Reviewed by Carissa
TITLE: Losing Sight of the Target
AUTHOR: T.A. Chase
PUBLISHER: Amber Allure
LENGTH: 54 pages
BLURB:
Justin Isaksen is a twenty-five-year-old US Olympian competing in his first Games. Unfortunately, this competition will be his last because doctors confirm he is losing his eyesight faster than they thought he would. He’ll be legally blind by the time the next Games roll around, and Justin must learn how to deal with the end of his competition career.
Caesar Gikas’ job is dangerous and he travels the world searching for targets. He does what he does because he’s good at it, but it’s lonely work. Then a chance encounter with Justin shows Caesar that there just might be someone out there for him.
Justin’s not willing to roll over and quit the sport he loves without one last chance at glory. Caesar isn’t about to quit the only job at which he’s successful. Now that both men are losing sight of their own targets, will they discover how much fun it is to focus on new ones?
REVIEW:
Justin Isaksen is having a bad day. In fact, in the list of horrible, no-good days, his ranks somewhere just under getting kicked in the balls by a moose. So he feels completely justified in tossing out his training diet and getting drunk on burger, fries, and as much whiskey as he can guzzle. It is not everyday that you get told you’re going blind, after all.
But his day might just be looking up, because Caesar Gikas sits down across from him, flirts with him, and might just be willing to fuck the bad day right out of Justin. Or at least try. And when morning comes, and Caesar is nowhere to be seen…well, that is ok. Sort of. After all, not everybody gets a chance at the Olympics, and for now, that is all Justin has time to think of. Because his time is running out, and this is his last chance at an Olympic medal.
I would say I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this short story…except it is really not all that surprising seeing as I pretty much like all the stories that I’ve read by T.A. Chase.
Justin and Caesar were some great characters. I quite enjoyed (ok, enjoyed is a bit of a stretch) watching this sport when the Olympics were on earlier this year, and even if the shooting (and like the last 30 seconds of the race) were the only things that kept me from face-planting into the couch to take a nap, I was looking forward to reading more about the Biathlon. There are some things I handle better in print, I guess. And while I would have liked to spend more time with Justin as was training, for a short story this wasn’t bad.
And Caesar…oh he of the mysteriousness. I probably didn’t read the blurb all that closely before starting this story, so Caesar’s “job” was a bit of a nice surprise for me. I like how it tied into what Justin was doing. Plus I am a big fan of the bad boys. And when they are still bad boys by the end of the story, that is even better. Just now he is a bad boy in love.
(And I’m going to stop saying bad boy now, because it is starting to feel a bit creepy.)
I really liked how Justin’s race ended. I don’t want to give too much away, but it felt like a victory without it becoming cliché. And after all that Justin has been thru, and all that he is going to have to handle come the end of the games, I think it was a nice reward.
I wish this was longer, because I would have loved to see how exactly these guys make out after the games have ended. Caesar’s job isn’t exactly a 9-5er and while I loved that fact that he wasn’t suddenly ‘reformed’ of his ways once he fell for Justin, going on from here isn’t exactly going to be easy. For either of them. Justin has to now deal with going blind and losing the sport that he has trained for and loved almost his entire life. And Caesar is going to have to find a balance between his job and helping Justin adjust to his new life.
While I would have loved a longer story, I fully enjoyed the story that I got. The sex was hot, the racing was fun, and even if their HEA was a bit wobbly, I like how it ended. Though I don’t think I’ll be trying out the biathlon any time soon, because skiing + guns + me = recipe for an unintentional massacre/suicide.
RATING: 
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