BEST FRIENDS 4NEVER || bxb

INTRO

BEST FRIENDS 4NEVER is a true-to-life thriller about two star high school football players during the summer before their senior year. It is set in 2015, the year when same-sex marriage was legalized in America, an event that is featured in the story as the two main characters take part in some notable events of that day.  I've taken liberties with timelines and history in order to facilitate a quick-moving story as the two boys and their friends get caught up in the LGBTQ culture wars that exploded in the USA that summer in reaction to the Supreme Court ruling.  

And are still raging today, as we see now in the daily news. And getting worse, edging back to the way things used to be because of the new Trump administration in Washington DC which is quickly deleting all the progress the LGBTQ community has made in the last twenty years. The end game being, of course, the banning of gay marriage again.

We didn't think it could ever happen, but that is the focus of the new Republican Party, hijacked over the years by racists, homophobes, transphobes, and bigots who hide behind the mask of Evangelical Christianity. Which makes this book more poignant than ever. It was written to celebrate a joyous change for a marginalized people, but now we are seeing how fragile and fleeting such change can be. And if it can happen in America, the supposed Land of the Free, it can happen anywhere.

So we all need to be on alert and do whatever it is we individually can to keep our human rights and fight the assault of religious and cultural bigotry, racism, homophobia, and transphobia swelling again in society.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: this book is rated MATURE and strictly adheres to all the Wattpad content guidelines, including the 18+ age of consent. It is explicit about many aspects of gay male life, including the prevalence of polyamorous behavior, open relationships, and promiscuity among friends, same as it often is in straight male life.  It contains strong and possibly offensive language, violence, attempted sexual assault, homophobia, and internalized homophobic discomfort. It also contains anxiety rep - panic, fear, worry, hypervigilance, and other PTSD mental and physical distress, family  dysfunction, and other potentially triggering subject matter. 

There are sex scenes between consenting young males of age, sometimes with multiple partners.  If you don't like it and other controversial realities of gay life, please consider before reading. I write about reality and understand that the truth is not for everyone. The book is meant to be shocking and offputting at times, because that's the reality of life, but nevertheless upbeat and uplifting, reinforcing that, although coming out as gay can sometimes be a brutal experience, it is always for the best to strive to be one's amazing authentic self.

Sanchez Mariano
New York City
March, 2025

Recent Comments:

'Spectacular writing! Characters so real I was looking for them in school, thinking about them in class, sneaking reads in the john. The story gripped my heart and mind for days and, as long as it was, I kept wishing it would never end. Total fire ... I loved it!'

'Sweet, sentimental, often achingly tender - yet bold, brutal, startling, and exceptionally enlightening. Written with the authentic voice of someone who actually lived it. This book really makes you stop and think.'

'This was an amazing story. I've never read a book like this. I'm so glad that everything worked out for them and Jason was OK.'

'Definitely the Fifty Shades of BxB. This book goes far beyond the norm to tell the whole story, a lot we might otherwise never know but yet is so essential to total understanding, acceptance, and unconditional support of the modern young gay male.'

'What a brilliant read. I have enjoyed this from start to finish ... fab. Thank you.'

'This is a well-paced epic tale with a raffish cast of characters, sharply drawn and likeable as fuck. Totally the kind of book you can climb right into and wish you could stay there.'

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