From the very beginning I felt for Luke. He was so broken, just floating on the brittle mantra of "I'll be okay, I'll be okay", and needing someone to wake him up to not only his path to healing, but to just acceptance of himself, his situation, his desires. Finding that in Zayne was perfect and even though there was a sizable secret between them their connection was everything I was hoping for in this series.
I truly love this setting, the characters are captivating, problematic, and make me yearn for them, the town and surroundings are things I can imagine and want to visit, and the relationship pairings are well crafted with personal evolution and a believable outcome.
My only frustration is the immediate shutdown of Luke by Zayne. Yes, secrets are hurtful and when they're revealed in a surprising way from the wrong source it can exacerbate that hurt, but to immediately run to "everything there ever was was a lie" is a personal pet peeve that drives me insane. I get it. I do. I just don't like it, like, at all. You end up increasing the hurt for yourself and for the other person and it makes the apologies fall flat when they finally come.
Maybe it's a trust issue thing that I have, that when something happens later on and you end up counting on your partner to blow up and run away or kick you out because of a situation blown out of proportion. I'm not saying that Luke's issues with the lie of omission wasn't big, no, that's not it at all. I just don't think Zayne's actions were completely justified, especially his first thought of everything being a lie because he was extremely intuitive to Luke's real feelings even when the details were vague. The hurt, pain, yearning, loss...it was all there and Zayne specifically mentioned it in those moments. The surprise about the career truth should have clicked rather than exploded in his brain. At least that's what I hoped would have happened. It's not though, and I'll have to live with that. It's the reason for a 4 star rating instead of a 5.
So overall I truly enjoyed this book and would read it again. I'm absolutely coming back for more from this series and can't wait for all my favorite men to have their own HEAs. My one pet peeve thing likely didn't bother a lot of other readers so take my review with a grain of salt and dive in because Luke and Zayne have some amazing moments that make their whole relationship worth realizing.
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