Safe and Sound

Rory Murphy is so close to being a professor, he can't sit still. As the last summer of his student career begins, he lands an interview with a prestigious school overseas -- only to bomb it with a silly mistake. His successful ex won't talk to him anymore. And his childhood lisp, the one that he did grueling hours of speech therapy to remove, now seems to come back at the most inopportune moments, like a fun game of trivia where he can't even say the right answers anymore. Utterly defeated, Rory thinks that his life -- at least his love life -- might just be over. When a bartender named Taggart Floros offers him a drink and midnight camaraderie, Rory wonders if he was wrong about everything not going as he first planned.

Taggart Floros is trying to take life as easy as he can. When he's not working at the campus bar run by his cousin, he's volunteering at an animal shelter, or boning up on his random trivia knowledge, like micro-brews of the region, 1980s movies, or famous gangsters. Rory catches his eye right away, mostly because he does not quite seem to understand just how smart and cute he really is.

As the two fall more in love, Taggart should be feeling on top of the world. But his troubled past, and the main reason why Taggart has given up his own dreams of being a high school teacher, still haunt him. Deep down, Taggart fears it won't be long before someone makes all the connections, and his last secret is revealed.