Firstly I enjoyed reading this a lot. It promised to be a short quick romance and it was. Low on angst, high on steam. Funny in some spots. It was what it was and that was great. However, it didn’t fully deliver on what I came into it expecting.
The blurb gave me the impression that the book was about a high school crush that didn’t develop after a steamy encounter, and, how years later, the two end up back on the same team and flirtations happen. Firstly the book starts of with the steamy encounter which is fine but I got the very distinct impression, since it was already mentioned in the blurb, that the book was about the tension between the two in the present. I honestly didn’t get into it. There was only one takeaway when Kemper says he’d be offended if Cannon didn’t do something that had me dying when I read it. Just comedy gold, but beyond that It just seemed like the book should’ve started right with him being shocked the crush was now on his team again and beginning his mission to get him in bed. A real quick dive in so the entire short story can focus on their dynamic.
There’s a character development between Kemper and his roommate next but I kinda skimmed it cause, when are our two main characters going to meet. I’m here for Kemper being overtly flirtatious and Cannon doing his best to ignore him. Cannon quite literally doesn’t make an appearance in this chapter until the very end. Two chapters into a short story, and it’s feeling like the set-up for more of a novelette. It just reads more I have plenty of page time to do the do, but there are only six more chapters. When is all the back and forth going to happen? Especially when I know, I checked the chapters, Cannon gets two POV’s as well.
The next chapter is the flirtation I came for. I do kind of enjoy it. Some of it feels a bit forced but over all, I like it. It’s just the tension is a bit too low for me to really laugh at the situation. It only takes up a small chunk at the end of the chapter as well. This chapter is what the Blurb promised which makes it one of the best chapters. So it gets extra points for delivering on the promise. But there’s still more book and since I had to wait till chapter three for this it just seems like the page time is spending too much trying to do what normal length books do, instead of embracing that this is a short story and getting to the point.
The next chapter there’s a glance and then a weird shower scene. A whole chapter without the promised back-and-forth that only existed in the second half of the last chapter anyway. The shower scene is weird in the sense that it tries to have Kemper be jealous and then smug within a chapter for tension, but the combo doesn’t have enough weight for the glare, as Kemper seems like the type that would chuckle to himself and shrug it off. And the smugness was odd too because, what happened was a fairly common mistake. People routinely forget to ask where a venue is, or the person offering the invite will simply tell them. There wasn’t enough time for it to be a gotcha moment. There was enough time for it to be funny though. Like a quip about so you’ll take an invite from Leo but not me. With fake hurt feelings to seal it. Now that gives more of the Kemper vibes the blurb promised.
There was a nice touch about rescuing Cannon from an encounter in the next chapter that was fun to read but then that’s it. There was time explaining the wealth of the guy hosting the party, but I was legit waiting for the two to meet. Some funny encounters at the party with Kemper and Cannon. Cannon trying his best to ignore them and Kemper blatantly ignoring this because the resistance isn’t strong enough to take seriously. Instead, the two exit the party and, we know what’s going to happen. Chapter is over.
There are two more chapters though. Since they have done the do, all of the flirtatious, fun, humorous shenanigans I came in expecting only really happened the one time. At the gym. That’s it. And now the mission has been accomplished. The problem really isn’t that there are more chapters but that all the fun stuff promised before the climax didn’t happen so now it feels like the book legit should end with them waking up the next day and leaving readers on this high seeing as the banter won’t have the same meaning now as a couple as it would have before. Honestly a quick, let’s end this in bed the next morning situation would’ve worked.
So did I enjoy the story. Yes. Would I recommend it, sure. It only gets three stars though. It just isn’t the book I came in for. I came in for the steam and there were two scenes, so steam covered. But outside of that the blurb promised me clever banter from two guys with history and one seemingly pretending that they have moved on culminating with the final scene of pleasure. As it stands, there’s a lot going on here, between the first steamy scene and the second, and all of that happens by chapter six. Most of that is the type of character beginnings I’d expect in a longer fleshed-out story. This one is under fifty pages..
There was plenty of page time to deliver on the dynamic between the two main characters if so much other stuff simply wasn’t there. Plenty of time to focus on more scens similar to the short, but on target gym scene..
With only 46 pages this short read just didn’t have enough time to dive into all the areas it seemed it wanted to go and as such, had to allude to all the teasing instead of putting it on the page. Still gets a recommendation but, unfortunately, it didn’t live up to what I thought I was getting.
Reading Is My Drug 
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