Saturday, April 30, 2022

Friendly Fire (Never Just Friends #4)


I also recently realized that I never actually kept up with/finished Saxon James's "Never Just Friends" series. Again, really, really, really not sure why... Anyway, I read "Just Friends" forever ago, but the next book in line (book four) is "Friendly Fire."

["RAFE
It started in high school. We grew apart. Bit by bit, then all at once. The friend who was my ride or die suddenly wanted nothing to do with me.
Now Cam’s back from college, living in the house next door, and pulling stupid pranks just to annoy me. Between my intense family and my failing relationship, I’m struggling enough without his antics.
But Cam won’t go away. And I’m not so sure I want him to.

CAM
It started with a smile.
A touch.
A shared look of mischief.
Rafael Ortega stole my heart before I realized it was mine to give away.
We were best friends from the time we were in diapers right up until the unthinkable happened: he started dating. I put distance between us to save myself, but now I’m back, willing to do anything for his attention again.
Because the only thing worse than Rafe breaking my heart … Is him not getting a chance to."]

This book has only been hyped up and hinted at since the very beginning of the series (in the fact that Rafe had a total-gay-panic-moment (TM) in book one---and that their fighting was hinted at in book three---and that they disappeared around the side of the street in a totally/probably romantic kinda way in a throw-away-comment at the end of book three). But holy Shit.

These two were a thousand watts. They were wonderful and supportive and beautiful and so....soooooo awesome. 

There's also a lot of ace representative in this one (spoiler alert), and it was really fascinating to see how their relationship developed along the ace-spectrum. It was heartbreaking at first (in the way that Alice Oseman's "Loveless" was heartbreaking at first), but then it got really wholesome and just all of the positivity adjectives. I'm not sure if I read an erotic novel with an ace character in it (then again, I read so much, I could be wrong--I've read some with demi, pan, trans, fluid, + characters, sure), and it was really interesting.

I love that this was the last book in the series and the "epilogue" was just a really nice wrap-up, and we got to see how everyone was happy and thriving.

#justfriends #fakefriends #gettingfriendly #friendswithbenefits #friendlyfire #neverjustfriends #aneverjustfriendsnovel #saxonjames #books #queerbooks #queererotica #bodicerippers #bookstagram #bookphotography #ilovebooks

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