[boyxboy]
Jude and Ashton grew up bound by loss, finding solace in each other at an orphanage where loneliness was their only companion. Ashton, warm and determined, broke through Jude's walls, forging a bond that neither time nor distance could erase. Adopted into the same town but living vastly different lives. Once childhood friends, they drifted apart as life pulled them in opposite directions. But when fate brings them together as summer camp counselors, old wounds, unresolved feelings, and unexpected Sparks resurface.
Just as Ashton thinks the summer and Jude are behind him, disaster strikes-his family, leaving them with nowhere to go. Jude's family steps in, offering them a place to stay, forcing Ashton and Jude to share the same space and confront the tension that has been simmering between them for years.
As rivalries, class divides, and long-buried emotions collide, Ashton and Jude find themselves questioning everything they thought they knew-about each other, and about themselves.
Charlie Holloway has great friends, good grades, a steady part-time job he actually likes, and athletic ability that makes him a star in two sports, but recently it's all felt rather hollow. However, when childhood friend Theo Broussard comes back into his life, Charlie is shaken out of a years-long daze that has left him coasting through his teenage years.
Theo just happening to be the star player for his school's biggest rival and his first crush only complicates matters further. When things get difficult, Charlie finds himself forced to choose between his current life following the path of least resistance or a harder but possibly more fulfilling one.
"Only to feel this fully, this entire, the way snow touched bare skin & is suddenly, no longer snow" -Ocean Vuong, "Devotion" from Night Sky with Exit Wounds
[Re-edited 4/18/20]