From Market Street to Chinatown to the Castro, San Francisco is the city of cultural harmony, sexual acceptance and, for a young man with a broken heart - hopefully a new start. But first, he'll have to learn the rules of a very important game...

After college, San Francisco seemed like the ideal place for Paul Carter to start a new life and escape the memory of a painful breakup. What could be better than a town where the minority was the majority, the flirting flowed freely, and a mixed-race background and a strawberry afro like Paul's was no big deal? But a string of dreary temp jobs and sky-high rents soon put a damper on his spirits - Until Evan Hartwitch, aka Twitch, comes along.

The first time Paul ventures onto the local basketball court, it's for the love of the game. Then it's for the love of the players - Jessie, a gentle, cornrowed giant with a heart almost as breakable as Paul's; and Curtis, bald, fierce, muscular and mean. Then it's all about one player in particular. Twitch is tall, thin, spikey-haired and powerful. He's a white guy with the moves of a pro, and eventually, he puts the move on Paul. For Paul, Twitch quickly goes from stranger to soulmate. Paul's well read; Twitch is a poet; they share a passion for basketball - and after a late night encounter, it seems they have a passion for each other. But as Paul becomes a regular with the Gamblers - the Gay Men's Basketball League, he soon find himself nursing a new heartache and caught in the middle of a bi-racial love feud that's destined to spill onto the court - and change him from innocent new-boy-in-town to the man he needs to be.....