Xander is angry and fed up of being signed off work for something that was out of his control. He loses himself in alcohol and one-night stands, anything to dull the pain in his head.
Jonah is enjoying the freedom away from his small-town life, living life to the full in a big city. A few weeks away from starting his job as a firefighter, he embraces the nightlife and the men found in the clubs. One man, in particular, catches his eye, and not even exchanging names, they spend a night lost in each other, and then another. Still not bothering to find out any more about each other, they go their separate ways.
Until they find themselves face-to-face at work.
Unable to stay away from each other, they embark on something that soon morphs into so much more. Deeper, more intense, looking a lot like love.
But will it be enough when Jonah hears some life-changing news and he turns to Xander for support?
Square One is part of the Under The Uniform series by Aubergine Publishing.
Amazon – Kindle Unlimited
Waking up, I stir and move my hand across the bed, finding it empty. I hate it when he does this. I want us to wake up lazily wrapped around each other, then mess around, getting all hot and sweaty again. Listening out, I can hear him moving around downstairs. I look to see where my clothes are because I have come to learn that Jonah doesn’t do mess. Not one bit, so it’s no surprise to see them folded neatly on the chair in the corner by the window. Before I can move to get out of bed, I hear him whistling softly, almost under his breath as he comes back upstairs.
Pushing upright, I lean back on the headboard and wait for him to come back in. I smile when I see him with a tray full of coffee cups and toast.
“You’ve brought me breakfast.” I laugh softly as he blushes slightly.
“Yeah, I woke up and was hungry, so I thought I’d bring it all back up to you too.” He hands me the tray, then slips his joggers down his legs and folds them neatly on the end of the bed. Climbing back in next to me, he drops a soft kiss on my eager mouth.
“This is awesome. I can’t remember the last time I had breakfast in bed. Thank you, Jonah.” I kiss him again.
Looking at the tray, I see he’s done more than just coffee and toast. There’s orange juice and waffles with some strawberries too. His eyes shine bright with happiness as he reaches over and snags his mug and a slice of toast.
“What do you want to do today?” he garbles at me with his mouth chewing his toast noisily. This should annoy me, but with him, it seems cute.
“I’ve got boring stuff like my laundry and a trip to the supermarket. I got back later than I thought yesterday and really only had time to shower and change before coming here.” I look at him as I grab a strawberry. “What about you?”
“I don’t have anything planned, so I can hang out with you if you’d like?”
“You won’t be too bored. It’s only Tesco and dirty clothes?”
“Nope, I’ve missed you. I’d like to spend it with you, if you don’t mind.”
I grin at him and kiss his cheek. “I’d like it too.”
So, after breakfast and a lot of fooling around in bed that ended with needing another shower, we make it out of the house.
Looking up at the clear blue April sky, I can feel the warmth of the spring sun on my face. I smile at Jonah as he slides his Oakley sunglasses on.
“You look fucking sexy, Jo. C’mon before I drag you back inside.” I hold out my hand for him and give it a squeeze as he clasps it.
“Yeah, we’ve done enough of that this morning.” He chortles.
“Never. There’s no such thing as too much sex! As a gay man, you should be ashamed of yourself.” I pull him up to me and kiss his grinning mouth. “Get in the car,” I mumble against his lips.
Okay, so two hot firefighters, that’s really all I needed to want to read this book. I kind of went into it blind apart from that… LOL, I’m easy. So, in this one, we have Jonah and Xander.
Xander is off on medical leave until he can get his head sorted after a call gone bad where they lost a twelve year old little girl. Although there was nothing he could do, he carried the weight of it, and understandably so… I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be a first responder of any kind. I liked the realness of his situation and the way it was handled…. In this aspect at least. There are other parts of this story that I did not agree with, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
Now, meeting at a club, Jonah and Xander have an incredible connection, though they don’t catch each other’s names the couple times’ theyd run into each other. What I didn’t like was that everyone seemed to sleep with this bartender Curtis…. Literally, everyone; even Xander’s ex that pops up out of nowhere. And they’re all okay with Curtis, knowing that he sleeps with everyone, including their boyfriends?? Even Xander didn’t care that he’d slept with the ex, as well as Jonah, after he slept with Jonah?? I didn’t like that at all…. I’m a slut shamer. Absolutely.
Anyway, after another weekend hookup without exchanging names, Xander is set to go back to work. He’s been cleared, and the next day he’s back on rotation…. Problem is… the nameless hookup he can’t stop thinking about is his new partner! Then…. They go from 0-100 in about a day. Neither of them do relationships, neither of them hook up with the same person twice, but the first day they work together, they decide that after two weekends of hooking up…. They’re boyfriends….. they didn’t call it that til the next week, but that’s what it was. It felt like the story should’ve been over at 50%….. but then we get thrown a curve ball.
Jonah has a son…. A teenage son with the only girl he’s ever slept with. His teenage best friend from 15 years ago. Cliché, eh? Except she was supposed to have had an abortion and moved away back then. Unfortunately, when her husband- that has raised Jonah’s son his entire life, finds out that Jonah’s son (Christian Grey- yes, that’s his actual name) Kit (nicknamed, thankfully), when he finds out that he’s gay, he flips and all the sudden doesn’t want to be his dad anymore…. And Kit’s mom just goes along with it. Of course, she cries… but are you kidding? You’re going to choose a homophobe over your child???
I didn’t like how everyone kept blowing this kid off. I understood that it came out of left field for Jonah, and he needed to get his head around it and all, but, even he said that if it was going to cause problems with Xander, he’d choose Xander…. What is wrong with these people? This is a kid…. YOUR kid, and for neither of them to put that kid first, made me sick. And I loved Xander and Jonah together, even if it did go at warp speed and the dialogue was cringy at times… I enjoyed them together, they were good for each other. But, seriously…. You’re going to make the whole second half of the story about the kid, but, nobody really cared about the kid. Least, not in my opinion.
Anyway, I loved Xander’s family, but we get a face full of Jonah’s mom several times. She seems awful, but then she just disappeared. No more mention of Kit’s mom, after she said okay, the kid can live with you so I can keep my husband….(okay, she didn’t say that, but it’s what it felt like to me)
Overall, I felt there was a lot going on in this story, and a lot of it I didn’t agree with….I kind of felt on the fence with it, but it ended well.
Cute. I’ll go with 3 pieces of eye candy for me on this one.
You will normally find her in the living room—typing away—with her dog, Maud. As a hopeless romantic, JJ dives into her stories, always falling in love with her men, making sure they get the happy ever after they deserves, even if they do have to work hard for it.
As a bona fide bookaholic, coffee-addicted, wine-drinking and swear-like-a-sailor type of girl, she has yet to work out how to act her age!! LOL. And she has no intentions of growing up or growing old gracefully.
JJ lives in a small, very quiet, village in Lincolnshire, UK, with her husband and dog, and spends all day dreaming up stories full of really hot men.
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