I liked this book! I really liked Gabe. He was a really sweet character. I felt like there was a lot more potential for his story to be deeper than it was. We got mentions of abusive partners, an absent and seemingly cruel parent, and the knowledge that he had a big magic breakdown after his father died, but it seemed like he just brushed all of those things off, only dwelling on them for a short moment before going back to his cheery self. I'm glad he was able to see past those events, but I feel like it would have made his connection with Van more believably solid if we'd gotten to hear a little more about how he resolved his issues. The ending of this book quickly resolved all of the problems the characters faced, which was nice to see, but it felt like it happened so fast. I did really enjoy their relationship development, though. The fact that Gabe was able to help Van just by actually seeing him as a person worth helping was really sweet, and I liked how he kind of put Pike in his place about not trying to get to know who Van really was. I think they had good chemistry with each other, too, but I didn't really like how Van went straight to "you've just never had good sex, you'll like it with me" after Gabe told him he was an exclusive top. It felt icky that he didn't accept him unconditionally at his word. He was respectful and never did anything that made Gabe uncomfortable, but I didn't like that approach. This book also felt like it leaned really heavily on the plot and characters of other books, and not having read them, I felt like I was missing knowledge on a lot of the character relationships and subplots. It didn't make the book confusing, but I did feel like I was kind of missing out. Overall, though, this was a fun book to read!