Fake dog. Real crush. Zero chance of keeping this normal.
Mason Grey transferred to Sierra Ridge for a clean slate.
He wants varsity baseball, a decent welding program, and a school where being gay doesn’t turn him into everybody’s favorite conversation topic.
What he gets is Theo Santoro.
Theo is a senior water polo player and wrestler with an easy smile, a loud friend group, and absolutely no reason to malfunction because the cute new baseball guy stole his usual seat in English.
Unfortunately, Theo’s brain disagrees.
So when a class assignment catches him staring at Mason, Theo panics and invents a dog named Waffles.
A tall dog.
A resilient dog.
A dog with a strong moral compass and significant privacy concerns.
Theo does not own a dog.
Mason never lets him forget it.
What starts with one stolen seat and an imaginary animal slowly becomes folded notebook-paper conversations, baseball games, water polo matches, awkward dances, family dinners, late-night texts, and kisses that get harder and harder to hide.
Mason already knows who he is.
Theo has spent his whole life assuming he does.
Mason can handle slow. He can handle scared. He can even handle Theo not having a label yet.
What he won’t be is somebody’s shame-secret.
Luckily, Sierra Ridge has a habit of making room for people. Theo starts showing up for baseball. Mason learns enough water polo to accuse an entire sport of felonies. Wrestling season becomes land crime. Their separate friend groups turn into one loud mess. And Mason’s apartment somehow becomes the place everybody goes when they need pizza, a charger, an ice pack, advice, or somewhere safe to land.
Somewhere between first kisses, varsity pressure, prom, spring-break camping, and Waffles custody disputes, Theo and Mason have to figure out something neither of them can solve with a playbook:
How do you let someone love you when being seen is the scary part?
And what happens when senior year ends—but the relationship doesn’t have to?
