People pleaser Ben Forman has been in the closet so long he has almost convinced himself he is straight, but his denial train gets derailed when hotshot lawyer Micah Trains walks into his life. Micah is brilliant, funny, driven…and he assumes Ben is gay and starts dating him. Finding himself truly happy for the first time, Ben doesn’t have the willpower to resist Micah’s affection.

When his relationship with Micah heats up, Ben realizes he has a problem: His parents won’t tolerate a gay son, and self-confident Micah isn’t the type to hide. If Ben wants to maintain his hold on his happiness, he’ll have to decide what’s important and own up to the truth of who he is. The trouble is figuring out just what that truth is.

©2013 Cardeno C. (P)2015 Cardeno C.

I’m a Cardeno C fiend, no doubt about it. I love the stories, the characters, and I love re-visiting the characters I’ve already read about. And in this story, CC does a great job of bringing all that together.

There was more than one time that Ben, the story narrator, a man with a self-professed lack of positive self image, made me want to throw something against the wall. Fortunately, the character understood that-even made mention of it a few times, as the first person POV worked so well in this case. He was unable to come out, not only to his family and place of employment, but even to himself. This caused him to hurt poor Micah more than once. Fortunately, Micah was a forgiving man! Meanwhile Micah, the forgiving soul that he was, waited and was as patient as a saint as Ben worked on figuring out how to live his life for himself.

I really enjoyed this story, despite wanting to drop kick Ben out the door several times. There were lots of comedic moments, some pretty hot sex, revisiting with characters we have already met in the Home series, and some baseball. 🙂 But in the end, this was a voyage of self-discovery for a man who was too afraid to come out to anyone, including himself, until he found the man worth coming out for.

I really enjoy Alexander Collins’ narration. He has a strong voice, which he varies so well, uses some outside sounds, and he truly is able to capture the moment with his voice.

Another fun, sexy CC read and listen.