Review: A Kind of Romance (A Kind of Stories #2) by Lane Hayes

Zeke Gulden is a ruthless Wall Street exec. His hard-edged, no-nonsense attitude has served him well in the cutthroat business world, but less so in his personal life. When he finds out his ex-boyfriend cheated on him with a coworker, Zeke can’t let go—not until he finds a way to get even. However, his meddlesome father has other ideas. The new hire at the family-owned bagel store is somewhat colorful, but his dad is sure he’s the perfect man for Zeke.

Benny Ruggieri is a fiercely proud New Yorker who dreams of making it big as a costume designer in the theater. In the meantime, he’s working two part-time jobs in the food biz. When his new boss sets him up with his successful son, Benny has zero expectations. If nothing else, he figures he can entertain himself by making the uptight businessman squirm. Instead, the two become unlikely friends with an inexplicable attraction they can’t ignore. Benny might be the one to help Zeke set aside his quest for revenge, if he’s willing to let go and forgive what he can’t forget… and give in to an unexpected kind of romance.

“You give yourself away every time you look at him, anyway.”
“How do I look at him, smartass?”
“Like you don’t want to look away.”

I adored this! Probably not as much as the first one because Zeke was not as loveable as Rand, but it was still so incredibly wonderful!!

Zeke’s father is working his meddling magic and trying to marry Zeke off to Benny, a costume designer who works for George (Zeke’s father). When Benny realises George won’t relent until he’s gone on a date with Zeke, he suggests a ‘fake date’ to appease the old man. Zeke and Benny are like night and day, sweet and sour, uptight and flamboyant. One thing they do have in common… both are not interested in the other. That is, of course, until they discover conversation is easy, they have fun together and an attraction is starting to sizzle between them.

I’m going to start with Benny because he is so easy to love. He is flamboyant, but not in a fake-way, but because it's who he is and what he wants to be. He's had a few hardships in life and lives in a big Italian family who always looks at him like he's a bit of a joke, but he's proud of who he is and I love that! Everyone who reads this book will fall in love with Benny.

Zeke is much harder to love and it took a while to warm up to him, especially because this story is only from his POV, so we’re stuck in his idiotic head for the whole time. He’s that type of homophobic that see’s men like Benny as too gay and has issues with him on principle. Man, that pisses me off! He has lots of stupid moments at the beginning of this book and I wanted to throttle him more than once.

I noted my goofy grin in my reflection of my office window and immediately scowled. After this weekend, it would be wise to put some distance between us. As much as I liked Benny, I didn’t want either of us to get the wrong idea.

Instead of enjoying the time he spent had with Benny, Zeke was preoccupied with revenge against his ex for dumping him. Zeke hates to lose and the idea that someone walked away from him and not the other way around grates at him. It felt petty, and many of Zeke’s friends (including Benny) had issues with it. Despite all of this I came to love him. I think the turning point was him pretending to be drunk which enabled him to finally have fun and feel free.

… acting inebriated seemed like a better option than trying to explain why I was here. A sober me didn’t do shit like this. But a drunk me definitely might.
“Maybe I’m just intoxicated by you,” I quipped in an over-the-top lascivious tone.

Much like the first book, the sex scenes were off the charts sexy! The passion and desire reads like a third character when Hayes writes it, and it's a true pleasure to read ;-)

“Damn, that’s hot,” I whispered.
Benny licked my ear and nodded . “Yeah. Fuck me on my knees. I want to watch you in the mirror. I want to see you—”
“Shh. Don’t talk.” I bit my bottom lip when my vision went hazy and then carefully pulled out.

Their fallout was perfect. It wasn't about some stupid misunderstanding or a massive fight about silly unimportant things. It was to do with honest-to-god problems in their relationship that needed to be dealt with before they could move forward together.

The ending was…

…..beautiful, something true romances are made of *insert dreamy sigh here*.

This can absolutely be read as a standalone and I'd highly recommend it to any lover of MM. If you've read the first one, you'll love this one too!! Can't wait for Carter's story.

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