Ultra Meital Reviews: Making Nice by Elizah J. Davis

OUTSTANDING. This book kept me glued to my seat, unable to stop reading, until finally somewhere after 3 a.m. I finished it. Ryan and Blake's relationship buildup, their banter, was simply hilarious. They were making every mistake possible, lying to their friends and family but mostly to themselves. Everything worked between them, but somehow they failed miserably to see how WONDERFUL they are together and kept playing this game while breaking their own rules. Confused? So were they.

Blake Dunlap's life changes when his twin sister meets the love of her life in Matt. Their lives have always been entwined together but now he feels left out. Bianca tries to make him see how great Matt is but while he somehow reluctantly agrees Matt is THE one for her, it doesn't change the fact they spend less and less time together and he feels totally lost and alone. He gets drunk too many times to count in this book and though it's something that can TOTALLY get on my nerves, I could his see reasoning and just how lost he was.

First time he meets Matt's best friend Ryan Everett, Ryan makes the worst impression. He doesn't know what's gotten into him, but every time he opens his mouth in front of Blake he says the wrong thing. Too bad there is an undercurrent of attraction between them, because even if they actually got along, considering their position with Matt proposing to Bianca, getting involves sounds like a REALLY bad idea..

Yet no matter how they try to keep their distance it doesn't work. So finally Ryan offers Blake a deal:

"We're having a good time and we're not hurting anyone. This doesn't need to be a crisis of epic proportions. Haven't you ever had friends with benefits?"
"We're not friends", Blake felt the need to point out.
"Mutually antagonistic acquaintances with benefits, then".
"I don't think that's a thing"
"Are you arguing for the sake of arguing?"
"Maybe".

The sex is great. Everything physical between them is, the problem always starts when either of them actually speaks. They either don't understand each other / get the wrong impression, or they disagree. Yet spending more and more time together, both struggle to understand what is going on between them. Blake doesn't do these kinds of "no strings attached" yet his previous experience with men left him unsure about a lot of things. Ryan on the other, doesn't do relationship AT ALL. So what he shares with Blake is SUPPOSED to be enough yet it isn't. Blake feels content with their arrangement at first, even if it's not something he is used to, but after a while he realizes, they spend WAY too much time together to truly consider what they have to be casual - as the word implies - once in a while, not practically every day.

In the background and also all around them is the Dunlap family. Josh the older brother and his wife Abby, their parents and naturally Bianca - and Matt. Ryan and Blake struggle to keep their hookups a secret, yet things get complicated the more they get entangled. Also they start to sort of get along, which confuses Bianca and Matt. As Blake tries to put it to Bianca "We're friendly-ish. Friend adjacent, maybe". But in the end when Matt and Bianca figure out there is something going on, they find themselves lying it's an ACTUAL relationship. It's not. It actually is. It's what both of them want but unable to admit. It's difficult, yet so very easy to "play". It's them. This is simply how they are.

But beneath the hilarious banter, impossible situations, differences in perspective and personality, when you put everything aside these two are THE SWEETEST together. They care for one another, they SEE each other. Everything they do together shows they actually DO care. Actions speaks louder than words yet both are reluctant to BELIEVE in what they are seeing in front of their eyes. They are also afraid to admit, to themselves and each other, that it's NOT a game, it's NOT casual, it's SO MUCH MORE. I was heart broken at times for both of them with how much they TRIED to make the other see how much they care but it somehow didn't make the correct impact.

This book was EVERYTHING. It was ROFL funny, sometimes just silly, yet it was also tender and sweet. I couldn't have asked for more for either Ryan and Blake as well as for myself. As I opened this review - OUTSTANDING. If only Elizah published more books - please PLEASE Elizah! I PROMISE to pre-order or/and auto-buy.