Abe Cooper is starting over. For fifteen years he's lived the life that was expected of him, but not anymore. He's packed up his things, bought himself a cabin in Northfield, and managed to secure a job at the local high school teaching gym and coaching the football team. But his new beginning didn't include running into Crazy Joe on his first trip to the grocery store.<br><br>Jonas Raghnall has everything he needs -- good friends and a job he loves. He's worked hard to get over what happened sixteen years ago, but one run-in with his past and all the memories come flooding back. Seeing Abe Cooper, The Abe Cooper, sets everything out of balance.<br><br>Abe had pictured a fresh start with no ties to his past, but now that Jonas is there, he wants nothing more than to be close to the man who had butterflies filling his belly when he was in high school. Jonas doesn't want to come face to face with his past, but if he sees Abe every day, it's not really meeting up with your past, is it? It's more like a date with your future.

Crazy Joe

“We had to go somewhere.” Jonas shoved his hands in his pockets.


Jonas watched him for a long time. “Do you have kids, Abe?”


“You never married Stephanie Samuelsen or that cute girl with the big brown eyes?” He scrunched his nose in the most adorable way. “What was her name? Michelle? Danielle?”


“Right, Gabrielle. Nice girl, never mean to anyone. At least not until she began hanging around the football team.”


Abe grimaced. She had been a nice girl, shy, which suited him fine because she never demanded much of him. God, he’d been an ass.


“Anyway, imagine you had kids. If your child went to meet a boy for a milkshake on a sunny spring afternoon and ended up with three broken ribs and a concussion, would you send him or her back to face those who did it a few days later?”


The small kitchen spun around Abe. “Did you report them?”


Chapter 12