When Deputy Nick Senaster chastises a bunch of college kids at a bar, he doesn’t think anything of it, even if their leader is gorgeous. The guy is too young and way too cocky, and soon Nick has an emergency foster placement to focus on. His first job is ensuring ten-year-old Ethan knows someone cares for him. But Nick doesn’t realize Ethan is a package deal.
When Alexander finds out his abusive stepfather, Dieter, has lost custody of his half brother, he’s torn between relief and dread. Alexander can’t get custody until he can provide a home for his tiny family. In the meantime, at least Ethan’s foster father will let Alexander visit.
So of course the man turns out to be the cute but dour cop who gave Alexander a hard time.
Soon Nick and Alexander discover they misjudged each other. Nick is more than an authoritarian automaton, and Alexander has a drive and a maturity that belie their first meeting. But between a campaign of intimidation from Dieter, their own insecurities, and the logistics of dating with Ethan’s fragile sense of stability hanging in the balance, they have their work cut out for them if they want to build a future.
Amazon
Another cute addition to the Carlisle PD, in this one we get to know Nick. Nick is a sheriff’s deputy with the department, so we also see a lot of our regulars, which I loved. But recently left by his partner, instead of going home to an empty house most nights, he goes and has dinner and a drink at his favorite bar that I don’t remember the name of right this second. That’s where he meets Alexander, though it’s a less than friendly meeting.
I did not like Alexander at first, he seemed like one of those entitled rich kids that spout the law like they don’t have to follow it just because they know it. As he’s just graduated law school, he just wanted to celebrate with a few of his classmates, but he really was a jerk… they all were. That didn’t seem promising to me, but we get past it… until Donald called and asked Nick if he could foster a young boy that had just been taken from his father… who happened to be Alexander’s step-father, making the young boy his brother.
Nick, being a former foster kid that eventually aged out of the system, was all for helping the young boy and after finding out who is brother was, he wanted to help him too. The part that aggravated me to no end, was the fact that the father KNEW the stipulations to his visitation and kept popping up at Alexanders work and Nick’s house, not to mention the school where Ethan goes, forced a lockdown, was always drunk and disorderly, caused numerous scenes and threatened every freaking body…. They never had him arrested. He was just told to leave, every single time. Nevermind this guy had a basement dungeon he locked his son in, nevermind he verbally and sometimes physically abused him and directly disobeyed a court order… he never got arrested and everyone was reminding the guys that the courts like to reunite kids with their abusive parents, so be prepared for that… and I’m over here like WHAT??? I mean, I know that CPS and the system fail kids so so often, but this guy…. He should’ve at the very least been arrested for child abuse, neglect and violating visitation laws, but nay… he was free to keep harassing them all and eventually kidnapping the kid AND Alexander… separate occasions. It had me steaming.
If you can get past all that though, I did enjoy seeing Alexander fighting for his brother, Nick being there for both of them and Nick and Alexander getting together, which felt really quick to me, but it worked for them. I liked how real Ethan’s struggles were, as dark as they were at times. I always appreciate the realness of these situations because they’re becoming more and more talked about, more people are taking notice of it in real life…. I think that’s why it frustrated me so bad to know that their dad kept getting away with everything because it’s like… why is nobody doing anything about this?
Fictional, I know, but I reckon it hit close to home with me on this one. Overall, very sweet story though and I adore this series. I can’t wait to see what’s next!
4 pieces of eye candy
