Brief Encounters

Title: Wishful Thinking
Author: Pender Mackie
Length: 7,477 words (39 pdf pages)
Publisher: Silver Publishing
Genre: m/m contemporary
Rating: B

Blurb:

Quiet, reserved Derrick has never had a date. That doesn’t stop him from wishing and dreaming, especially when he’s working a boring shift at the coffee shop. On a cold, rainy evening, the shop is deserted, and Derrick daydreams about his fantasy boyfriend, Rory, a fellow university student. Derrick doesn’t know much about Rory. They’re not in the same classes. They’ve never even talked.

When Rory is his last customer of the night, Derrick comes face to face with the man of his dreams. The real Rory is even better than the fantasy and he wants more than coffee… he wants Derrick. By the end of his shift, Derrick will find out if all his fantasies can come true.

Review:

This is a very sweet story, with a typical nerdy shy character which could pass for a YA as it’s sweet with no explicit sex. Derrick is killing time waiting for his last customers to leave the coffee shop he works at so he can get home early for a change, when a last-minute client arrives. He nearly has  a heart attack when he realizes it’s Rory, the cool confident outgoing boy he’s been crushing on at university. He’s certain that popular boys like Rory would never be interested in a shy geek like him, but he enjoys a rich fantasy/dream life with his pretend-boyfriend. He starts to think Rory might be flirting with him, but never having really had a boyfriend, he’s not sure. When Rory startles him and he burns his hand on the steam thing of the coffee maker, they finally talk as Rory administers first aid.

This is just a sweet cute story of two young men acknowledging their attraction to each other. If you like shy geeky characters, Derrick is your man. He gets easily embarrassed in front of Rory, and even Rory’s mild flirting only makes it worse and makes him more self-conscious and thus it spirals. Of course it doesn’t help that every time he gets near the guy he starts remembering the hot dream he had, only compounding his embarrassment. However once Rory lays it on the line and he’s confident that there is a mutual attraction, Derrick becomes a bit more confident. I liked that Rory realized Derrick was inexperienced and wanted to get to know him, not just jump into bed.

So there’s not much to the story, just the two guys over a short period of time, but it’s very cute and Derrick’s inner dialogue was sweet and amusing. Great when you want something light and angst free.