The Friendship Variable

By: Marie Soleil

Narrated by: Alexander Cendese, Renee Dorian

He's in love with his best friend.

The only problem? She's engaged to someone else.

Claire Beaumont has always done everything by the book—the math book, that is. Straight A’s? Check. Earn her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in math? Check. Land a job teaching community college, just like Mom and Dad? Check.

Her parents are also thrilled she’s dating the son of their best friends, even if he still lives in his parents’ basement at the age of twenty-seven. So when he proposes in front of both families and an audience of fifty thousand baseball fans, she can’t say no—even though her first instinct tells her to run. Thankfully, Claire has her best friend and coworker, Ryan, to lean on. He’s the one person who always has her back.

Ryan Matthews, Coastal Vista Community College’s resident surfer/math professor, has been head-over-heels for Claire since the day they met. But when he found out she had a boyfriend, he decided to settle for being her friend—and her sounding board for all her boyfriend complaints. He was sure they were on the verge of a breakup, but now, they’re engaged.

Resolved to move on, Ryan throws himself into dating again. But when he and Claire are paired to lead a high-profile campus project, keeping his feelings under wraps proves harder than solving a four-variable system of equations.

©2025 Marie Soleil (P)2025 Dreamscape Media

The Friendship Variable

Quote:

“But I’ve learned that making other people happy, isn’t going to make you happy.”

I loved this story, everything about it. The math jokes, the banter, the characters, just everything. Ryan and Claire are both math teachers at a community college and best friends…all the while she is dating and engaged to another man. Ryan was so respectful and never pushy and supported her at every turn.
While this is a clean read, the slow burn and tension is go great in this story. Totally recommend reading it. Couldn’t put it down.