The Time It Takes

by Hollis Shiloh

Cole and Arlie are good partners, good friends. Their personal lives are a little more complicated. Arlie, a sweet bi wolf, casually dates women he clearly has no chemistry with. Cole, self-conscious and shy, is staying too long in an unhealthy relationship with a woman he feels more hated by every day. They both have thoughts about each other's romantic lives.

When Cole's relationship ends, he struggles to pull himself out of the emotional spiral. Things get more complicated after Arlie admits he dates only women because he's afraid his pack will reject him if he finds a man. Well, Cole won't settle for that! His new goal is to help his buddy be accepted for who he is—and to find true love.

Everything is going well, until Cole begins to realize he might not be as straight as he thought. The discovery brings up old pain and old fears—and new feelings about Arlie.

45,000 words – low heat

(bi awakening, friends to lovers)

158 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 22, 2025

Reviews

[Georgie-who-is-Sarah-Drew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Appalling. Chapter after chapter of the MC's internal monologuing. Precious little dialogue, and 90% of that's between the MC and his therapist.
And as for heartfelt ILYs between the MCs—forget it. This is what we get:
"We always had fun, and we felt the other things, the warm and loving things, too. We even got brave enough to say it." Like, isn't the point of a romance the I Love You scene?

But then, this is not a romance—it's 40k words of here-we-go-again navel gazing.

Hollis Shiloh, if you're reading this, get a better editor.

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This only has one point of view, the human half of a cop and shifter team. Both men seem to be unlucky in love, until they consider each other towards the end of the story. To me, there was too much internal dialog and too little actual dialog and action.