When the playboy quarterback of the hapless New York Templars is injured in a freak sexcapade, backup QB Quinn Novak picks up the ball and takes the team to the playoffs. There he attracts the attention of two other quarterbacks who’ve been rivals since high school, Mal Ryan of the Philadelphia Quakers and Tam Tarquin of the San Francisco Miners.<br><br>Quinn begins a volatile relationship with the narcissistic Mal and a loving one with the open-hearted Tam, keeping each secret from the other. What he doesn’t know is that the two have a complex sexual history of their own.

The Penalty for Holding

When had he and Tam become engaged? Had they always been engaged? He wanted to scream. He wanted to run.


“Can I get you anything, my love?” Tam said when he returned, tousling Quinn’s hair. He pulled away.


I must stay calm and try to remember, Quinn thought. But in his mind, he was running.24


Heart like a river; like this river, Quinn thought, frozen with shards of snow-covered ice.


He was staring out at the Hudson through the scrim of a light beige shade, even the buttery winter sun being too strong for his eyes. Or maybe it was too strong for his brain and his mind. Was the mind the same as the brain? Did the mind cease to exist when the brain did, or did it go on in the Great Somewhere? In the weeks after Quinn left the hospital, while others were negotiating contracts, hitting the gym or vowing to come back stronger, faster—whatever sounded good in the press—he and Tam had, unbeknown to anyone, settled into domesticity in Quinn’s Lower Manhattan loft.


Chapter 62