This was a pretty awesome book, I absolutely loved and could NOT put it down.
Jesse is a 23 year old student from a small farming town with conservative, super religious parents, and of course they have no been able to accept who Jesse is. A queer kid who loves to put on make-up. He's been on his own since he was 18, moving to the city to get away from that life where he couldn't be who he is.
Dane has been burned in love before. He fell for his old boyfriend fast and easy and fell for his lies and tricks, and ended up with his things stolen, money taken from his accounts, and no boyfriend. Nothing. So he had to pick himself back up little by little.
Jesse is not Dane's ex, but he reminds him a little bit of him, and he lets that color his feelings for Jesse, lets it take over his judgement of Jesse, and he gets the wrong idea about him. Jesse totally likes Dane, but Dane's seeming aversion to him as evolved into some banter on Jesse's side as well and annoyance at Dane being "Captain Cranky Pants" all the time.
They work at a bar together, and at first their relationship is fairly adversarial (although not enemies level, imo) but they're also wildly attracted to each other.
Eventually Dane gives in once, but then is determined not to give in again. Dane for the most part in this is fearful of giving his trust into anyone again, and he feels it's too easy to fall under Jesse's "spell."
Jesse maintains that he and Dane aren't anything more than casual for a long while, as Jesse has never had a boyfriend and feels just sex is better than feelings.
But they're both proven wrong as time goes on and they fall more in love with each other and can't get enough of each other.
I loved these two together. I loved their chemistry, I loved their romance, I loved the back and forth and then the sweetness and the love. I loved the secondary characters who helped enrich the story, like Hailey, Dane's 4 year old niece who was adorable.
I was happy there wasn't any unnecessary melodrama and that these two didn't implode at the first sign of crisis and they actually worked it out.
I loved this, and I'm excited for Seth's - Jesse's roommate - book. I think we briefly got to meet Seth's LI for the next one, so I'm excited for that.
This book was just too good, I could hardly put it down. Definitely recommend!