Josh rear-ends a woman's truck in a parking lot while distracted by a text from his ex-girlfriend.

Josh and Kristen recognize each other at a fire station and secretly agree to hide the morning's fender-bender.

Josh takes a carpentry job building miniature dog staircases in Kristen's garage to earn extra money.

After learning about a recent break-in attempt, Josh insists on moving into Kristen's guest room temporarily.

Josh and Kristen are stranded late at night when Sloan's borrowed car refuses to start at a taco stand.

After hearing a voicemail in which Tyler ends their relationship, Kristen rushes to Josh and they sleep together.

The morning after their first night together, Kristen tells Josh they can only be friends with benefits.

Tyler appears unexpectedly at Kristen's house and persuades her to go to dinner with him.

Tyler proposes to Kristen in a hotel suite decorated with rose petals, champagne, and a grand piano.

Outside a bar, Kristen finally tells Josh she cannot have children, then runs away.

Josh responds to a motorcycle accident and discovers the critically injured victim is his best friend Brandon.

Brandon suffers a stroke while in a medically induced coma and is declared brain dead.

After Josh persuades Brandon's family to consent, Brandon is removed from life support and dies.

Sloan tells Kristen to leave her house and not come back unless she is with Josh.

Kristen comes home to find Josh's binder of fertility research on her coffee table and texts him 'okay.'

Josh and Kristen's story begins with a literal collision and accelerates when they discover they are the best man and maid of honor for the same wedding. Their growing closeness is complicated by Kristen's boyfriend Tyler and her secret health condition, which makes her determined to keep Josh at arm's length. After Tyler ends their relationship, Kristen and Josh become physically involved but she still refuses a real relationship, leaving Josh confused and hurt. The tension builds through Tyler's unexpected return and proposal, a climactic bar confrontation in which Kristen finally reveals she cannot have children, and the devastating loss of their mutual best friend Brandon. Only after Josh presents ironclad logical evidence of his commitment does Kristen agree to be with him, and their impromptu courthouse wedding sets up a final surprise that neither of them saw coming.

The headline romance between Josh and Kristen, from a fender-bender to a courthouse wedding.

Josh and Kristen make a bet about whether Stuntman Mike can help Josh meet a woman at a store.

Josh takes Stuntman Mike to Home Depot and meets a woman named Amanda, winning Kristen's bet.

Josh grows bored on his first date with Amanda and leaves early to eat pizza with Kristen instead.

Josh and Kristen prank Sloan with a glitter bomb while she and Brandon are both on the phone.

Josh and Kristen sneak out at night to toilet-paper Brandon and Sloan's house as a prank.

Kristen takes Josh on a tour of Los Angeles filming locations from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.

At Sloan's invitation-stuffing party, Josh sees Kristen dressed up for the first time and zips her dress.

While waiting for a tow truck in a seedy parking lot late at night, Josh gives Kristen a foot massage.

The tow truck driver's dog fills the cab, forcing Kristen to sit on Josh's lap for the whole ride.

Back at the fire station, Josh tells Brandon and Shawn that he and Kristen slept together.

Josh answers Kristen's doorbell and is caught off guard by her cold and elegantly dressed mother, Evelyn.

Josh openly defends Kristen from her mother's cutting criticism at brunch, and the two of them leave early together.

During the Las Vegas bachelor party, Shawn throws Josh and Brandon's phones into a river.

Josh returns early from Las Vegas and sees an unfamiliar truck in Kristen's driveway, fearing the worst.

Sloan crashes Kristen and Josh's courthouse wedding wearing an old bridesmaid's dress and carrying leftover funeral flowers.

Alongside the main plot, a series of smaller but meaningful moments define how Josh and Kristen fall for each other. Playful bets, pranks, and shared adventures allow them to bond naturally while both pretend not to be developing feelings. Forced proximity keeps throwing them together in increasingly charged situations, from a broken-down car to a cramped tow truck cab. A disastrous brunch with Kristen's cold and critical mother gives Josh a rare window into where Kristen's self-doubt comes from, and he rises to her defense. Misunderstandings, a jealous panic over a parked truck, and a chaotic wedding-planning season add turbulence before the story reaches its emotional resolution. The pool closes with one of the novel's most touching scenes, when Sloan crashes the courthouse wedding to stand by her best friend's side.

The fun, tense, and bittersweet moments that shape Josh and Kristen's friendship before and after they cross the line.

Josh brings Kristen an assortment of junk food and period supplies, witnessing the severity of her pain firsthand.

At Josh's apartment, Kristen notices a photo of his nephew on the fridge and understands how deeply he wants children.

Kristen and Sloan slip away at the invitation party, where Kristen finally admits she has a hysterectomy scheduled.

Josh learns that Sloan and Brandon originally met when Sloan rushed a dangerously anemic Kristen to the hospital.

While stranded together in the car, Josh and Kristen realize they are both silently thinking the same Pulp Fiction quote.

Kristen admits to Tyler at their Malibu dinner that she is already in love with another man.

Kristen tells Tyler she needs time to consider his proposal but ultimately turns him down.

A drunken Josh calls Kristen from a hotel business center in Las Vegas after his phone is thrown in a river.

During the late-night phone call from Las Vegas, Josh and Kristen both tell each other 'I love you.'

Josh and Kristen win a Tarantino trivia night together, then Josh demands to know why they cannot be a couple.

Sitting beside a comatose Brandon, Josh realizes he does not just want to date Kristen — he wants to marry her.

Kristen finds Josh at his apartment and convinces him to go speak to Brandon's family about removing life support.

After winning over Brandon's family with logic rather than emotion, Josh realizes this same approach is the key to reaching Kristen.

Josh and Kristen exchange wedding vows at the courthouse; Josh adds a promise to care for Sloan like a sister.

A doctor reveals at Kristen's pre-operative ultrasound appointment that she is already four months pregnant.

Beneath the surface romance, a series of quiet revelations and critical decisions drive the real emotional arc of the story. Early hints about Kristen's health, her childhood, and her fear of being truly known build a portrait of a woman who has decided she is not worthy of the love she wants. Josh collects these pieces gradually — through a painful period, a photograph of a nephew, and a story about an emergency room visit — without yet understanding how they connect. The mutual confession of love over a late-night phone call breaks something open between them, but Kristen's logic keeps reasserting itself until Josh learns to argue on her terms rather than his own. Brandon's death forces both characters to confront the cost of wasted time, and Josh's carefully prepared binder of research finally gives Kristen the logical framework she needs to say yes. The pool ends with the most unexpected revelation of all: a pregnancy that neither of them thought was possible.

The key discoveries, confessions, and emotional shifts that reveal who Josh and Kristen truly are to each other.

Abby Jimenez

Novel

Fiction

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