Briar Prescott’s Until series of contemporary romances has become one of my favourites, and this third instalment is one of my most anticipated books of the back half of 2024. Maybe You is a terrific read that bears all the author’s trademarks – it’s emotional, funny, sexy, and insightful, the characters are flawed yet incredibly likeable, and the banter is top-notch. A little bit of repetitiveness in the middle and a tad of over-the-top drama near the end had me knocking off half a grade point, but it’s hugely enjoyable nonetheless.

Wren Mills describes himself as a keeper. He keeps himself to himself, keeps his head down and keeps busy; he’s cultivated the art of being invisible, which, in a bustling city like New York, hasn’t been difficult. A grad student with a night-time janitorial job at a local swim school, Wren is surprised – and annoyed – to discover a complete stranger swimming in the pool late one night, a man who isn’t his boss, former Olympian Quinn Henris (And Then You). He knows this because Quinn swims like a machine; this random guy is swimming lazily along as though he’s merely passing the time until something more interesting comes along. Realising the man must have broken in, Wren picks up one of the weighted diving balls and throws it at him, satisfied when it strikes him lightly on the forehead and sends him under for a few seconds. When the guy surfaces spluttering and flaling, Wren expects him to be pissed off – but instead, he just grins and dives down to collect and return the ball, holding it out to Wren with a playful smirk on his too-handsome face.

The man doesn’t respond to Wren’s accusations of breaking and entering as Wren expects; instead of being angry or embarrassed at getting caught, he’s all sly grins and sass, casually wandering off to get dressed and just as casually wandering back to flirt some more and suggest they have sex. Wren is thrown off balance. He knows he should find all this arrogance and cockiness obnoxious, but somehow he doesn’t; whoever the guy is, he’s kind of entertaining and Wren is – strangely – enjoying the absurdity of it all. A phone call to the owner finally reveals the identity of Wren’s mysterious swimmer – it’s his friend, Sutton Holland, whom Quinn apparently finds just as annoying as Wren does:

“You know that pathetic excuse of a tree behind the building?” Quinn asks.

“Sure?” I say hesitantly.

“There’s a shovel in the maintenance closet. Bury him underneath the tree.”

When Wren heads in to work the next evening, the last person he expects to bump into (not that he’d expected to bump into anyone because nobody else is supposed to be there) is Sutton. Wearing what Wren is sure is his usual half-amused, half-cocky grin, Sutton explains that Quinn has told him he has to help Wren out for the next week by way of an apology for his behaviour the previous night. Suspicious, Wren doesn’t jump at the idea of help, but to his surprise, Sutton does actually seem to know what he’s doing and gets to mopping and cleaning without complaint or direction – which makes no sense considering his assertion that he’s both obscenely rich and obscenely idle. As they part at the end of the shift, Wren doesn’t expect to see Sutton again – but he’s there the next night. And the next. And the night after that. Wren has never been comfortable around strangers, still less talking to them, but for some reason, he finds Sutton easy to talk to. Sutton’s frankness and brutal honesty seem to have shaken something loose in Wren; when he’s around Sutton, he’s not so prone to over-thinking and over-analysing everything, he can just say whatever he wants and Sutton listens and takes nothing personally.

As the week progresses and Sutton – still full of swagger and self-confidence – continues to appear, Wren realises that perhaps his particular brand of brutal honesty could be exactly what he needs. The first time they met, Sutton said he wanted to fuck, and now Wren is thinking about perhaps taking him up on it. Wren isn’t a virgin, but his experience is very limited and his insecurity about his looks (he was badly burned in a fire in his teens and is self-conscious about his scars) has led to other bedroom problems he knows he needs to get past. Perhaps Sutton’s unfiltered frankness and frequently expressed desire to have sex with Wren will help him to overcome some of those hang-ups.

The teach-me-about-sex trope is a fairly common one in romance – but that isn’t what Maybe You is doing here. It’s not a ‘teach me to do all the sexy stuff’ book, it’s a ‘help me learn to be confident and comfortable in my body’ one, and I really liked that approach, especially as the author writes the moments of intimacy and vulnerability between the two men so very well. And despite it being a single PoV story (Wren’s), we’re never in any doubt about how Sutton feels about him or sees him; it’s clear he’s on board with whatever Wren wants to share with him, and he never takes it for granted or diminishes his fears, and – most importantly – he makes Wren feel beautiful and desired for the first time in his life.

Wren and Sutton are both likeable – even though Sutton does his very best to behave like a complete arsehole – and the chemistry between them is incendiary from the very start. I’ve said this before, but Briar Prescott is massively talented when it comes to writing quick-fire, genuinely funny banter and one-liners, and Wren’s wryly observational voice is terrific. His and Sutton’s initial exchanges are fabulous, with Sutton so obviously enjoying Wren’s deadpan manner, and delighting at having found someone capable of giving as good as he gets and who won’t take any of his crap. They’re different in many ways; Wren is paying his way through grad school, Sutton is incredibly wealthy; Sutton is gorgeous, Wren thinks his scars make him unattractive (at best); Sutton is gregarious and could charm the birds from the trees, Wren is quiet and introverted… but they’re both carrying baggage from past trauma which makes them more alike than they know. And the more time they spend together and the more Wren gets to know the Sutton beyond the carefree façade he presents to the world, the more he comes to realise that the impression Sutton strives to give of himself – that he’s shallow, that he doesn’t give a shit, and mostly, he doesn’t want to love or be loved – bears no relation to the man Wren is seeing every day, whose every action in regard to Wren speaks to his being the exact opposite.

There’s a great secondary cast here – Quinn and Steph make cameo appearances – and I loved Wren’s found family – fatherly Remy, his son, Jordan, and Jordan’s son, Theo, who provide a perfect familial blend of unconditional love and affectionate teasing.

With plenty of snark, plenty of steam, and a seamless juxtaposition of heartfelt emotion and humour, Maybe You is a wonderful love story and a terrific addition to the Until series.

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