After a lifetime of throwing away love and affection, maybe he had a surplus, and Caleb was welcome to it.

Peter Cabot Gets Lost

There had been that moment when Peter touched Caleb’s neck before lunch, but Caleb was ninety percent sure that was an accident and that Peter had needed to have about fifteen existential crises about it. Caleb didn’t have the energy to be anyone’s existential crisis.
― Cat Sebastian, Peter Cabot Gets Lost

Peter caught himself staring at Caleb even more than usual, as if memorizing the precise upward tilt of his nose or the degree to which his freckles had multiplied would keep him close. He suspected that Caleb was doing something similar, because he kept staring at Peter with something like confused indignation.
― Cat Sebastian, Peter Cabot Gets Lost

I think I read these out of order. But the order worked out perfectly well, or at least for me it felt like it did. I started with this book, which gives us the background necessary to understand the Cabot family, what the Cabot name means and to whom, and where Peter fits (or doesn’t) into all of it.

The first page sets us up perfectly as Peter muses on how pathetic it must look for someone to want to hang around on campus after graduating from university. Peter is dragging his feet, not wanting to return to his family’s compound in Cape Cod. From there, it is expected that he will hit the campaign trail with his father, who is expected to be named the Democratic nominee in the 1960 US presidential election.

So, when Peter finds his classmate Caleb weeping outside of a phone booth, he asks him what is wrong. Caleb spits out that he is expected at his new job in LA in a few weeks time, but has just been denied the funds needed to procure a cross-country bus ticket.

Peter always wants to help and, if it will delay his family reunion a bit longer, he thinks offering to drive Caleb to LA is the best solution to both of their problems.

Caleb is not his friend. Caleb knows exactly who Peter Cabot is and wants nothing to do with him. Caleb grew up poor and worked his ass off to graduate from Harvard. Still, if he can benefit from the excess time and money that only generational wealth and an abundance of optimism can offer, he’ll grudgingly accept it if it means getting him to his future life faster.

Peter is the disappointment, at least that is how his family makes him feel. His parents barely pay any attention to him. He does not want to go into politics. He is smart and loves history and meeting new people. And he does not want to be an asshole like his father and brother.

So begins Peter and Caleb’s road trip from Boston to LA. This is not an enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story as it is an unwilling-roommates-on-wheels sort of situation. Peter likes Caleb, even though Caleb is prickly and judgmental and wants nothing to do with Peter. Even though he suspects that Peter doesn’t really have a good reason to drive to LA, he accepts his thin excuse that he is going out to LA to visit his aunt. Knowing he has no other options, Caleb decides to muddle through it and hope the naive rich kid doesn’t piss him off too much along the way.

One of the many things I love about Cat Sebastian’s books is that there will be some angst, but it is never heart-wrenching. The characters and their emotions feel extremely natural. In other romances, I expect the characters to overreact or behave unreasonably in a key scene in order to drive the plot forward. However, the characters in these books are rarely so extreme. They have their doubts and fears but more often than not, they admit them to one another and give one another the benefit of the doubt. Truths are revealed in the quiet moments when Peter and Caleb are waiting out a thunderstorm together, or confessing their fears over pancakes and too-strong diner coffee. What I’m trying to say is that even the most implausible love stories, such as falling in love over a week-long road trip, seem effortless and inevitable.

Also, we are introduced to Peter’s uncle Tommy and his ex-wife Patty. Tommy Cabot is Peter’s recently-disowned uncle who has been cast out of the family for accepting his wife’s request for a divorce (because 1950s and Catholic and scandal) when he finally comes out to her. When Peter needs to figure out what to do when he arrives in LA, and what to tell his parents about his sudden change of plans, he calls Patty and Tommy. His uncle Tommy knows exactly how cruel the family can be to anyone who is considered different, and he supports Peter in a way his parents never did.

Out of the three books, this one was my favorite followed by Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots. Tommy Cabot Was Here is very good, but it is very short and does not have the tender moments that the other two books are able to build up to and ultimately deliver.

Tommy Cabot Was Here
Tommy Cabot Was Here takes place one year before Peter and Caleb’s road trip. He and his wife are separated, and Tommy has moved to the small town closest to his teenage son Daniel’s private boarding school, which is also the school Tommy attended.

Tommy doesn’t really know what to do with himself. He and Patty live in opposite parts of the country but remain close friends. Upon enrolling his son in boarding school, Tommy discovers that his ex-best friend and ex-lover is now a teacher. Tommy is devastated that he did something to push Everett away all those years ago and wants to make it right. Everett had to get away from Tommy because seeing him with Patty was too devastating. Tommy wants to make things right, but Everett is not willing to take the risk again if there is a chance he will break his own heart for Tommy a second time.

Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots

Daniel had really hoped his grandmother would be drowsy, or maybe just spontaneously motivated to be civil, but no, she was awake and alert and filled with bright ideas about how to be horrible.
― Cat Sebastian, Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots

Whenever someone described Alex as being set in his ways, he bristled. He was set in his ways, but that was only because his ways were perfectly fine.
― Cat Sebastian, Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots

This book takes place in 1974 in New York City. Daniel Cabot is living in a shitty apartment and working a low-paying job while trying to figure out what to do with his life. He is back home after serving a year in a non-combat zone, and feels ashamed and depressed about how many people his age were sent to their death. He meets Alex, a young doctor who runs a low-cost clinic in his neighborhood. Alex emigrated to the US when he was a teenager and has worked hard to build his career. Alex knows he is difficult and antisocial, however he and Daniel become best friends. This is why neither he nor Daniel wants to mess up a good thing by hooking up.

Where Alex is fastidious, Daniel is carefree. Alex is difficult and Daniel is easygoing. Alex loves Daniel as a friend and possibly more, but he will never, ever say that. Daniel knows Alex never will. Alex hates how difficult he can be, and he hates when he acts like an asshole to Daniel. Daniel accepts Alex for who he is and gives him space when he needs it.

There isn’t much complicated about this book. Alex and Daniel are a pair, and everyone seems to know it but them. When they finally do get together, there are inevitable miscommunications. However, they are able to navigate their feelings in a way that feels proportionate to the low-level degree of their conflict.