Tropes: workplace romance, animosity to lovers
Feels: 2/5
Steam*: 2.5/5
Kinks: n/a
Angst: low
HEA: yes
Pairing: MM
Triggers/potential icks/content warnings: minor injury
Miles is approximately 27. He works as an NHL mascot and a part-time dance instructor. He's been doing the mascot thing since high school.
Scott is around the same age, maybe a little older. He works in PR for the NHL team that Miles is the mascot for. He's only been with the company for less than a year whereas Miles has been doing his job for 5ish years.
Scott starts sending emails to Miles trying to give him suggestions for how to do his job. But one he starts off emailing the wrong email address and then getting aggressive about not getting replies and then two the suggestions that he sends come off as bossy interference to Miles. This starts off an animosity filled relationship between the two of them as colleagues. Then Miles gets hurt at work and Scott jumps in to help him out and spend time with him. Next thing they know they're in bed.
I think the author made a poor decision with how they wrote this novella. This is a novella and it only has limited pages to it. I get that the author wanted to build up the sense of antagonism between the two characters, rather than drop them immediately into a sexual relationship. But the author should have laid the bread crumbs for the sexual tension between Miles and Scott. But she didn't, like, at all. We got to the 41% mark and they are still basically strangers at that point. The author didn't show Miles thinking of Scott in any personal, romantic, sexual way at all until the 45% mark. He's thinking of him as an annoying fly. We finally got the first hint of sexual attraction between them at the 45% mark and the first kiss at 65%. I am completely fine with even more slow burn than this book was, but I needed to see the bread crumbs of chemistry between the characters earlier!
Putting that aside, once they started having sexual tension between them, they had a nice dynamic. Not fully developed of course because this is only a novella and they were already basically halfway through. But there were some decent moments. I liked the humor of their colleagues reaction to them coming out with their relationship.
Some notable moments:
"“Dude, you know Miles is, like, one of the best mascots in the business, right?” She shook her head and continued to reprimand me. “I mean, I know why my PR guy is always up on my ass. I’m pretty much the cause of all his recent gray hair and I definitely owe the dude money to pay for his ulcer medication. But Miles… Man, he really doesn’t need you sticking your nose into how he mascots. Seriously.”"
"Finally, Carina looked away from her phone and up at me. A few blinks and then… “Oh. Are we supposed to be surprised by this? I figured you’d get around to telling us sooner or later.” It was my turn to show all the shock that they weren’t. My mouth dropped open as the words ‘what the hell?’ resounded in my head. “Oh, yeah. We’re so superdy-duper surprised, Scott,” Arved stated sarcastically. Then he added, “Actually, wait. I am a little surprised…by the fact that Blue…uh, Miles, is into you, Scott. I mean, I think everybody in the damned building was aware that you had a thing for him, but for him to actually reciprocate and to be willing to date you… That surprises me a little.”"
*FYI about steam: I rate steam based on a combination of quality & quantity. I note kink separate from steam because I don't want to underrate steamy reads that don't have much kink.
**Note about spoilers: I like to comment on the plot of a book in reviews, so I almost always mark my reviews as containing spoilers. But I try to avoid spoiling the big dramatic moments! As a reader, I personally like to know what I'm getting into before I read a book so I know more about the content and if it's to my taste/mood, so I try to give that information in my reviews for myself when I'm considering rereading and also for other readers.