I enjoyed the Fixer Brothers Construction series so definitely wanted to pick up this short novella set in the same small town.
The MCs are new: Casey, a 23 year old website developer for the Fixer Brothers business, and Rome, an early 40s guy who does odd jobs, including putting up Christmas decorations for small towns. They meet, get to know each other, have some fun, then realize that Rome is the father of Casey's best friend, Justin. This causes some awkwardness and Rome decides he shouldn't see Casey again.
I won't go into detail about what happens next, but this is a fairly low-angst story. Casey and Rome are concerned how Justin will view their relationship, understandably so, but of course, this being a Christmas story, things end on a positive note.
A couple things could have been better. First, Casey talks a good bit about how he wants to have an older man take control of him sexually, but in the end Casey and Rome have a fairly versatile relationship. This was disappointing as I wanted some Daddy/boy kink, even if just a little bit. Secondly, Rome feels like a "monster" because he is attracted to someone Casey's age, and to be honest, I'm really tired of this mindset that consenting adults can't be attracted to each other, regardless of the age difference. My boyfriend is 23 years younger than I am, and in our first go around ten years ago, we were approximately the age of Rome and Casey in this story. It wasn't predatory (he approached me first), there wasn't a power imbalance financially (we made approximately the same amount of income), and he wasn't some immature kid fresh out of the womb. This kind of rhetoric isn't good, because there are a lot (and I do mean a lot) of "intergenerational" relationships in the gay world. It seriously stigmatizes such relationships and there is enough of that shit going on without having to pile on about age differences.
Still, this was a cute story, maybe not super well developed because of the length, and definitely very insta (which seems to be common in Christmas stories). It's a short read, also, if anyone just needs to put away a book in the space of a couple of hours one evening. The Fixer Brothers show up a bit, as does Harlan, the bartender/brew master at Jade Distillery/Bar and the subject of the next book in the series. I enjoyed it, regardless of the caveats in the above paragraph!