Manny Get Your Guy
by Amy Lane
The Mannies
Starting over and falling in love.
Tino Robbins’s sister, Nica, and her husband, Jacob, are expecting their fifth child. Fortunately, Nica’s best friend, Taylor Cochran, is back in town, released from PT and in need of a job.
After years in the service and recovering from grave injury, Taylor has grown a lot from the callow troublemaker he’d been in high school. Now he’s hoping for a fresh start with Nica and her family.
Jacob’s cousin Brandon lives above the garage and thinks “Taylor the manny” is a bad idea. Taylor might be great at protecting civilians from a zombie apocalypse, but is he any good with kids?
Turns out, Taylor’s a natural. As he tries to fit in, using common sense and dry wit, Brandon realizes that Taylor doesn’t just love their family—he’s desperate to be part of it. And just like that, Brandon wants Taylor to be part of his future.
So… Manny Get Your Guy is coming out on July 1st–this is Taylor’s story and if you read The Virgin Manny, you remember Taylor. He was the junior league dominator who kept coming on to Tino even though he hadn’t come out yet to Tino’s sister, Nica.
Well, jump ahead ten years–Nica and Jacob are on their fifth kid–five kids, five failed kinds of birth control–and yes, I knew a couple of families just like that. Including one that blew through condoms and the pill in one good bang. But Nica and Jakey are very much in love, and all they need is a little help. Some of the help they’re getting from Jakey’s cousin Brandon, who lives over the garage and takes on building an addition to the house so baby number five can fit. Some of the help comes from Taylor, who has been in town for a little while after getting out of the military, but who hasn’t really reintroduced himself to the family because he’s embarrassed. He was sort of an asshole before he deployed, and he’s not sure how well they’ll take his return.
They take his return pretty well–but five kids is a handful, and watching Taylor deal with Nica’s kids turns out to be highly amusing. For me, anyway, because the oldest three are stinkers, the youngest one’s a doll, and the one in the oven is giving the family fits.
I mean, kids. Families with kids. Accidental pregnancies and being stupid in high school and growing up and figuring out life. It’s messy and mesmerizing all at once–and ever so much fun.
Anyway– this series was going to be a one off, and then my editor and I had a giggle/snort over potential titles, and it became a trilogy. The third one is Sammy’s story– he’s the fractious little boy in the first one, but he’s fully grown at twenty-one by the time his own shot at love rolls around. (He’s seventeen in this one and has a sort of understated crush on Brandon, but Brandon tells him–kindly–that he’s too young.)
And then I penned Dustin, who’s Nica’s oldest, and a real little prick. And Quinn, who shows up near the end of Sammy’s story, and turns out to be a really decent guy, and I had a thought of Dustin and Quinn meeting at a family wedding, and Quinn pulling the “Older relative” thing on Dustin and pissing him off. And then, about ten years later…
So there’s going to be four stories in all, and this is the second. The third was supposed to be coming out in January, (it’s been done for two months) but there was some internal push/pull with the schedule for various (good and exciting) reasons, so it might not be coming out for a year. And I don’t know where that leaves the fourth one–but we’ll see what we can do.
But they’re happy and family and potato chip eating and NOM.
Enjoy.
So excited to hear this – love that family!!