Zack and Pike appeared in Connection Error (#Gaymers#3) as they are friends with Ryan and Josiah.

Zack Nelson is a young Navy SEAL who has not really explored his sexual identity or had any relationships. He is closed off, anxious, fearful, and terrified of anyone finding out his secret. He is already in a hostile environment at work with his team members.  His family is strict and religious, and have put pressure on him to be the perfect son. He is closeted to the point of self denial.

But Pike Reynolds seems to be able to see right through him. He is unfiltered, observant, intelligent, and seen as a bit immature and impulsive. He is also gay and out. They are thrust together one night that opens up Zack's eyes a bit. But then they end up rooming together and that opens up a whole new world... a game of resistance, companionship, attraction, exploration, and feelings. They get closer behind closed doors and learn to trust. They fall into a friends with benefits arrangement, but it is bound to get more complicated. 

Pike is living in San Diego now because he has taken on a teaching job that he is not quite sure about. Zack is dealing with significant homophobia on his SEAL team and from his parents. It makes him afraid to give into the real feelings he has for Pike. Zack is lost between who he wants to be and who he feels he has to be. And Pike is not sure if he will ever fit into Zack's life and if he should explore more of his own career opportunities.

Pike struggles with his value and if Zack feels he is worth the risk, but he was pretty patient about letting Zack go at a slower pace.  But this is really Zack's story of self awareness and growth. The only way they have a chance is if Zack is willing to stand up for himself, take a risk, and fight for them. But doing so will have consequences in every aspect of Zack's life. It is about self worth, priorities, respect, and finding a home. 

This deals with significant homophobic slurs and behavior, so it could be a trigger for some. There are some people that I wanted to smack and situations that made me so angry. But unfortunately, they are also realistic. But there are also a lot of good people and side characters as well. I loved the Senior Chief, Professor Hu, and the hot widower, Apollo (please let him get a book in this series!). I enjoyed getting more with Ryan and Josiah from Connection Error  and how this spins off from that series, but is more into the world of Navy SEALs. I am looking forward to more in this series.

I was gifted a copy in exchange for an honest review. 

After new Navy SEAL Zack Nelson has some problems with other members of his team in San Diego, he takes advantage of an offer to move into a rental unit off base. Isolation is just the thing he wants, and the price is right too, since he’s helping with some remodeling projects on the place. Or he’s trying to, anyway. Pike Reynolds thought he was on the fast track after completing his dissertation, but he wasn’t able to land his dream job. So when an opportunity to teach in San Diego comes up, he feels like he needs to take it. And that puts him back into contact with Zack, a “straight” guy he knows he has chemistry with, but he also knows he has no interest in being a guinea pig for curiosity again, even though Zack hits all his buttons. When they move in together, Zack’s resistance crumbles and he lets himself be the thing he’s always tried to hide, both from the outside world and himself. There’s no way he can ever step out of the shell he’s confined himself to, but he’ll need to if he’s going to keep Pike.

Zack is your classic closet case, and he has a lot of good reasons for it. He grew up in a strict religious family that constantly railed against homosexuality, and even though he knows gays are allowed in the military (and he personally knows a fellow SEAL who is gay), hostility from his teammates makes that impossible. It’s just safer all around if he denies his thoughts and urges, even to himself. And to do that, he really closes himself off to people as a whole. He knows Pike through the gay SEAL (and we met both Zack and Pike in book three of the #gaymers series, Connection Error, because of this fact), and Pike seems to be able to see through all his barriers. But even after Zack starts letting his guard down within the bubble that is their rental house, Pike is torn between being the out-and-proud gay man he’s always been and keeping things comfortable for Zack. It’s a conflict in Pike that Zack is fully aware of, but it’s not easy for someone like Zack to take such a big risk.

The story line is fine in Off Base, but I had a lot of difficulty getting into it because things are very choppy in the first quarter of the book. I can’t put my finger on exactly what caused it, but it was a struggle. Once they moved in together, things picked up and this wasn’t a problem for me anymore. It’s not just that the sex was hot either (and it was.) These two worked together as a couple, and the struggles they went through felt very real. And outside the relationship, their problems had much in common with one another, even though neither could really help the other with them. Put all of this together and I felt sympathetic to their plights, and when things got rough for them, I understood why, even though I didn’t like it. But that often makes these final dramatic sequences much better in the long run.

As a whole, Annabeth Albert’s Off Base is a decent read once you get past the first chunk of the book. That surprised me in retrospect, because I’ve not had that issue with any of the other books of hers that I’ve read. That being said, I do recommend this title, and I really look forward to the next one, because I think there’s a hot military widower that’s going to be the main character. There’s no way I could pass that up.