“Have you considered the possibility that Neil has chosen you, but believes you have not chosen him?” Renee says. "Have you ever explicitly told him what you want?” “Neil knows what I want,” Andrew snaps. This is not Andrew’s fault. “How do you know?” Because Neil always knows. He is as fluent in Andrew’s micro-expressions as he is in German and French. He knows which head tilts mean “go on” and which ones mean “shut up.” Without ever asking, he learned what it meant to see Andrew wearing double layers of long sleeves, or taking multiple showers in a day, and learned to hand Andrew the car keys. That has always been the most terrifying thing about Neil — his patience to wait, watch, listen, learn. The prospect that if Neil were given enough time, there would be no part of Andrew that was just Andrew’s anymore. “He has to know,” Andrew says. “Does he?” Renee says. “Have you ever known Neil to assume that he is wanted?” Five times Neil tells someone that he and Andrew aren’t dating, and one time Andrew uses his words to set the record straight.

Sex and feelings and Neil Josten in the middle. In both sexy and unsexy ways.

Despite his best efforts, Andrew finds himself a family.

A group of amateur thieves kidnap a senator’s son to ransom him for money. The senator’s son doesn’t want to go back. * “Are these padded cuffs?” Neil asked, his voice raspy, his throat dry. He tugged on his wrists and winced when they chafed against his recent wounds from Lola. “They’re Nicky’s,” someone answered him—a woman. “Fox Seven! Use the code names!” “Sorry. I’ve never kidnapped someone and ransomed them for money before.” “I’ve been kidnapped?” Neil asked. “What did you think was happening?”

Neil works three low paying, dead-end jobs and makes just enough money to afford a room to sleep in and to keep himself from starving. He has no prospects, no hope, no future. That all changes when a chance encounter results in a job offer that he can't ignore. The job? Pretending to be professional exy player Andrew Minyard's boyfriend.