This arrangement is either exactly what they need–or a total disaster
Oscar is a grouch.
That’s a well-established fact among his tight-knit friend group, and they love him anyway.
Jack is an ass.
Jack, who’s always ready with a sly insult, who can’t have a conversation without arguing, and who Oscar may or may not have hooked up with on a strict no-commitment, one-time-only basis. Even if it was extremely hot.
Together, they’re a bickering, combative mess.
When Oscar is fired (answering phones is not for the anxiety-ridden), he somehow ends up working for Jack. Maybe while cleaning out Jack’s grandmother’s house they can stop fighting long enough to turn a one-night stand into a frenemies-with-benefits situation.
The house is an archaeological dig of love and dysfunction, and while Oscar thought he was prepared, he wasn’t. It’s impossible to delve so deeply into someone’s past without coming to understand them at least a little, but Oscar has boundaries for a reason—even if sometimes Jack makes him want to break them all down.
After all, hating Jack is less of a risk than loving him…
Amazon
Carina Press
First, look at that cover. Isn’t it adorable? And it very simply describes this book quite well. I love it when a book cover actually matches the book content. 🙂
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with this book. It was just a little different than most other gay romances. There was a huge amount of hoarding, which is definitely not something you ever see. An MC who was just afraid of let his guard down, jobless, and was kind of a bit of a mess. It was honestly refreshing to see a character fall in love, even though there were points in the book where he couldn’t get out of bed. Sometimes that is where life leads us, into places we don’t want to be, but there we are.
Meanwhile, the other MC, while having a good job, the home he lived in, his grandparents was its own hot mess. And he’d been in the situation of just not knowing what to do as it continued to get worse and worse.
I really loved how as Oscar was cleaning out the house, he found himself really digging deep into the family, their secrets, their pain, and even their joy. Jack’s grandmother was a feisty old woman, and I was completely here for it. 🙂
This book didn’t play out the way I expected at all, and that was a very good thing. Their emotions were just so bottled up, you had to wonder how they couldn’t come flying out!
4.5 pieces of eye candy
Kris Ripper lives in the great state of California and zir pronouns are ze/zir. Kris shares a converted garage with a kid, can do two pull-ups in a row, and can write backwards. (No, really.) Ze has been writing fiction since ze learned how to write, and boring zir stuffed animals with stories long before that.