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jackie_of_all_books 's review for:
Only Rivals
by Charity Ferrell
Eek I loved this book. This was the story of Amelia and Jax. Amelia is Silas and Lola’s daughter and Jax is sierra and Malikis. I haven’t read the Blue Beech series yet which is their story. We have gotten glimpses of some of them through this book and the Twisted Fox but I haven’t read their love stories yet which I am excited for. I am always excited for this series to keep going. The next book is Essie and Adrian’s, it’s going to be a work love story eek!!! I love the way these books intertwine where they could be stand alone or if you read them all together they make so much sense. This book starts off with Amelia grieving, we find out her fiancé Chris has killed himself. She’s sleeping in the laundry room because she can’t stand to sleep anywhere they’ve had sex. Her rival from kids Jax was Christopher’s best friend and he blames Amelia. He takes it out on her harshly with words. Ever since Chris died Amelia has shut down and never wants to go out and the one time she does she runs into Jax. Amelia and Jax both get calls from an attorney who asks them to come in and when they do they find out that Chris have his half of the brewery to Amelia. Chris and Jax had started a business together. Jax is pissed that Chris have his half to Amelia the one person that he can’t stand. Chris wrote that Amelia wasn’t allowed to sell to Jax for 90 days and also wrote that if she decided to sell to anyone besides Jax they both had to approve of the buyer. This story weaves between the past and the present to give us a little better understanding of some things. We get to see Jax and Amelia as kids and teenagers when they fell in love with each other. Jax and Amelia took each other’s virginity’s and when jax was going to ask Amelia to be his girl he had just recently brought Chris into his life and when Chris laid eyes on Amelia he told Jax he’d be the happiest man in the world if he had her number. Jax just wanted Chris to be happy. So he lost the girl. Chris had a really bad home life as a kid and when Jax and his family discovered that, Maliki (Jax father) beat up Mick (Chris stepdad) and called children services and said Chris would be living with them. Chris got to live in Jax home and feel loved and when he started dating Amelia, her family loved him as well. Chris had a younger brother Corey and he got stuck in the system. Corey killed himself. He committed suicide. Chris took it badly. Amelia tried to be there for him but he just pushed her away. They had been engaged and she told him she wanted to stay together but postpone the wedding she didn’t feel as if they were ready to get married. Jax blamed Amelia that the reason Chris killed himself was because Amelia called off the wedding. The attorney had given Jax and Amelia both letters to open from Chris but they both struggled to find the strength to read them. Jax and Amelia struggled to run the brewery together at first. Amelia was making great sales and Jax couldn’t ignore that. One day while they were fighting Amelia kissed Jax and all the fire was there but they shut each other down. Jax took Amelia home from the bar one day and found out she was sleeping in her laundry room so he demanded she stayed at his place. Then Jax got drunk one night and asked to be taken to Amelia’s. He told her that he wanted her to fall in love with him, not Chris. That he’s always loved her and they fell asleep on the laundry room floor. They needed a new piece of equipment that was a 10 hour drive away for the brewery. Jax demanded to go with Amelia. On their way home it started pouring so they had to stop. The nearest hotel was the pink elephant that was quite gross. That night Amelia and Jax rekindled and had sex together. For the next few weeks they spent every night together and continued to have sex. They both felt a little guilty about the fact Jax was chris best friend and now he’s fucking his ex fiancé. Now the kicker of all this and the reason they “hated” each other. Was because they felt like if they pretended to hate each other no one would ever suspect they had slept together. Chris had asked Amelia and Jax both if they had history and they both lied to him and told him no. Amelia is completely in love with Jax and Jax is in love with her. Mick and Sandra (Chris parents) showed up at the brewery trying to act as if they owned the place since chris wasn’t married. They called the cops who escorted them out. It was at this moment Jax decided he was ready to read his letter. He took Amelia home and told her he’d be back. In Chris letter to Jax he started by thanking him for everything he’d done as a friend. Chris says the worst day of his life was the day his brother died and the second worst day of his life was the day of his funeral. Not only did I have to bury my brother but I also found out my best friend was a liar. That the woman I planned to marry was also a liar. It was the day of the funeral when I asked to borrow a dress shirt since mine no longer fit and you told me to stop at the apartment and grab one from your closet. I did but while doing that something caught my eye. It was a box and I’m sure when you’re finished with this letter you’ll know what box I’m talking about. You were supposed to hate mt girl, not fuck her. I found the notes. The picture, all of it. Gotta say it broke my heart man. You sat there at the funeral with me, all the while knowing you were keeping that secret. Later when Amelia wasn’t home I snooped through her stuff. She also had a box of momentous, some with you and some with me, and then I found her high school dairy. I sat on the floor weeping while reading how my best friend and girl had touched each other, kissed each other, fucked each other. And not one of you bothered to ever tell me. Then my mind started racin. Did you never tell me because you were fucking my girl behind my back. It hurts for a girl to betray you man. It hurts real bad. But your best friend? That’s a knife to the fucking heart. