Book Title: Matched By My Rival
Author: DJ Jamison
Publisher: DJ Jamison
Cover Artist: Cate Ashwood
Release Date: July 8, 2021
Genre: Contemporary M/M Romance
Tropes: Enemies to lovers, college jocks, online love match, secret/forbidden love
Themes: Building a new dream, following your heart, forgiveness
Length: 75 000 words
It is part of a series (Thrust Into Love) but can be read as a stand alone.
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Simon Prentiss: Ex-football star, bitter rival, and…falling for the enemy?
Blurb
I hate my teammate, Parker Reed.
I hate that he makes me work so hard for my position on the field.
Hate how he always smiles. How easily he shows me up when I’m injured.
Most of all, I hate that he made me lose my temper.
Next thing I know, football is gone.
My scholarship is gone.
I’m nearly gone, too.
With help, I manage to stay in school for my final semester.
At least without football, I can explore a new side to myself.
See where my attraction to guys takes me without fear of it affecting my future.
I didn’t see it coming. The cosmic joke.
The sweet, patient guy on the hookup app?
The one who makes me burn with the desire to have him?
Yeah, it’s Parker.
Our chemistry is off the charts, no matter how much I resent him.
Holding a grudge against him is impossible.
But when he wants to walk away from everything I lost, can I accept it?
If I don’t, I’ll lose him too–and that can’t happen.
Because I don’t hate Parker Reed.
I think I love him.
Matched By My Rival is an enemies-to-lovers, jock rivals romance. It’s Book 2 of the Thrust Into Love series but can be read as a standalone.
The following is an excerpt from the prologue of Matched By My Rival:
SIMON
I pushed myself up from the sofa, using my crutches, and the room spun. I swayed, catching myself on Darnell’s big bicep. “Just a head rush,” I mumbled. “Point me toward the keg.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so.” He turned me toward the front door. “Time to get some air. “
I didn’t fight him as he cleared a path and made sure I stayed on my feet until we were in the front yard. My mind cleared as I sucked in cool drafts of air—and I realized I needed to get out of there. The way I was feeling, I’d say or do something I’d regret in the morning. And I had enough regrets as it was.
Why had I even gone out? What had I been trying to prove? That an injury couldn’t put me off my game? It already had.
“Gonna go,” I mumbled. “This party sucks.”
“Yeah, man. Things will look better tomorrow. You’ll see.”
I turned toward the sidewalk. We were on Greek row, so my frat house wasn’t far. I’d be there within minutes, even drunk and on crutches. But what I saw stopped me cold. A guy and girl stood in the middle of the lawn, heads close, talking and laughing. I recognized them instantly.
Parker and Kristin.
Parker, my rival. And Kristin, my girlfriend.
As I watched, Kristin went up on her tiptoes and kissed him.
Oh, hell no.
No, no, no.
Wasn’t he taking enough from me as it was? What did he want, my entire fucking life on a silver platter? Probably. That’s how he rolled. Everything he wanted, easily offered up.
My fuse was short, easy to ignite. Fury swept through my veins, and I welcomed the feeling. It was better than the numb disappointment I’d been nursing for days.
I crossed the lawn, suddenly looming beside Parker and Kristin, without any memory of actually taking a step. “What the fuck is this, huh? You want to kick me while I’m down. Take my place on the field and my girlfriend?”
Parker lifted his hands. “Whoa, man, it’s not like that.”
“It looks just like that,” I snarled.
“Stop it, Simon,” Kristin said. “I can’t do this anymore with you. It’s over, okay?”
I shook my head. “We had a fight. We’ll make up.”
“Yeah, we had another fight. All we do is fight,” she said. “I want to move on. Find someone who’ll make me happy.”
I lifted one crutch, prodding Parker in the chest. “You think this asshole is better than me?”
“Knock it off.” Parker shoved the crutch away from his chest.
I staggered, off-balance, pain flashing through me and fueling my anger. Parker stepped forward as if to grab me. To catch me or shove me? Either one was a big fucking hell no.
“You think I’m weak?” I snarled as I dropped the crutch in my right hand. “You think you can fuck with me?”
“What?” He laughed. He actually laughed at me. “Don’t be—”
His words were lost in a wash of rage. I didn’t think. I didn’t make a conscious decision. I just snapped. One minute I was standing there watching Parker get his jollies from my pain, and the next I’d taken a swing.
My fist connected with his lower jaw—and the corner of that smart-ass mouth of his, splitting his lip. I used my other crutch to sweep his legs out from under him, and he hit the ground with a thud.
There was a chorus of gasps. We’d drawn a crowd.
“Simon!” Darnell bellowed, lunging forward to grab the crutch from me before I could do something like swing it at Parker’s head. I wouldn’t go that far, even as incensed as I was. I dropped, landing in an awkward sprawl over Parker and sending another pulse of pain through my thigh.
“I should fucking kill you,” I growled in his ear.
Parker let me get in his face, didn’t fight me at all. If someone had decked me, my reaction would be to punch them right back. So why wasn’t he swinging? Or at least shoving me the fuck off his body?
“Fight me, you fucker,” I said, grabbing his shirt and shaking him. His lip was bleeding, but he smiled through it. Did nothing faze him?
“Can’t fight,” he said, his pronunciation a bit garbled by the swelling lip. “Scholarship policy.”
It took a second for me to process his words. When I did, my blood ran cold.
There was a zero-tolerance clause for fighting. How had I forgotten, even for a second, what was at stake?
I needed that scholarship to finish school. That was half the reason these injuries had freaked me out so much. If the coaching staff decided to decrease mine, decided I hadn’t earned another semester, I was fucked. My dad had lost everything in his last big investment scheme. My mother worked as a waitress, barely making enough tips to cover her own bills. My grandparents covered what they could, but they had my sister, Chelsea, to think about. She wanted to go to culinary school, and that would not be cheap.
Darnell grabbed me under my arms, hauling me off Parker. But not before I saw the crowd that had gathered, the smartphones directed at us. There would be video of this, social media posts. But our coaches wouldn’t see it, would they? Not unless Parker decided to point it out. It was dark. Maybe we wouldn’t be recognizable in the footage? Only…how many guys were there in a compression wrap and on crutches?
Parker wouldn’t have to report me. I was fucked. Utterly and completely fucked.
DJ Jamison writes romances about everyday life and extraordinary love featuring a variety of queer characters, from gay to bisexual to asexual. DJ grew up in the Midwest in a working-class family, and those influences can be found in her writing through characters coping with real-life problems: money troubles, workplace drama, family conflicts and, of course, falling in love. DJ spent more than a decade in the newspaper industry before chasing her first dream to write fiction. She spent a lifetime reading before that and continues to avidly devour her fellow authors’ books each night. She lives in Kansas with her husband, two sons, one snake, and a sadistic cat named Birdie.
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