Dave’s taking life day by day after leaving Travis, his emotionally abusive partner of fifteen years. Working as the cook at the Square Peg is all the social life he has and he’s content with that.
When a swerving car leaves him sprawled on the snowy sidewalk with a broken ankle, being rescued by his new neighbor, young, sinfully pretty Jeremy, seems like the start of something good, even if twenty years separate the two men. But Travis isn’t content to let Dave slip away and Dave’s his own worst enemy, holding Jeremy at arms’ length when Jeremy wants to get as close as possible.
With decisions about his future complicated by his tangled past, can Dave accept the second chance Jeremy offers or will his heart stay empty of love?
I had a hard time with this one. When I first read The Square Peg, book one in this series, I fell in love with it, with The Peg, and its employees. I get so excited over the potential for a new series, especially when that series will revolve around all the characters, or most of them, from the first book. I look forward to each installment with glee and great anticipation. Sadly, I just could not get in a rhythm with The Empty Box.
I’m pretty sure most of my issues stemmed from what I felt as a lack of connection. No, that’s not totally true because they connected, but not all the time. I felt their passion was only in the bedroom, and not in everyday life. Dave is grumpy all the time, and difficult to get along with. Jeremy is sweet and kind, and takes too much of Dave’s crap for what he gets in return. I could never believe that Jeremy really had deep feelings for Dave. As for Dave, I had a hard time believing he had any feelings at all. Really, the man was not fun to be around.
I felt sad and uninspired for most of the time I read the book. Not until the very end did I feel anything except for relief that the relationship was getting to the point where I believed it. I did enjoy getting back to some of the old friends and employees of The Peg. They were the highlight of the story for me.