Regularly Scheduled Life by K.A. Mitchell
Have ever wondered what happens after an happily ever after? And when love seems to be too much to bear?
Kyle and Sean are a perfect couple. They met in college and had an affair of a couple of nights, but Kyle was too young and maybe still wanted to "play" around; and so Sean let him grow up and when they met a second time Sean was more insistent. After a close wooing, Sean staked his claim and convinced Kyle to move to Small Town USA to live in a marriage bliss. Now six years later they are like sugar for a rot, they are almost unbearable for how much happy they are... or not? The changes Kyle had to do, the jealousy of Sean, the little trouble from two apparently supportive families... are they all boiling under the surface waiting to blow up?
The domino effect is a tragic event: Sean is a teacher in an high school and a student gone mad starts a shooting; before Sean has the chance to stop him, the boy killed three person, one of them a little girl. Aside the fact that Sean shouldn't be the one assigned to stop him, nevertheless he feels guilty to not stop him in time. Obviously he becomes an hero and hearing all the people around him telling so maybe alleviates that sense of guilty: if everyone thinks he is an hero, maybe they are right and he is wrong, since inside himself Sean thinks he hasn't done enough, and the few people that accuse him seem to have a strong voice.
And Kyle? Since now he was the one to need reassurance; he is the man who was wooed and coaxed, and maybe he needs to stay in center stage to feel important: him, the hispanic-italian guy from a family with too much sons to make them feel all important, now has a lover who thinks he is the sun and that all turn around him... till the day the sun is shut down, and Kyle finds himself in the role of the caretaker. And maybe Sean, once in a time, finds nice to be the object of such devotion.
This good perspective on the situation is given to the reader and not to the main characters, since nor Sean or Kyle voice their uneasiness for the situation and for more than half the book try to hide it behind the sexual chemistry that never lack to them. But when also the sex is no more enough, Kyle and Sean will have to understand that going back is not possible, above all since what they had maybe was not as perfect as they thought.
The book is pretty long, 300 pages, and it's not a story you can read in an hurry. It's not light but it's not even too angst: I like that K.A. Mitchell manages to recreate a believable conflict between the two men without never make them forget that they are in love and so they still care for each other and don't want to make the other suffer. In comparison to the previous stories I read by the same author, in this one she seemed more contained, less flirty. Not that in the other stories she had not faced important matters (like parenthood for a gay father), but this work looks more complete.
http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/regularly-scheduled-life
Amazon Kindle: Regularly Scheduled Life
Amazon: Regularly Scheduled Life
Reading List:
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Cover Art by Anne Cain