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The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

Romance

The Pairing

Repeat author

Casey McQuiston is back at Book of the Month – other BOTMs include One Last Stop and Red, White & Royal Blue.

by Casey McQuiston

Excellent choice

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Volume 0
Volume 0

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Yes, she’s embroidered.

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Quick take

What could be more delicious than exes on a food and wine tour trying (and failing) to prove they’re over each other?

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, LGBTQ_themes

    LGBTQ+ themes

  • Illustrated icon, Very_Spicy

    Extra spicy

Synopsis

Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other’s lives once and for all.

Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It’s in the past.

All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.

It’s not until they board the tour bus that they discover they’ve both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they’re trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It’s fine. There’s nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?

But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can’t have.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of The Pairing.

The Pairing

THE BEGINNING

(Theo’s Version)

The first time I kiss Kit, he tastes like jalapeños and apricots.

We’re drunk enough to be brave. Some guys from the restaurant have thrown a Halloween party at their rental house in Cathedral City, and there is a trash can full of mystery punch, and we’re twenty-two, the age at which trash-can punch sounds genius instead of evil. I did add a few glugs of apricot brandy from the liquor shelf to take the edge off, at least.

For the last four months since Kit moved to Palm Springs and in with me, we’ve been talking Halloween costumes. Slutty M&M’s. Ralph Macchio and the bully from The Karate Kid. Kit came up with Sonny and Cher—he’s Cher, I’m Sonny. He found the perfect slinky silk shift on consignment in LA, even made me lace him into a waist corset before he slipped the dress on, because he’s never met a bit he couldn’t commit to. Not even trash punch could erase the texture of his skin from my fingertips.

After, when we’re eating delivery pizza off our coffee table, Kit decides it’s time to finally talk about it.

We’ve never addressed it, not since he returned to California for college and we slipped into each other’s pockets like we’d never been apart, right to the synced, steady heartbeat of us. Theo-and-Kit, Theo-and-Kit, Theo-and-Kit. It was so easy to find the pulse, we didn’t talk about where it had gone, or why.

Kit looks at me over a stuffed crust with extra jalapeños and asks, “Why didn’t you ever want to go to Oklahoma City?”

Because it’s Oklahoma City, I almost say. But the place was never what mattered; it was the promise. When we were fourteen, a year after Kit’s mom died, his dad decided to move the whole family to New York. Kit and I got out a map and found the midpoint between Rancho Mirage and Brooklyn. Oklahoma City. We promised to meet there every summer, but I always found excuses not to go, and they were never that good.

His brown eyes are so sparkly in the lamplight, framed by his stupid Cher wig, that I tell him the truth, partly: When he left, I realized I’d fallen in love with my best friend when I wasn’t looking. And then he was five hundred miles too far for it to matter, telling me about first dates over the phone, and it hurt too much. Oklahoma City would have broken my heart.

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Why I love it

Lately, it’s been so hot and humid in New York it’s hard to imagine taking a trip anywhere but to my couch, parked right in front of the air conditioning unit. But as we trudge through the dog days of summer, I still crave an escape. This summer, that escape came to me in the form of Casey McQuiston’s latest. With it, I was able to travel across an entire continent—all without leaving my blast of cool AC air.

In The Paring, McQuiston, the beloved author of One Last Stop and Red, White & Royal Blue, takes us on an indulgent and romantic journey across Europe. We follow main characters Theo and Kit, ex-childhood best friends and ex-lovers, after they accidentally book the same European food and wine tour. It’s been years since they have seen each other, and time apart has served them well. They’re over each other—100% moved on—and are ready to indulge in their dream vacation. This is why, when Theo and Kit run into each other on the tour bus, they decide to make things interesting and begin a hookup competition. As the two competitors immerse themselves in food, wine, and local lovers, long-suppressed emotions start to bubble to the surface.

The Pairing manages to take the beloved second-chance romance trope and make it something truly special. Theo and Kit shine on their own and together, and had some of the best character arcs that I’ve read in recent memory. The descriptions of each destination on the tour are so vivid, I felt like I’d boarded the plane myself. And I’d be remiss not to mention the chemistry. It’s so steamy that you’ll need that extra AC time—so make The Pairing your next summer vacation.

Other books by Casey McQuiston

Member ratings (4,228)

Romance
Yours Truly
One-Star Romance
Leather & Lark
The Pairing
Is She Really Going Out With Him?
Pictures of You
PS: I Hate You
Happily Never After
The Paradise Problem
The Love of My Afterlife
Not in Love
The Rom-Commers
The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
Butcher & Blackbird
The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love
Ready or Not
Four Weekends and a Funeral
Just for the Summer
The Second Chance Year
A Winter in New York
This Spells Love
Red, White & Royal Blue
You, Again
Love, Theoretically
People We Meet on Vacation
Hello Stranger
Stars in Your Eyes
Part of Your World
Love & Other Disasters
Georgie, All Along
It Ends with Us
The Heart Principle
The True Love Experiment
A Rogue of One's Own
The Holiday Swap
The Bodyguard
The Love Hypothesis
One Last Stop
The Bride Test
Love on the Brain
Head Over Heels
Most Wonderful
The Reunion
This Time Next Year
One Day in December
Things You Save in a Fire
Lunar Love
Bringing Down the Duke
Ana María and the Fox
Beach Read
Before I Let Go
The Boyfriend Project
How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days
The Heiress Gets a Duke
The Rewind
In a Holidaze
Kiss Her Once for Me
Romance
View all
Yours Truly
One-Star Romance
Leather & Lark
The Pairing
Is She Really Going Out With Him?
Pictures of You
PS: I Hate You
Happily Never After
The Paradise Problem
The Love of My Afterlife
Not in Love
The Rom-Commers
The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
Butcher & Blackbird
The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love
Ready or Not
Four Weekends and a Funeral
Just for the Summer
The Second Chance Year
A Winter in New York
This Spells Love
Red, White & Royal Blue
You, Again
Love, Theoretically
People We Meet on Vacation
Hello Stranger
Stars in Your Eyes
Part of Your World
Love & Other Disasters
Georgie, All Along
It Ends with Us
The Heart Principle
The True Love Experiment
A Rogue of One's Own
The Holiday Swap
The Bodyguard
The Love Hypothesis
One Last Stop
The Bride Test
Love on the Brain
Head Over Heels
Most Wonderful
The Reunion
This Time Next Year
One Day in December
Things You Save in a Fire
Lunar Love
Bringing Down the Duke
Ana María and the Fox
Beach Read
Before I Let Go
The Boyfriend Project
How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days
The Heiress Gets a Duke
The Rewind
In a Holidaze
Kiss Her Once for Me