This gave me similar vibes to You and Me by this author (not the Tal Bauer book). Told from one POV, a down on his luck guy just trying to lay low and get by who befriends the town's sort of golden boy. But they're both kind of down and out, blue collar without any real safety net, and end up helping each other out in lots of ways. I wish we got more stories about people finding each other in less than ideal circumstances, honestly.

I know that this book will be too introspective for some people, there's a lot of thinky passages. There's next to no sex, which I don't mind (especially as it's noted at the beginning of the book, so expectations are set). But, this was just a simple and affecting story that I read in one sitting and might return to when I'm looking for something comforting.