Book safety, content warnings, and tropes down below.

“I told myself to keep things professional. I couldn’t help it. He does things to me. He triggers the flirty part of my brain.” “Your prefrontal whoretex?”

I was pleasantly surprised when the push and pull and ‘I’m no good in a relationship’ situation wasn’t dragged out forever when it seemed to be going that way. A. J. Truman can for sure write romcoms. I don’t tend to find that kind of deliberate humor very funny, but it’s still entertaining. Derek and Cary were very cute together.

I got on better with Cary the further into the book we got, even though I wanted to yell at him a time or two. In the beginning he totally gave me teenage high school girl saying ‘Oh my god, I’m soooo random!’ vibes. I lost count of how many times he and everyone else talked about how weird and quirky he was, lol. Which is fine, I love a quirky and awkward character as much as the next gal, but it felt a little forced.

I wish Jolene, Derek’s daughter, was a bigger part of the book. She was a sweet teenager and I sometimes forgot that Derek was a single dad.

Definitely well written and if you’ve previously enjoyed this author’s work I’m sure you’ll enjoy this as well. I certainly enjoyed seeing Charlie and Mitch from The Barkeep and the Bro again.

There was an issue with the audiobook where chapter 27 was missing and instead repeated an earlier chapter. Thankfully I had access to the ebook and could read the missing chapter there before continuing with the audiobook. Hopefully that will be fixed posthaste.

⬇️ Blanket spoiler warning ⬇️

⚠️ Tropes & tags ⚠️
Mild pining
Teenage crush
Fireman
Single dad
Widower
Friend’s brother
Romcom
First times

⚠️ Content warning ⚠️
Explicit sexual content
Death of wife (off page, past)
Mentions of past forced outing
Mentions of past bullying
MC cheated on by wife (off page, past)
Anger (punching inanimate object)

⚠️Book safety ⚠️
Cheating: No
Other person drama: No
Breakup: Yes
POV: 1st person, dual
Genre: Contemporary romance
Pairing: M/M
Strict roles or versatile: Versatile
Main characters’ age: 40 and (guessing) 42
Series: Interconnected standalone
Kindle Unlimited: Yes
Pages: 285


“Welcome,” I said. “We’ll send you your pride flag in the mail.” “Is there a secret handshake?” “Only in the back rooms of certain clubs. I’m sure you’ll manage it well.”

“You’re so tight,” he said. Low-grade anxiety kept me permanently clenched, but I kept that tidbit to myself.

Fuck six-pack abs. The little belly Derek had was much sexier.

It was wild how fast I could go from cautious, normal Cary to a total cockmonster.



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