Sometimes bitter rivalries can brew something sweet.

Theo Mori wants to escape. Leaving Vermont for college means getting away from working at his parents’ Asian American café and dealing with their archrivals’ hopeless son Gabi who’s lost the soccer team more games than Theo can count.

Gabi Moreno is miserably stuck in the closet. Forced to play soccer to hide his love for dance and iced out by Theo, the only openly gay guy at school, Gabi’s only reprieve is his parents’ Puerto Rican bakery and his plans to take over after graduation.

But the town’s new fusion café changes everything. Between the Mori’s struggling shop and the Moreno’s plan to sell their bakery in the face of the competition, both boys find their dreams in jeopardy. Then Theo has an idea—sell photo-worthy food covertly at school to offset their losses. When he sprains his wrist and Gabi gets roped in to help, they realize they need to work together to save their parents’ shops but will the new feelings rising between them be enough to send their future plans up in smoke?

I’ll admit I found it hard to imagine how Lee was going to get Theo and Gabi together because when the summary says that Theo sees Gabi as his enemy, it wasn’t kidding. It’s not one of those filled with sexual tension either, Gabi just irritates him and he makes his spite known to Gabi’s face. I didn’t blame Gabi for being intimidated. In fact, the first 100 pages are a bit hard to get through as Theo carries a lot of anger, at his parents, at his peers, at his life in general, Gabi, that it’s hard to feel sympathetic to him since he acts like a dick to everyone else.

Especially when Gabi’s POV is so heartbreakingly sweet. He is like a puppy dog. He’s a classic overthinker, anxious, and a people-pleaser so it makes Theo’s anger feel even more unwarranted.

But Lee managed to do it!

It helps that the premise is solid in that it feels like neither have a choice, but to work together to save their families’ livelihoods, and in that forced proximity Gabi forces himself to break through the tension and reveal his own sexuality to someone who understands. That moment of vulnerability allows the tension to cease and lets readers see that they fit together.

It helps they have vastly similar backgrounds and struggles even though the way they deal with it are different. Theo feels like the screw-up son that his parents can’t wait to get away from, weighing him down with self-hatred and vitriol because he feels alone in a world that is waiting to tear him down. Meanwhile, Gabi is constantly censoring his words, hiding his interests, constantly toeing the line in fear that his parents will find out the truth and his life will be over.

But with each other, they don’t have that weight, and because they’re not too entangled with the others’ family they can provide a new perspective to navigate those pitfalls.

Basically, if you can hold on past the first hundred pages, the romance is worthwhile and believable. Plus a very courageous Homecoming proposal during the third act when everything seems to have hit rock-bottom for both of them.

The other notable relationship that gets explored is Theo’s relationship with his family, and brother that allows for a cathartic amount of character development, allowing readers insight into Theo’s confusing anger and his subsequent dynamics with his family. So even though Gabi is the one I was most rooting for in embracing his true self, Theo was a compelling character on his own merits even though he was more flawed. It just made him human.

Gabi’s family has a decent amount of depth, but less so compared to Theo’s which I suspect may be due to Lee being Asian, so they simply have more knowledge of those cultural nuances and family dynamics. Same with the boys’ outside friendships, but that was okay because it really wasn’t the focus of the story.

My one critique is that even though this is a book about a secret food delivery service and competing restaurants that the food wasn’t described that much. I felt like a missed opportunity not to imagine the fusion and drool over it the taste especially as it discusses food appropriation from the World Fusion bar that they’re fighting against.

4 stars.