Best friends are always best lovers. – Arushi Tanwar
Sage Advice is a short story that is included in Dreamspinner Press’s Daily Dose collection for June. It’s a good story, but didn’t work great for me as a short. I think it would have made a great novel or novella. I wanted to know more about these characters’ back story, their lives before page one of this story.
Sage was once an Olympic swimmer. His career ended when he slipped on a wet floor and suffered a head injury. His best friend Piper is a professional ballet dancer. Unbeknownst to everyone except Piper and his doctor, he recently suffered an injury. Piper has a stress induced injury to his knee and it is a career ending injury. He has been miserable to be around since he found out about the injury a month ago.
Sage and Piper have been best friends forever. They have also secretly been in love with each other forever. Ms. Laine creatively uses a game of “Truth or Dare” initiated by Sage to try and figure out what has been bothering Piper for the last month. Sage and Piper both secretly also want to use the game to find out how the other feels about him.
Ms. Laine does a good job using the game as a tool to get at the truth regarding Piper’s injury. Once that is revealed, Sage is able to comfort and commiserate with Piper because of his own career ending injury. In Piper’s haze of self-pity, he had forgotten about the support that Sage could offer.
While comforting Piper, Sage wants the game to continue. It is soon revealed that the men are deeply in love with one another. Ms. Laine writes really hot sex scenes between them since the final “dare” of the game is for Sage to take Piper to bed and “…make love to me all night… then cuddle me all morning.” A dare that Sage happily takes.
Over all, a good short, but I would have loved more. Recommended to those who enjoy short stories with bits of hot, steamy sex.
Reviewed by: Tina
You can buy Sage Advice here: