Just as amazing the second time around. I absolutely love this couple. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

****

So it has been a while but I finally had a one on one BR with my girl Elsbeth...and boy did she pick a good one.

This was just my kind of book (and I went in essentially blind which made it all the better). Gaaahhh...I am still on high and actually may have to reread a handful of scenes today before moving on to something else.

This is a friends to lovers story.  A story about two Veterans, one of whom lost his leg in Afghanistan. I could go on and on with descriptions of this book...but honestly you need to just read it yourself. *insert gif here* It's hot, it's touching, it's beautiful. And while there is a slight touch of angst at the end...I got it..I understood. These two were just...just...

 

And what I loved most was the desire not to label this relationship as anything more than two people who love each other. 

“See, here’s the thing, Carey. I’ve had sex with men, I’ve had sex with women. I’ve never felt like this about a man before either, so do I call myself gay because I’ve fallen in love with you? I feel this way about you because you’re… you. Not because of the parts you have. It’s just you, Carey. It’s everything about you. Why do we need to label that as something or other? Why can’t it just be Jase in love with Carey? Me in love with you?”

Yeah...stick a fork in me...I'm done.

My Carey and Jase

Status Updates:

5%
Loving the MCs so far but I keep thinking of Semper Fi.

20%
“What are you doing here, Jase?”
“I thought you might need me,” Jase said simply, and Carey felt his face crumple. In the next instant, Jase was on his knees next to Carey’s chair, and Carey fell forward into his friend’s comforting arms and wept.
*holds back tears*

42%
Gaaahhh...this is wonderful.

46%
“Well, I fucking do! You got this”—Jase smoothed his hand over Carey’s naked stump—“in service of our country. You were a hero that day, Carey.” Jase leaned down and trailed his lips gently over the scarred skin, his tongue caressing the ridges gently. “And there’s nothing about you, nothing, that I don’t find so fucking beautiful it hurts.”
❤️❤️

59%
I'm in so much trouble.

67%
In that cold, lonely predawn darkness, in the middle of the most hostile, dangerous territory on Earth, he let the hot tears slide silently down his cheeks. They were tears of relief he didn’t have to find a way to live in a world that didn’t have Carey in it; tears of regret he couldn’t have done more to spare Carey the pain and anguish he was surely experiencing right then; and tears of happiness, because in that moment, Jase realized he had fallen deeply, irrevocably in love with his best friend.

86%
You didn’t “lose” it, asshole. You chose to walk away from it. It was all yours for the taking, all yours.

Status Updates (Read #2):

5%
I had forgotten how much I truly loved this book. Plus this go around a visual for my veteran Carey...BT Urruela

Excuse me while I swoon over this for a few minutes. ❤️❤️❤️

18%
He heard Jase catch his breath next to him, and Carey glanced at him, surprised to see a very strange look on his face. Jase looked almost… hungry, and his eyes burned briefly with a strange emotion. Both looks were gone almost immediately, and it was just Jase again, smiling back at Carey, his eyes squinted against the sun.

20%
“What are you doing here, Jase?”
“I thought you might need me,” Jase said simply, and Carey felt his face crumple. In the next instant, Jase was on his knees next to Carey’s chair, and Carey fell forward into his friend’s comforting arms and wept.

26%
"I'm worthless, Jase." ...
“You’re worth something to me.”
Carey closed his eyes, a single tear squeezing out and tracking down his cheek. He felt Jase wipe it away with his thumb.
“And I wanted you to live because I didn’t want to see what it was like to live without you. I can’t imagine a world without you in it, Carey. Don’t you see, man? You’re not worthless, not to me. Never to me. You’re my best friend.” Jase patted his cheek. “Look at me.”
Phew. One of my favorite scenes in this book.

33%
Aaaaahhhhh...my absolute favorite club scene in any book I've read...the infamous lawn chair. My god...


40%
Jase’s fingers trembled as he reached out and slowly, gently, ran the tips over the network of scars that crisscrossed the skin of where Carey’s leg used to be. He bent his head low as if to see better, his fingers tracing the scars over and over.
“Oh, Carey.” Jase’s voice was hoarse, barely there. “I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”


45%
Carey was a little bemused at how looking at another man’s body was revving him up, but it was. It was just… Jase. Carey already knew how beautiful he was on the inside; now he knew how stunning he was on the outside too.

68%
Some of these war scenes I expected to see in my reread of Semper Fi...but they were actually in this book. :-(

71%
My poor Jase...description of war incident in spoiler.

Spoiler

Jase shut his eyes tightly, his mouth open in a silent scream of helpless anguish, tears running down his face as he listened to a brave, honorable man being butchered in one of the most awful ways Jase could think of, his head being sawed off by a machete.