I Meant You: A Single-Parent Friends-to-Lovers Romance

By Zeffie Schatz

She calls him buddy. He calls her buddy. It stings every time, but both have decided friends is the only thing they get to be.

Sam has spent three years rebuilding her life after a marriage that broke her. She has her daughter, her work, her routines-and Nick, the 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 an emotional, grounded, dual-POV romance about friendship, found family, and the terrifying distance between knowing you're in love and being brave enough to say it. It doesn't float on a pink cloud-it lives in the real, messy, tender middle of two people learning to trust again.

For readers who want their romance honest and character-driven, with flawed but good-hearted people, real family moments, and all the ache-closed-door, low steam, big on feelings.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H6M3LV4N
• ISBN13: 9798180878113
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 182 Pages
• Weight: 0.41 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 8.0"