Reviewed by Ro
TITLE: Waiting for You Oolong Time
SERIES: Boyfriend Café #5
AUTHOR: F.A. Ray
PUBLISHER:
LENGTH: 70K words
RELEASE DATE: April 16, 2024
BLURB:
Getting my dream bakery internship is great, but I never expected it to come with a side of estranged best friend.
Jack
I haven’t seen my best friend Soren in nine years. The day my older brother died, my world shattered. I threw myself into baking in order to hide from everything and everyone – including Soren.
Now I’ve gotten my dream bakery internship, but the second I walk through the door I see him, and our overdue reunion begins.
I’m not ready for this. We have too much history, and he looks way too good all grown up. My feelings are a mess, and his flirtatious attention during my internship is not helping.
Soren
I hoped when I picked Jack Caddel for this internship that it was my Jack Caddel. My heart has ached every day of the past nine years. I lost not just his brother, but him as well, both of my best friends gone in one fell swoop.
I know it’s selfish to drag him back into my life, but I can’t help how badly I want to see him … and touch him. Jack definitely grew up in the past nine years, and the attraction is as hot as the ovens in this tiny kitchen where we struggle to navigate our new relationship as boss and intern.
I want to do things with Jack that definitely aren’t work appropriate. As long as his over-ambitious classmate doesn’t catch us at it, we should be fine. I can keep my hands to myself while we’re both at work … probably.
Waiting for You Oolong Time is a friends-to-lovers MM romance with a boss/intern relationship, grumpy/sunshine, mutual healing and spicy open door scenes. Go to linktr.ee/faraywrites for CWs.
REVIEW:
It’s funny but I started reading this book because I like the Boyfriend Café, but I didn’t know who’s book it was. Then realized, it’s JACK!! Jack the beloved, silent baker at the café. So excited!
Jack is a big guy, very quiet and comes across as really shy. In previous books, he’s lovely but really just a shadow. In this one, we find out why. Right away it comes out that when Jack was just a 12-year-old boy, his beloved older brother, Matt, was killed in a car accident. In the aftermath, Jack fully retreats into himself, refusing to leave the house and refusing to see anyone but his parents. Matt’s best friend, Soren, who was also Jack’s friend, is shut out as well. Ít was cruel. Even as a twelve-year-old kid I knew it. Me and Soren and Matt were best friends. Inseparable.” While Jack runs by retreating, Soren runs by leaving town to start over. “My family doesn’t talk about it. Matt died. Soren disappeared. And I kept my head down and ran from the memories.”
It is ten years later and Jack is just as crushed by his grief as ever. He’s a senior in college, specializing in baking culinary arts, which he threw himself into to avoid his grief. He’s very, very good at it. When it comes time for internships, everyone wants to work at Montridge Munchies and despite being sure he won’t get it, Jack applies, mainly because a classmate, Grayson, is also applying and Grayson is a massive jerk. Turns out, completely unknown between the two of them, Soren is head baker at Munchies. When he left home, he had no degree and little cash. He got a job at Munchies and has worked incredibly hard to be worthy of his boss, Carmen, who took a chance on him. First I questioned how Jack wouldn’t know but turns out, everyone knows Munchies by the stellar reputation but Jack hasn’t actually been there.
So their story starts when they are both working at Munchies, with Soren being Jack’s boss. It was so hard for both of them, and Jack is continually making the decision to quit, yet doesn’t. My heart broke for Soren. “In one fell swoop, I lost both my best friends.” Soren is so scared Jack hates him, or blames him for Matt’s death because Soren was excited that Matt got his license.
There is a little part about a chocolate chip cookie that nearly did me in. Can’t spoiler it, but all the feels.
You know right away that somehow, in some way, Grayson is going to be an issue. He’s smarmy and smug and, yep, a jerk. He really tries to work the charm on Soren because there are four interns and there will be one full time job on offer after.
There are ups and downs in their relationship. I wanted to give this a straight up 5 stars but a couple things prevented it. Some are spoilers so I won’t say, but others will things like almost immediately after they meet again, Soren kisses Jack. Not only is Soren his boss and has not seen Jack in nine years, but doesn’t know if he’s into men. So that was off-putting.
The Boyfriend Café is a little less of the focus with this one, mainly because Jack is the baker, not a server. But we do get to see bits of the Café family, Albert and David, Avery, Mal. There is maybe a set up for the next book? “A pair of guys who sit next to each other even though they both look like the other smells bad take the early grey (tea).”
Followers of the Boyfriend Café will really like this, sad, silent Jack gets his story!
RATING: 
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