Once upon a time, Casey flirted with a pretty boy at a bar, and that changed everything. Recently released from jail, he's starting to rebuild without the family who raised him to hate himself. He's got a new job, a room at his aunt's, and community service hours at an LGBTQIA community center. But his biggest challenge is figuring out how to live as the one thing his father and brother drilled into him he could never be: a gay man.
Once upon a time, Brooks enjoyed submitting to big, buff guys, but since the day he got jumped by one, his tastes have changed. Big guys are hot but dangerous, and submission no longer feels like an option. But transitioning to playing the Dom role isn't easy when every twitch evokes panic, and the smaller guys who'll let Brooks top them aren't really to his taste.
Then he meets Casey, the big guy with the problematic past. Casey will do anything, but does his obedience stem from healthy kink or from an unhealthy need to be punished? And is Brooks doling out release or revenge? Two people who share a past as violent as theirs could never fall in love. Unless, somewhere in the aftermath, there's forgiveness.
Content warning: internalized homophobia, homophobic language, and references to homophobic hate crimes that have occurred in the past