sobriety and celibacy rules is proving to be anything but.
A senior enduring years of regret, Carter is more than ready to graduate. He’s anxious to move on from the party his freshman year where he witnessed his frat brothers about to commit a sexual assault. Instead of doing the right thing and stepping in, he looked the other way and left. His guilt has made for a lonely four years.
When he meets the new freshman on his floor, spunky and confident Kate, he wonders if his time as an outcast has finally come to an end.
Kate and Carter’s growing friendship and undeniable attraction make it harder to hide the demons from their respective pasts. But when their secrets are finally revealed, will their chance at starting over together still be there?
Kate
I stood with my back tight against the wall
gasping air like it was Riesling and I was at an all you can drink happy hour.
How the hell did I think I’d ever pull this off? Pretend
to be a nineteen-year-old freshman at twenty-nine-years old?
Going back to college might not have been
one of my best ideas—but it was the only one that might finally change my life.
I wanted to change my life. I needed
to. It was just hard to convince myself of that once I was actually on campus
with tons of real freshman all around me.
I guess it’s a lot easier to fantasize
about living your life over again than to actually go through with it.
“Are you lost?”
I turned and found a built, blonde-haired
hottie washing his hands. He dried them quickly, crossed his arms over his
broad chest and leaned against the sink.
That
was the moment I realized I was in the men’s bathroom. The moment my breathing
went from gulping Riesling at an all you can drink happy hour to puking it up
into the disgusting toilet at the back of the bar when drinks went back to full
price.
My knees went wobbly. My mouth was dry; my
head seemingly floating on top of my neck. I couldn’t tell if I was suddenly
unbalanced because of how handsome he was, or the realization I clearly was
lost.
Minus a penis lost.
“Shit,” I reached for the door handle with
sweaty palms. At least I was making the kind of a stupid mistake a real
freshman would.
My wide, wild eyes probably made me look as
confused by my surroundings as any other student arriving, but honestly I was
terrified and not because I’d almost caught this guy with his pants down,
because this whole idea was insane.
“It’s okay,” he said, walking toward me,
waving his large hands to calm me. “This is definitely not the worst thing I’ve
seen someone do the first day back.” He smiled showing teeth that reminded me
of toothpaste commercials. It brought out the sweetest dimple the size of an
M&M on his chin.
Fuck me. I smiled back.
He paused; eyeing me up and down, perhaps
noticing the tight body I was showing off in a desperate attempt to appear
nineteen.
“What makes you an expert?” I asked hoping
to change his focus, Maybe he wasn’t regarding me for the reason I thought;
tight body or no, I was not nineteen.
I was twenty-nine. Why the hell would anyone believe any different?
He pointed to his red polo shirt.
Turns out he was doing his job.
The area above his right pectoral muscle
read Resident Advisor, Hudson University. There was something I couldn’t
identify in his sea-glass blue eyes; almost like he was holding back, putting
up a good front.
I knew his look well. It was one I’d
mastered. When it got too hard to wear my own everything-is-fine-mask I doused
it in alcohol and sex and bad choices, but that wasn’t a solution anymore.
And clearly, everything wasn’t fine.
“I need to get out of here,” I grasped for
the door latch again, trying to put out the fire blazing in my neck and face.
He reached from behind me and also went for
the door. His hand brushed against mine blistering enough to brand my skin.
My pulse popped like the last minute of
popcorn in a microwave. I needed to get away from him. I would have usually
chastised myself for even glancing in his direction. Not that I had much choice
considering I’d been the one who put us in such close and uncomfortable
quarters.
Twenty-nine-year-olds didn’t spontaneously
combust from a college kid’s accidental touch. But damn, this guy was fine. My
RA back in college-take-one was nothing like this. If he had been I might have
made it past the first semester.
I might have passed my actual
college-take-one classes.
Of course, I also might have spent it
studying what was under his khakis.
“Let me help you,” he said, pushing on the
latch as I continued to pull. His voice was a deep vibrato, as deep as his blue
eyes seemed.
“I can open a door,” I said, pulling as
hard as I could. Nothing happened.
Apparently I couldn’t.
He lifted his arms I-surrender-style and
stood back stifling a laugh. “It’s a push.”
“I knew that,” I looked down as I finally
pushed the door open and we exited the bathroom. Not because I was embarrassed,
though who was I kidding?
I kept my eyes away from his. I didn’t want
to show him my face. Have him laugh and say, what the hell are you doing here old lady? Or even worse, are you here helping your daughter or son
move in?
It was one thing to be told you had a
baby-face your entire life. It was another to put it to the test next to actual
babies!
That was why I’d run into the bathroom. Too
bad my early-onset cataracts had obscured the mammoth M and stick figure dude.
We stood in front of the door, the dorm
lobby brimming with students and their parents. I should have just walked away,
but I liked the way he was checking me out, his gaze sliding from my just
purchased Uggs to my just purchased
white winter hat with cat-ears smashed over my recently highlighted blonde
hair. I had been doing my best to look student-like.
But I was pretty sure I looked like Hannah
Montana.
It had been easy to Photoshop my high
school transcript so it seemed like I graduated a year ago. Simple to change my
one semester of F’s to A’s, to take the SATs again, to get a fake ID, to dress
like any other nineteen-year-old. It took an hour to sublet my rent-controlled
New York City apartment.
Being here and acting like a college
freshman would clearly be a lot harder.
Lisa Burstein is the author of the Young Adult Novels: Pretty Amy and Dear Cassie, and the New Adult Novels & Novellas: Sneaking Candy, The Next Forever & The Possibility of Us. She is also a contributor to the essay collection, Break These Rules: 35 Young Adult Authors On Speaking Up, Standing Out, and Being Yourself. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her very patient husband, a neurotic dog and two cats. Again is her self-publishing debut.
