Can two broken men build one life? Ten years. That’s what Makai lost for a crime he didn’t commit. He’s been exonerated, but the abuse he suffered in prison isn’t so easy to leave behind. He heads to the one place he remembers being happy: Acker, Wisconsin, where he spent summers with his grandpa. Unfortunately, not everyone wants Makai there. Ten days. That’s how long Emil, now twenty-one, was held prisoner as a teenager. The mental and physical injuries he suffered at the hands of a drug trafficking ring still haunt him. Nightmares, anxiety, and PTSD challenge the connection forming between Makai and Emil, though together, they might find a way to move beyond their pain and into a future -- and a relationship -- that both had thought impossible. Now they just have to convince Emil’s father, the town sheriff. It won’t be easy with danger closer than they know ...

“All right, remember what we agreed on?” he asked Joey, who was practically vibrating.


“Yes,” the boy whispered, and Makai let him in, then left the door open for Emil and smiled at him. “Same rules for you.”


Emil ducked and shook his head but came inside anyway.


“Through here.” Makai escorted their guests to Mouse. “Now, she’s a nice cat, but you can’t touch the kittens yet, okay? You can just touch her if she lets you, and you can look at the kittens. We don’t want to scare Mouse, right?”


“Okay,” Joey whispered, and Makai moved to sit on the bed so that Emil had enough space to go see the cats.


Emil seemed to understand what he was doing and quietly talked to Mouse and Joey, and kept the boy in check when he tried to get too loud, just because the kittens were “soooo cuuuuute.”


“I’ll go get that drink,” Makai said after a while, when he had reassured himself that Emil knew what he was doing. “You two want anything?”


“No thank you,” Joey said, and Emil shook his head too.


Chapter 28