Book 783: Secret Admirer (Love Notes #1) – D.J. Jamison

I PROMISE I’M READING MORE THAN MM ROMANCE THIS YEAR! Things just happened to work out that I needed to fill a few posts between nonfiction galleys to hit publishing dates so here we are.

I picked this up from Kindle Unlimited back in December when I read Naughty & Nice. At the time I was looking for MM Holiday Romances and was enraptured at the abs on that cover not realizing it was part of a series. Thankfully, they were pretty much standalones!

Secret Admirer features Ace, a super-hot upperclassman intelligent frat boy who is keeping an eye out for his best friend’s kid brother the other protagonist, Benji, a first-year who doesn’t want to be babied by his brother’s best friend and just wants to have fun.

This one is more a friends-to-lovers with a bisexual awakening than any other type of romance. Benji and Ace were always friendly, as friendly as you can be to your best friend’s kid brother. Benji has been out and proud for quite a while, but Ace hasn’t exactly been with another guy or dated another guy. When Ace, keeping tabs on him for his bff, sees Benji starting to explore dating and partying, he gets jealous and realizes he might have feelings for Benji.

Yeah, I was officially bi-curious, physically at least. But I’d never felt an emotional pull to a guy . . . until now. (17)

The things I did for a cute guy. Who knew? I sure as fuck hadn’t guessed it a few short weeks ago, even if I had been bi-curious for a long time. I felt more amped up about this date than any that had come before.” (124)

So, rather than express his feelings like an adult he did the only sensible thing, sent him little presents from a secret admirer. I mean, adorable, yes? Logical or remotely helpful, no? Trouble ensues when Benji assumes they’re coming from Jonas (Naughty & Nice protagonist/bad boy) and Ace gets territorial. Ace finally gets up the courage to tell Benji and all hell breaks loose because lies.

I wanted Benji. I wanted to hold him, kiss him. More than that, though, I wanted his heart. Because he already had mine. Consequences be damned. (81)

There were a couple of scenes that I really liked in this novel, the first was the pretend date Ace and Benji go on to help Benji get better at dating. Not only does it throwback to the opening scene, but it is just so adorably sweet and perfect that you just know it’s going to work out for them. The other scenes are the various scenes once Benji’s brother finds out about them. Benji and Ace get together roughly halfway through the novel and spend the rest of it avoiding telling him. I mean, sure there’s tension, but in the end, everything is ultimately okay forcing all three of them to grow as individuals and for Benji and Ace to grow as a couple.

‘Besides,’ I joked, ‘we both know Jeremy’s already claimed you as his friend.’
‘I can’t be both?’
‘Jeremy wouldn’t even share his Transformers with me. You really think he’s going to share his best friend?’ (50)

I wasn’t the biggest fan of Ace having family (mother) issues, maybe it hit too close to home, maybe it was the second in a row (of four ultimately) where a character had family issues or specifically mother issues. In the end though it worked out really well and made the scene where Ace and Benji make an appearance in Naughty & Nice that much more adorable.

Recommendation: This was a great read! Benji and Ace were so great! You get the big smart jock (oh hello glasses) and the skinny little twink artist who are pretty much already family because of a brother/best friend and the angst is pretty low, so of course I’m going to say yes! Jamison is slowly moving up my authors to keep an eye out for when I’m looking to read something. I’m not sure how large her catalogue is but I’ll definitely read more of her in the future.

Opening Line: “I flicked the movie tickets in my hand, scanning the block up and down.”

Closing Line: “It didn’t get much better than that.” (Whited out to avoid spoilers, highlight to read.)

Additional Quotes from Secret Admirer
“College hadn’t been the magical new life I’d imagined. Turned out, wherever you went, your personality was sure to follow.” (9)

“And Jonas, from the frat, was out of the question. Benji had met him, and they’d seemed to get along, but Jonas was a major player. Last thing I needed was for Benji to get more hurt than he already was.” (12)

“. . . his sports days were over; he’d left basketball in high school, and he was way smarter than the average jock. That was probably me stereotyping, but Ace was seriously brilliant, and I wasn’t biased at all by the black-rimmed glasses he wore when studying that made him ten times sexier.” (24)

“I stared, unable to help myself. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him in the glasses, but it always affected me. It was a total stereotype, but those glasses elevated Ace from hot to hot and smart, and it was almost more than my poor little freshman heart could take.” (49)

“I’d slept off my hangover the day before, then wallowed in bed the rest of the day, watching anime and reading webcomics: Yuri on Ice, My Hero Academia, and because I was feeling masochistic, the heart-breaking Given and the romantic comic Heartstopper.” (104)

“‘I guess this means you figured out your secret admirer,’ he said. ‘About time.’
That caught my attention. ‘What, you knew?’
Dre dropped onto his bed—or the bed-closet as I jokingly called it—on top of his pile of clothes. ”Wasn’t hard to figure out. Dude’s always hanging around, looking at you with heart eyes.’
I flushed, glancing at Ace from the corner of my eye. He chuckled, ducking his head. ‘And here I thought I was hiding it.'” (120)

“My body practically vibrated with the urge to push him against the nearest wall and ravish him. Fucking ravish, like I was fucking Fabio in a romance book and he was my innocent maiden. But he sort of was, wasn’t he? He was my innocent Benji, untouched by anyone else.” (128)

“Being with Ace was no longer a fantasy, but it was still a dream come true. I’d found my prince, and the prince was a frat boy who had terrible taste in television, got bad breath in the morning like the rest of us, and desperately needed someone to vacuum his floor.” (144)

“I looked down at my hands, my precious, artist’s hands that drew beautiful things—and sometimes naughty things—and sighed mournfully. With a mental apology to them, I stepped up to the counter and prepared to molest a turkey.” (194)

“What kind of person was I, to be relieved right now? I felt so confused. I loved my mom, I really did, and I also didn’t like her at all.” (203)