Ugly Love (Hoover)/Chapter 3

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🛗

Colleen Hoover

Ugly Love. Chapter 3

A hostile morning and an uneasy fresh start

2014

Summary of a Chapter
from the Collection “Ugly Love”

The original takes about 14 minutes to read

Microsummary

Tate clashed with Miles over his drunken night, then explained what happened. He offered a fresh introduction while helping her move, but remained silent afterward despite her growing attraction.

Chapter Summary

Tate woke to find Miles standing angrily in her bedroom doorway. His intimidating manner contrasted with the drunken man she had comforted the night before. He demanded to know what had happened to his hand and where his phone was.

Annoyed that he offered neither thanks nor an introduction, Tate asked him to step back and slammed the door. He opened it again and challenged her behavior. Unable to remember the previous night, he asked whether they had hooked up.

When her brother Corbin arrived, Tate gave Miles a deliberately ambiguous answer. She noticed his unusually clear blue eyes, but his rigid response to her suggestion made her feel that he disliked the possibility of intimacy with her.

Corbin greeted Tate warmly after nearly six months apart. They teased each other about their hair. She valued their closeness despite his protectiveness and remembered envying his green eyes when they were children.

Miles took aspirin and water from Corbin's kitchen with a familiarity Tate resented. She continued hinting that something had happened between them, enjoying his uncertainty. Having lost his keys, he borrowed a spare from Corbin and agreed to help unload her car in an hour.

After Corbin left to shower, Tate explained that she had found Miles unconscious in the hallway and accidentally slammed the door on his hand when he tried to enter. She had examined the injury and recommended ice and a wrap. She denied that they had hooked up and told him where to find his phone, without mentioning his tears.

Tate suggested they try getting off on the right foot once she was fully awake. Later, she and Corbin left to collect her belongings, and he summoned Miles from the apartment across the hall.

When Miles joined them in the elevator, Tate felt strongly attracted to him despite her objections to his behavior. He formally introduced himself as Miles Archer, explaining that he was starting over. She shook his hand and introduced herself as Tate Collins.

As Corbin looked at his phone, Tate studied Miles's contradictory features and manner: his soft lips, strong bone structure, jaw scar, and shifting attention. In the lobby, Cap asked about her first night. She criticized her brother's choice of company, but Cap suggested that the boy could not help himself, leaving unclear which man he meant.

Cap headed toward the restroom after bluntly remarking that he thought he had wet himself. Tate found his lack of a filter appealing. She caught up with Corbin and Miles, and they moved her belongings upstairs in three trips. Miles said nothing more to her throughout the move.

Characters

👩🏻

Tate Collins — narrator, young woman moving in with her brother Corbin in San Francisco; brown-haired and brown-eyed, with lighter skin than her brother; caring, sharp-tongued, uncomfortable in the morning, and reluctantly attracted to Miles.

🧊

Miles Archer — young man living across the hall from Corbin, with very pale blue eyes, brown-blond hair, strong features, and a scar along his right jaw; unable to remember his drunken night, initially defensive and demanding, then willing to introduce himself afresh.

👨🏽

Corbin Collins — young man, Tate's protective brother and Miles's friend and neighbor; brown-haired and green-eyed, with darker skin than his sister; affectionate and practical, welcoming her into his apartment and organizing help with her belongings.

🪑

Cap — elderly man stationed in the building lobby, with a wrinkled face and a slow, shaky gait; friendly toward Tate, sympathetic in his response to her complaint, and blunt about his bodily needs.

Quotes

I stare back, because I’m confused about how this is the same guy who was passed out drunk in the hallway. How is this the same guy who cried himself to sleep last night?

I don’t want to be attracted to a guy who drinks himself into oblivion, cries over other girls, and can’t even remember if he screwed you the night before.

His personality flips between inviting and callously indifferent, muddling my ability to discern hot from cold. His casual posture is at war with the fierceness I’ve seen in his eyes.

This summary is based on the UK edition of the novel (London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2014).