Samuel Cooke knows most women wouldn't give him a second glance even if he were the last man on earth. He's the cripple with the crutches, the nerdy computer genius every female past puberty feels compelled to mother. So when he leaves his lucrative career to teach programming to high schoolers, romance definitely isn't on his radar.

Perhaps that's why Greta Cassamajor catches him off guard. The sarcastic gym coach with zero sense of humor is no beauty - not even on the inside. But an inexplicably kind act toward Samuel makes him realize she is interesting.

Samuel is certain she won't accept his invitation to dinner - so when she does, he's out of his depth. All he knows is that he'll do whatever it takes to keep her as long as he can. 

Pretending he's got his class under control? Easy. Being vulnerable enough to admit why he ditched his programming career for teaching? Um, no. That would require honesty. And if there's one thing Samuel can't live without, it's the lies he tells himself.

Misery loves company—just not his.

When Robin Matheson's husband is killed in Afghanistan, she finds herself suddenly an outsider in a community grieving for the hometown hero it never really knew. Though the thought of spending the rest of her life without Tavis is exhausting, Robin has no choice but to pull herself together for the sake of their son. She finds some satisfaction in cutting ties with Tav's obnoxious best friend, Cyril—a 500-pound hacker who didn't even bother to come to the funeral.

Unfortunately, her three-year-old decides Cyril is now his best buddy, and Robin can't bear to take anything else away from her son. A few hot dogs and video games won't do any permanent damage... right?

Cyril doesn't magically transform into a good person—or even a decent one—but he does prove to be a better role model than Robin expected. Gradually, she also begins to realize that Cyril may be the one person who truly understands the magnitude of her loss.

He also knows far more about her husband's death than he's been letting on.

Forgiveness is the best revenge.

Once upon a time, hacktivist Cyril Blanchard’s passionate letters won the heart of the woman he loved. Unfortunately, he let his best friend take the credit—and the girl. Robin discovered the truth years too late, after a hacking exploit gone south left her husband dead and Cyril in prison.

Now he’s out, and Robin says she’s prepared to give him a second chance. Unlikely. Cyril may be pretty on paper, but in real life he’s a belligerent, foul-mouthed neckbeard whose only coping mechanism is binge-eating his way back to five hundred pounds. So her offer to put him up in the ramshackle Victorian she’s renovating in small-town California seems less like forgiveness than a trap. Either that, or Robin’s lost her marbles. Possibly both.

Cyril doesn’t know what her game is, but he knows one thing for sure: he doesn’t get the girl.

He also can’t let her go.