✯✯✯✯ One Small Thing (One Thing #1) by Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea ✯✯✯✯

The One Thing Series:

• One Small Thing (book #1) – in this review
• One True Thing (book #2)

One Small Thing by Piper Vaughn and M.J O’Shea

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Blurb…

“Daddy” is not a title Rue Murray wanted, but he never thought he’d have sex with a woman either. Now he’s the unwitting father of a newborn named Alice. Between bartending and cosmetology school, Rue doesn’t have time for babies, but he can’t give her up. What Rue needs is a babysitter, and he’s running out of options. He’s on the verge of quitting school to watch Alice himself when he remembers his reclusive new neighbor, Erik. Erik Van Nuys is a sci-fi novelist with anxiety issues to spare. He doesn’t like people in general, and he likes babies even less. Still, with his royalties dwindling, he could use the extra cash. Reluctantly, he takes on the role of manny-and even more reluctantly, he finds himself falling for Alice and her flamboyant father. Rue and Erik are as different as two people can be, and Alice is the unlikeliest of babies, but Rue has never been happier than when Alice and Erik are by his side. At least, not until he receives an offer that puts all his dreams within reach and he’s forced to choose: the future he’s always wanted, or the family he thought he never did.

So what did I think?

I enjoyed immersing myself in this story. I liked both Rue and Erik and their relationship was quite unique. It was interesting to watch their changing perceptions of each other and of course see them both bond with baby Alice.

I loved some of the lines as they acknowledged their feelings…
“It was as if he’d woken me up after years of living as half a person. I’d never even realized what I’d been missing, but when I kissed him it ws like everything came together, and for the first time in my life I saw the whole picture instead of just the pieces.” Erik about Rue.
“He’d somehow manged to seep into my cracks and fill all the odd, empty spots in my heart.” Rue about Erik.

The story blended interesting and seemingly opposite characters with Rue being the party boy and Erik being the reclusive author. The secondary characters were great. Lots of humour but a situation of bringing a child into the world was handled really well. It was lovely to see all the people who wanted the best for the baby.

I particularly liked Erik’s thoughts about his own feelings for Rue. “I didn’t even really know if I was gay. I suppose society would assign me that label. I was in love with a man, and he made me hot and hard, his kisses made me shiver, and there’d never been anything more perfect than the feel of his body inside mine. So maybe is was the right word. But I honestly didn’t think my attraction to Rue had anything to do with his gender. I didn’t love Rue for what he did or didn’t have. I loved him because he was Rue. Nothing else mattered.”

It as a cute little touch having Erik rewrite his book to include a romance between his male characters due to the increasing popularity of m/m romance – guaranteed to make it a best-seller!