Never The Perfect MomentRating: 4.5 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | All Romance
Length: Novella


Bryan Monroe categorizes his life in moments.  When his partner gets shot on a domestic call, Bryan knows it’s a perfectly awful moment.  And with the realization that Chrysanthos Delos has been seriously injured, Bryan is willing to admit to himself that his feelings for his best friend and partner go much deeper.  When Chrys admits in a drug induced haze that he loves Bryan too, Bryan isn’t quite sure how to handle it.

After Chrys is released from the hospital, Bryan stops by often to look after him.  Bryan quickly accepts his feelings, but he doesn’t know how to tell Chrys.  He’s waiting for that perfect moment when he can finally reveal that he feels the same way about Chrys.  But that moment is elusive, things keep getting in the way, and Bryan questions the wisdom of even saying anything at all. When Bryan’s son Mickey blurts out Bryan’s feelings to Chrys, Bryan finally takes the opportunity to make his feelings known.  Now the two men need to figure out if they can move from friends and partners to something more.

I’m a fan of K-lee Klein, and she delivers another great little story with this book.  A quick read, it’s a story of two men who need to get out of their own way in order to have the love they both deserve.  I enjoyed it from beginning to end.

It starts right in the thick of things, with Chrys getting shot.  Bryan’s emotions are overwhelming; Chrys is his best friend and partner, and Chrys jumped in front of the bulled to save Bryan’s life.  I loved the roller coaster of emotions Bryan went through because they all felt real.  He was worried and scared for Chrys, but also pissed too because the man is reckless.  As Bryan catalogues his feelings, he admits to himself that they run much deeper than just love for his best friend.  He’s hesitant and worried, but I like the time he took to sort everything out and really figure out if he wanted to move things with Chrys to a deeper level.  He needs to come to terms with the fact that he’s bisexual.  I was happy to see him accept that fairly quickly, and his only real worry was about how things would play out with Chrys.  He doesn’t want to lose the relationship they had.  Chrys may have admitted his feelings, but he didn’t know that Bryan was there to hear.  This whole part felt very realistic, and I liked the way Klein portrayed it.

When these two men finally have the conversation that we’d been waiting to hear, it’s satisfying and sweet.  Chrys has been wanting and loving Bryan for years, but he thought the man was straight, given the fact that Bryan was married to a woman.  I love that he was quickly ready to believe that Bryan wanted him back, but was also more than willing to give Bryan time to make sure this was what Bryan really wanted.  It was sweet and endearing, and these guys were very hot together when they got to the physical stuff.  And I have to say that I appreciated the sex scenes for what they were; Klein did a great job taking into account Chrys’ injury and Bryan’s lack of experience.

I did have a few small quibbles though.  Bryan needs to make the first move, and he vacillates for a long time given the shortness of the book.  It wasn’t until more than halfway through before he made his move, and I would have liked to see it come just a little bit earlier.  I would have also liked to see a little bit more of Chrys’ thoughts on the matter.  This is told strictly from Bryan’s POV, and we only get a sense of Chrys from Bryan and from conversation.  I found it a little harder to connect to Chrys because of it, and I thought a little more conversation could have been a benefit here.

That being said, I’m a fan of the friends to lovers trope, and I think Klein did a really great job of giving us a sweet and wonderful story of two men finally getting their act together, admitting their feelings, and moving toward something more.

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