Maverick ("Mav") and Duke are best friends and roomies. They're both part of their college's soccer team - Duke is the team captain, and Mav is the goalie.
Both Mav and Duke are very competitive, which is where the game "gay chicken" comes in. The initial rules: get as close to each other as possible without kissing, the loser being the first one to pull away. Since neither one of them likes to lose, the game keeps getting ramped up, until Mav starts to wonder whether they've crossed the line from "gay chicken" into "we're gay."
When Duke starts talking about the two of them living together as a couple when they go off to grad school, Mav isn't sure what to do or say. He's never thought of himself and Duke as gay before, but if he doesn't sort out his feelings fast, he may lose his best friend forever.
Review:
I remembered reading a good review of this one a while back. It was on sale, I was curious, and it seemed like a sexy read.
Rather than starting off with sex and then leading into more sex, Anderson builds up to it. “Gay chicken” starts with kissing and goes from there – I think there are only one or two actual sex scenes in the novella (if one defines sex strictly), and only near the end. General steaminess is the main thing this novella has going for it, and the gradual ramping up of “gay chicken” helps build anticipation. It's not just “what Mav and Duke are doing right now” but “what are they going to do next?”
If all you're looking for is steamy m/m scenes, I'd say give this one a go. However, I need more than that.
I'm a very character-oriented reader. If the characters are interesting, if I like them and care about them for some reason or another, there's a good chance I'll like the story as a whole. Duke and Mav are nice guys, but...they feel kind of weak as characters. Okay, so they have goals: Mav wants to be a pharmacist and Duke wants to go to business school. They like playing college soccer and are really, really good friends. I think maybe if the novella had focused on Duke instead of Mav, I might have liked it more, although I probably would have found the premise even more unbelievable. Unfortunately, the novella focuses on Mav.
Mav is an idiot.
