Brad and sebastianRating: 4.5 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | All Romance
Length: Short Story

After four months of dating high maintenance Melissa Fairchild, Brad is meeting her parents for the first time. Brad is twenty-six, handsome, has a successful job as a financial analyst, and has a great looking girlfriend.

From the moment he sees Brad, Sebastian Fairchild cannot take his eyes off of him. Sebastian would like Brad for himself, but Brad isn’t gay and he’s dating Sebastian’s sister.

This is a short story that is so well executed. Brad and Melissa’s relationship, as well as Melissa’s personality, are put on display immediately as they get ready to go to Melissa’s family home. While getting dressed for the event, Melissa says no way to Brad wearing his best jeans and insists he wear a suit. Once at the house, Brad meets her parents, sister, and brother, Sebastian, who are all casually dressed. Melissa’s family welcomes Brad warmly and are a contrast to Melissa’s self centered and cold demeanor.

Sebastian kisses Brad in the pool and it awakens something in Brad that he has never felt before. The whole kiss was a pretty bold move on Sebastian’s part. It’s evident that Sebastian and Melissa do not have a close relationship and Sebastian even comments on Melissa’s inability to keep a steady boyfriend, due to, well, she is not really nice and way high maintenance. Melissa’s character stays somewhat stereotypical as the “bitchy” girlfriend and there was no sense of feeling bad for her. But, what happened to that unspoken rule about not going after your sibling’s boyfriend?

The story is told from Brad’s point of view as he spends the next week having a sexual and identity crisis. He goes through a range of emotions as he attempts to come to terms with his attraction to Sebastian. The leap was not easy for him and I was able to feel him struggling to understand what was going on as Sebastian’s blue eyes and the feel of Sebastian’s lips continue to haunt him.

Being that it is a short story, things then progress quickly. But we are able to get a sense of both Brad and Sebastian’s characters in a short amount of time. This does not always work well in a short story, but it does work here. The sex between Brad and Sebastian is also well written and emotional, if just a touch unrealistic, due to the enhanced timing. There was definitely no time to get into how Brad would go from being Melissa’s boyfriend to Sebastian’s boyfriend during the next family gathering.

I highly enjoyed the characters, the story was entertaining, and I was left looking for more at the end because of this. Definitely a recommended, fun, quick, read.

This is the beginning of the First Time series by EM Rose. The next installment is set to be released June 2014.

michelle signature