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be alive, but before I go, I want you to know that I know you betrayed me. I want you to know that’s one of the reasons I’m dead too. I don’t know if you’ll care because then you might get my girl. I trust you to take good care of the brewery. Just like I trust Amelia will too and this time let me trust you not to touch my girl Godspeed Chris. Jax made Amelia read the letter and told her they’re done. When Jax got back to his house he saw Chris had destroyed the entire box of anything to do with Amelia. Jax went back to Amelia while she was at her parents and tried to explain to her why they can’t see each other anymore. Ther had just had the conversation of what are we and now Jax is throwing it all away. Amelia is angry, Jax shoved his way into her life and made her find happiness and now he’s going to break her heart. Jax told Amelia he loved her and will always love her but he can’t keep doing this to chris. Amelia reads her letter from Chris that night. His letter to her is a lot nicer than his letter to Jax. He apologizes for the pain he’s caused. He tells her he quit taking his medication after Corey died. And that he knew Amelia saw the change but he couldn’t fix it. The day before he wrote Amelia’s letter he went and saw his mother and she told him Amelia would never love him for him. The trash that he was. And that day when he came home is the day Amelia called off the wedding. It was as if his mother had spoken the truth. He said he’s thought about dying since he was 6 years old. I could tell you. I should tell you. You’d do everything that you could to help me, but no one can help me. Not even the prettiest girl I’ve ever set eyes on, the one who has given me years of happiness I never thought I’d her and the one who isn’t ready to marry me. I don’t blame you either. A man who wants to kill himself isn’t a man anyone should marry. And I am a man who wants to kill himself and I don’t know how much longer I can keep that monster in the shadows. I love you. Christopher. Amelia is confused why Jax got such an angry letter and not her. The next day Amelia walks into her bedroom and sleeps on the floor . Jax ends up bartending at the downhome bar which Maliki and Silas now own together! But anyways he’s bartending on the night of Essie and Rivers birthday party. Amelia steals glances at him all night. She follows him outside and calls him a coward. They end up having sex on the stairs and as soon as they’re done Jax says “you need to leave”. Amelia smacks him a calls him a fucking coward and says as soon as our time is up the brewery is all yours. And he says thank fuck and she asks if this was his plan all along and he says maybe it was. We know this is a lie. Jax just slipped up with Amelia and is trying to push her away again. Oh I forgot to say the night Amelia went to her parents she confided in Silas about her pain and Silas told her about what he went through losing his best friend and girlfriend at the same time. Silas had never spoken to his daughter about it before. Amelia gets the ball rolling on selling the brewery to Jax and the attorney has another letter from Chris for Jax. I want to start this letter with an appology sorry for the first one man I wrote it months ago and told Marshall that even if I begged for it back not to give it to me. I didn’t want to throw it away to take back what I’d written because at the time it was how I felt. I won’t lie bro and say those thoughts still don’t creep up on me sometimes but I’m sure you feel betrayed by me as well. You’re probably wondering why I didn’t confront you. I wanted to. Hell did I want to. I wrote that letter the day after Corey’s death and took it to Marshall. He was my fathers attorney the one who’d broken the news to my mother that my father had left me everything. The first time I planned to confront you was when I returned to the brewery following Corey’s death, fresh after finding out about you and Amelia. I walked in and you hugged me and then handed me a business plan for a new ale, one named Corey in memory of him, with all contributions going into a college fund for his one year old son. The second time was my birthday: Amelia and your family threw me a surprise party. I didn’t want to do it in front of your parents so I sat back on the couch and watched you: I watched you watch her and realized I’d been blind as fuck to not see it earlier. You were in love with my girl. It was clear as day. You didn’t stay away from her because of some childhood rivalry that didn’t make any sense. You stayed away because you wanted to be with her and from reading Amelia’s diary she had feelings for you then too. I was already deep in my suicidal thoughts but instead of wishing you the worst upon my death I want to do the opposite: but I don’t want it to be easy like I’m allowing Amelia just to fall into your lap: as bad as it sounds I want you to suffer from your secret, not for loving my girl. So you see I’d want to die before I found out about you and Amelia, so don’t put all the blame on yourself. But if you are stupid and lose her I want you to have this. If she came to Marshall to sell her share, change her mind, you need to stop her. Because Jax no matter how many plans I had to confront you there was never a good time because you’re a great dude. You’ve been nothing but a good friend to me even in times when I couldn’t reciprocate. I left Amelia the brewery for a reason. Even though I was furious with you for what you’d done, after I sat and thought about it, I knew you were the only one who I would trust with her heart again. I don’t want to live anymore but I want Amelia to. Take care of her for me you’re the only man I know who will may we meet again soon chris. Jax tries to appologize to Amelia but she won’t budge. Her tires get slashed and the brewery gets vandalized. They believe it’s prolly Mick and Sandra. Jax demands to stay with Amelia for protection. Jax finds out Amelia can sleep in her own bed now. Amelia has a panic attack in her sleep and Jax comforts her. And just like in the motel room when it wasn’t supposed to happen, we kiss. They almost have sex and Amelia shuts him down and says I’m not letting you screw me and then say good bye or try to kick me out of my own house. Jax asks to call her his again and she’s not ready to give him that yet. Next morning Jax tells Amelia that Toby shot Mick. Just one of his kneecaps but Mick went there thinking it would be Jax. Mick and Sandra end up in jail. Jax realizes that Amelia went through Chris things and has been cleaning. Jax confessed his whole heart to Amelia and they confess their love for each other. Essie starts mentioning Adrian towards the end of the book. Wink wink. Jax and Amelia moved in to Jax apartment, she sold the townhome and they went house shopping together. Jax tells Amelia he loves whatever home she chooses that she is his home. Amelia quotes “we were never rivals. We were just two kids fighting the spell of falling in love, who then grew up and couldn’t fight it anymore. Jax writes a letter to Chris and puts it in the drawer. And then slips the engagement ring into his pocket. Next time I return to this desk I hope to be engaged. Eek! This one was so good. From the trauma that Jax and Amelia went through. Reading Chris letters. The pain we had to feel. The way they helped heal each other. And then the anger is Chris letter to Jax and how Jax let that letter change everything. I’m so glad Chris wished them well in the end or Jax may have let his whole world fall apart. We always knew Jax and Amelia were meant to be. I can’t wait for the rest of the series’s to be released to get to hear more snippets about them. And hopefully babies!!!