One morning Padrig Kennedy comes home to find his partner, Nick Glenfielding, in bed with another man. Shocked, hurt, and vulnerable, Padrig flees and meets a stranger who seems to offer comfort-but he force-feeds Padrig a steady diet of drugs and prostitution instead. When he finally surfaces from his hell, it's to another system shock: he's now HIV positive.

Nick descends into darkness as well. Devastated by losing Padrig, he finds no consolation in the legal career he doesn't love and tries to find solace in alcohol, spending his days in an ever-deepening haze.

Padrig and Nick...