A would-be lover boy can't tell the new boy how much he likes him - it's just easier to be unhappy. Sam skulks across the sidewalks of this hush-hush town, where he also holds out on his best friend - not a hint of the secret. The new boy flits around somewhere out there and Sam feels lost, unable to come clean - unless your best friend is the one that you're supposed to tell this stuff to.

The things you would never say - those are the things one boy decides to sling unguarded when his emotions have blown up on him. Rusty picks a boy on the uncaring sidewalks of November to unload his feelings on, all his frustration over boys that don't like him back. The boy he calls out is going to get a full dose of just how broken Rusty is.

A shy boy fears that he won't make a friend, but then he does, unless the other boy is only acting. The street theater game the kids are playing swallows up everything on the avenue, from what is real to what is not. Oz can only hope that the boy he likes is for real, or else love tells the biggest lie of all.

A good boy is off to a bad start in college, where he can't get to know anyone - he worries this is all going to turn out like high school did. He has changed his nickname since then to his more adult name, but he never remembers to use it; it just isn't him. One day in philosophy class, a boy that arrives late apparently has to take the first open chair, which is the one next to Kippie.

The hayride boys plot to steal a kiss - it's all a matter of who and who. The hayride churns its 6 mph course, but things happen fast for Zander, 13. He tries hard to learn the rules of kissing but the boys keep throwing unexpected things at him: sudden desires and secret feelings and, yes, those wrench-in-the-work Halloween zombies.

The new boy crashes the school's-out party of mid-June, where he feels the suspicious eyes of the 6th-grade boys upon him. Steen is afraid to talk to them but wants so bad for them to like him. Football, basketball, track & field - the playground sports throw him into a must-win situation: he either comes up big on a field day under a big American flag or else nobody wants you, not one other boy.

If one boy in these stories finds another boy to love, that's a bonus - because it's not a guarantee. The boys already have to deal with the uneasy fate of life after high school, the uncharted route they didn't see coming. Love only adds to the freight in these 4 novellas: I'm Not From Here, Your Nihilistic Tea House, If by Chance We Meet, A Particular Friendship.

When the last inning of the last game is over, you normally pick up your stuff in the dugout and go home. Sandy is a 14-year-old boy minding his own business - another season at first base - when the center fielder wants him to go with him for food. Sandy must not have heard the after-game plan, that the whole team is going there - unless he just got asked out on a date.

It's the year of boy-girl parties, the year when they give school dances and you know what is expected of you. Kalhoun tries really hard not to like the boy that he likes in art class, he will write letters to him explaining why he can't like him in this year when the rules get serious, the 7th grade. He won't send the letters, of course, letters that say way too much for the U.S. Mail.

When a surfer gets rescued in the California waves - a stranger carries him out - it could be the perfect start to a relationship for these sophomore boys. Each one desperately needs something from the other. For Alan that is one thing; for the stranger it's way more complicated, and Alan will have to puzzle his way in a very sweet relationship that he doesn't understand.