Jude and Romeo met when they were boys and Romeo moved to the neighborhood. They quickly became inseparable and experienced all manner of firsts together over the year. Even as they grew and changed, the one constant was their place in each other’s lives. But a falling out in their early 20s saw Romeo get married and Jude leave town. After not speaking for 5 years, Jude is back in town to oversee the renovations on his childhood home and must come face to face with the only man he’s ever loved, the only man he could never get over no matter how hard he tried. Could it be possible that Romeo has been harboring the same feelings for all these years?

Oof, if you want some epic pining, you’ve come to the right place. Told entirely from Jude’s POV we get a front-row seat to see how much he’s pined away for Romeo for so many years. He tried to move past it but no matter what he did, he couldn’t shake the feelings. His agony over seeing Romeo with his wife was palpable, it was pure torture for him. I usually prefer dual POV, but I liked that we only had Jude’s POV here because we never really knew where Romeo’s head was, which intensified everything Jude was feeling. I also liked the Then and Now timeline, we know they’ve had a falling out but we need to experience all the Then chapters to figure out what happened. And we also got to see how their relationship developed as they grew up, which I loved.

The writing was beautiful, it was so vivid and at times poetic. It drew me right in and kept me engaged throughout. Jude and Romeo’s journey was not an easy one, get ready for all the feels, but the one irrefutable thing was that somehow, some way, these two belonged together. I’ve had this book on my TBR since it came out last year and I’m glad I finally read it!