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 ...

“What is she doing?” Erin played innocent.


“Putting a little boy in dresses and letting him have long hair. That’s almost as bad as child abuse!”


“You do know there’s actual scientific proof of there being more than two genders and that gender identity, sex, and sexuality are three different things?” Emil asked casually.


“Even if that’s true, it’s not like a kid that young would know anything about those things!”


“So what you’re saying is that Lotte is a bad mother for letting her child express their gender identity in this way?” Makai raised a brow at Mark.


“Yes! She’s gonna turn that boy queer and—”


“And what, exactly, would there be wrong with Joie being homosexual?” the sheriff asked in a forced calm tone from right behind Mark’s back.


For a cop, the guy had no situational awareness. Makai didn’t feel bad for him.


“What you mean is that there’s something wrong about people who aren’t straight, right?”


Chapter 50