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By L.A. Witt
Published by the author 2025
Five stars

This gets top marks for surprising me, and for dealing with something very difficult in the context of a romance.

It starts as a sort of classic set up: two military men sharing a flat on Okinawa (OK, maybe that’s a little out there for a start). Riley Sweet is the Navy version of an MP (called an MA1); while Nolan Tyler is a Marine. Riley loves living in Nolan’s elegant apartment, but also loves being a friend-with-benefits. Those benefits come with lots of boundaries and rules.

The initial major trope is the fake-boyfriend gambit. Nolan needs to go back to his family in Washington State to act as best man for his younger brother. Something dark in his past has made him avoid going home for years—but this one he can’t skip. He tells Riley that having a boyfriend will give up emotional back-up against whatever it is at home that scares him.

The verso is that Riley wants to go home for Easter with his family in southern California, and wants a boyfriend to try to force his passive-aggressive parents to deal with the fact that he’s gay and not just going through a phase.

We know from the start that this isn’t going to be any sort of a rom-com farce. While Riley’s problem seems less troublesome, we don’t learn what Nolan’s secret is until well into the book. The double-barreled surprise is that Riley’s family problem is deeper and more painful than we expect. Nolan’s secret, however, is profoundly upsetting, and takes over the last third of the book.

Meanwhile, these two fantasy-prototype military men have a sort of cute road trip, during which their tentative friendship blossoms into something stronger. But L.A. Witt has not given us a Hallmark story. It’s tough and thought-provoking on both sides of the two men’s friendship-deal. I was deeply moved and frankly couldn’t imagine how things would turn out. I can’t really say more, because the element of surprise matters in the emotional impact of the story.

Witt is, as always, pretty sex-forward; but in this book it makes particular sense. Yes, there are some classic cheap thrills, but behind them is something redemptive that helps heal both young men.