So, at the end of the last book, they survived the first month of their reunion. Now they've moved out of Ryan's place and into Nico's. Whereas Reunited was about Nico's past coming back to bite him, this is about Ryan's.
I understand I'm reading a story about their lives and that includes intimate things, but I am kind of grossed out by the way they talk about sex and how they talk during sex. It's strange, but I keep cringing while mumbling TMI...TMI.
Nico heads back to work trying to get back into the swing of things. Ryan comes to visit him at the gym and Nico introduces Ryan to his assistant Mel. She's really happy about them, she thinks they’re cute, happy that they found each other yada yada yada. She says to Nico that he deserves to be happy and he should forgive himself and then she turns around and says to Ryan that he looks like he’s been living with a lot of demons and he should be happy now too. That just seems strange to me because if it was so apparent, I would think that it would have or should have already been mentioned. Like, "he was handsome, but he looked hunted" or "he was handsome, but he looked troubled." But no, he’s just handsome, just gorgeous, that’s all. And here comes this woman who’s seen him for the first time and says that he looks like he’s got demons. Where is that coming from?
Too much sex. Just too much sex. But at least the author has figured out how to do the turn the page and then it’s over routine, so we don’t into full detail about every time. Just a little hint that it’s going to happen and then skipping on.
They've been through the no more secrets thing so many times and it just keeps coming. Why the BS? I don’t understand what the purpose of all of this is in the story. There are ways to instigate drama that make sense and that don't require a writer to keep returning to the same well. None of the reasons they're still holding onto secrets make sense.
I've come to believe that Ryan had to be a sucky cop, like seriously, there's no way he was any good when he keeps making stupid decisions. Same for the Army. How did he survive the way he is? He can’t make good decisions for jack. Also, he's immature. After he gets half the story on something involving Nico, he dashes off on his motorcycle without protective gear at 120 mph. Sure, put yourself in danger why don't you? How can you have a relationship when all you do is run away? They were supposed to stop with all the secrets--these guys are almost 30, why are they having these issues? Well, actually, Nico's calmed down and has managed to get over the whole does he love me with a large and looming question mark, but Ryan is constantly in doubt, he can’t be secure in anything for any significant length of time. He is just one step away from running away all the time. This is like a dime-store soap opera.
I have no idea what this author thinks about hacking, computer networking, listening devices, and other such things, but the lawyer's cousin doesn’t even know where Ryan is and he’s instructing one of his people to do a sweep of the place. How do you sweep a place when you have no idea of its location? So this is supposed to be a remote sweep... Is he employing satellites or something? I’m just disappointed, not entirely surprised, but truly disappointed with how lazy this writer is with integrating tech into the story.
Anyway, Ryan has to go off to do something for the Army even though he was supposed to be done with it all and it’s all hush-hush, you know, high security hush-hush and he tells Nico about it and Nico says he won't talk about it to anyone because he understands that Ryan could get arrested for speaking about it. So while Nico's working things out to help with the implausible remote sweep, he tells his lawyer and his cousin that he’ll explain the whole thing to them when they arrive the next day. I'm sure he just said that he wouldn't. But there he went, spilling all of Ryan’s business, all of the military secrets. How do you just go and do that? How do you... You can’t do that! You can’t. And unless the cousin tracked Ryan's phone's GPS, how the heck does he know that he’s in some rehab clinic in the mountains? The remote sweep of course.
During some vague passage of time, some craziness happened, but they all escaped and then everyone was safe and sound. Life went on and then they got married and adopted a kid. The end. Why does everyone want a kid?
I've really got to stop doing this sort of thing to myself. I have to learn to say no when I see the red flags at the beginning. The down side of a reading coma.