First of all, Thank you to Megan Linden for writing this story for the Love is an Open Road event.

I want to like Zack. I want to like Evan. I want to like this story, but there's not enough story in which to get to know the characters. This felt more like a convenient set up of two gay guys in an otherwise limited setting (small town America somewhere in Texas).

Zack is a former detective with the NYPD who lost his job due an injury to his leg. There's no discussion about the injury other than the one time in the story he limps a bit. Beyond that and the fact that he's staying in his sister-in-law's house to do renovations, we really do not learn anything about Zack, other than that he played basketball through high school, college, and while he worked at NYPD, where he remained in the closet about his sexuality.

Evan, the next door neighbor, is openly gay, a computer programmer of some sort (or does he do website design? the story isn't clear about that) and works at the local high school teaching computer classes. His mother is the principal of the school and when she finds out Zack's background in basketball, she immediately marches over to invite him to be the girls basketball coach.

All of this would have been a great set up for exploring how different people deal with coming to terms about their circumstances and the opportunities presented in the story, from the girl, Mako who comes to Zack for advice, to how Zack and Evan's relationship evolves and grows over time, to how the girls come together as a team under Zack's coaching. Instead, we barely get highlights. There's barely any dialogue between the two MCs, and when they do get together their time seems to be all about how fast they can get naked and in bed together. Sorry, but that's not character development, that's just two guys getting naked and having sex. The second time it happened, I started skimming, looking for something that never appeared. In the end, when we get to the "I love yous", I just rolled my eyes because nothing in the story proved to me that they genuinely were in love with each other. ( )

3.5 Stars ( )

Ex- NYPD detective Zack moves to small town Texas after getting hurt on the job. He's used to being in the closet and expects to be even deeper in Texas. But as luck would have it, his hot ass neighbor, Evan is gay too. Sparks fly and they end up working at Evan's mother's high school- Evan as a computer teacher, Zack as a basketball coach.

Evan is out and proud. Zack is slowly getting there. He still likes to be close lipped about his sexuality to most folks. He just needs to adjust to Evan's openness.

I liked this story. It got the job done based on the prompt. I didn't really see them as 2 alphas but I liked these two guys a lot. It doesn't get too deep, this is a great in-between read when you're in the mood for light and sexy.

I liked the secondary characters as well especially Evan's mom. Nice touch.

For a more in depth review, try Cupcake's

My thanks to the author and the team behind this event." ( )

2.5 ( )