When former classmate Alexi Manetas wanders into his book store, Simon Harris seizes the opportunity to rekindle a flame he'd carelessly extinguished years earlier.Simon Harris has proclaimed his bisexuality loudly since college, despite never having dated a man. While his family and friends laugh, he knows the truth: there is one man he's always been attracted to. Once, fear kept him from acknowledging that attraction. No more. The next time he finds himself wanting to kiss a guy, he's going for it.Alexi Manetas has never gotten over his schoolboy crush on Simon. When Simon graduated, Alexi moved on. He may not have pined for Simon, but he never forgot, and always, lurking at the back of his mind, buried deep in his heart there's been Simon and the hope that they would meet again.A little help from an old lover and a busybody sister-in-law brings Alexi and Simon together, but Simon's fears might still tear them apart… Somewhere in a small town in up-state New York are a librarian and a second grade teacher to whom I owe my life. That might be a touch dramatic, but it's nevertheless one hundred percent true.Because they taught me the joy of reading, of escaping into worlds crafted of words.Have you ever been nine years old and sure of nothing so much as that you don't belong? Looked at the world from behind glasses, and wondered why you don't fit?Then turn the page and see… there you are, running from Injun Joe in a dark graveyard; there you are fencing with Athos; there you are…beneath the deep blue sea- marveling at exotic creatures with Captain Nemo.I found myself between the pages of books, and that is why I write now, it's why I taught English and literature for so many years, and it's why my house contains more pounds of books than furniture.If I'd had my way, I'd have been a fencer…or a starship captain, or a lawyer, or a detective solving crimes. But instead, I am a writer, and that's the best thing in the world to be if you ask me, because as a writer, I can be all those things and more.If I hadn't learned to value the stories between the pages, who knows what would have happened? Certainly not college…teaching…or writing.
