3.75⭐️
Audio: 4⭐️
The Player is sweet, piney friends-to-lover fun. Frankie wakes up one-morning healed and ready to wear colors and date again. In the past few months, he’s subconsciously been having non-platonic feeling for his rock and business partner, Con—feelings that come roaring to the surface when Con comes back from a month-long business trip with tw@tty Tim.
He can’t believe he let Con slip under his radar and laments he can’t be with Con bc Con is his dead husband’s best friend, his business partner, and in a relationship. He thinks Tim must be important to Con since Con has never brought a man home before, and Frankie is intimidated by Tim’s looks. Con, however, has been in love with Frankie since they met.
After Frankie became a widower, he needed to support Frankie, not confess his love. Three years on, he’s lost hope that Frankie will see him as more than a friend and is growing increasingly frustrated and angered by his inability to move on. Both men suck at recognizing and acting on openings, but Tim’s presence and their meddling friends help them see and respond to the neon signs they’re showing.
I love Morton’s style of dialogue and witty banter, and Leslie continues to convey it well. Frankie, Con, and their friends are colorful characters, and their constantly aborted flirtations and conversations are mostly funny. I will say that the obstacle of Tim isn’t handled that well. Con knows that Frankie thinks they’re dating and that Frankie has been cheated on before so him being frustrated or downtrodden when Frankie cuts short their flirtations or moments of chemistry is silly and contrived. Con created his own roadblocks by not telling Frankie the score when Frankie first emotion-blocked them instead of at the end of the drama. All in all though, this is a quick, entertaining listen that Leslie performs well.