You've seen this story before even if you don't think you have. A money-obsessed businessman from the big city comes to a small town with the intention of making a quick buck on an investment property, ends up falling for a local, then has to decide if he cares more about profit or love. The twist here is that it's gay, and set in a real-world small town about 15 minutes from my house.

Vince takes some getting used to as a protagonist, but I don't think he's meant to be likeable from the get-go and he does go through a transformation by the end of the book. After an adolescence of being bullied for being effeminate, he overcompensates as an adult and tries to present as overly-masculine as possible as a defense mechanism. A string of career setbacks and a promising business opportunity brings him back to his hometown after some 15 years, and he runs into - and is forced to ask favors of - his estranged friend from high school he had an unrequited crush on. There's a bit of bad blood here and Tack, for his part, is willing to bury the hatchet, but Vince can't let things go that easily.

Things pan out predictably from there, though I do feel that the central romance developed quicker than I was expecting. Also the biggest source of conflict between the two leads showed up fairly late in the plot and was resolved sooner than I would allow were I in their situation. But maybe I'm just a sucker for drama. In any case, this is a low-stakes romance book with thirty-something protagonists and some realistic open door suckin' and fuckin' if you're tired of sanitized YA tenderqueer stories.