James is one stolen car away from earning his gang colors.He tries to steal Rocky's. Rocky has other ideas.Rocky has a comfortable suburban life, a smart mouth, and a candy-apple-red Mustang he loves more than is probably healthy. James is trying to prove he belongs somewhere... anywhere. They have almost nothing in common. Under ordinary circumstances, their relationship would last exactly as long as it takes Rocky to call the police.Then a violent home invasion shatters Rocky's protected world, and the boy who should be his adversary becomes his only ally.Even while running for their lives, Rocky and James are still teenage boys. They tease, argue, keep secrets, and begin to realize they may have seriously underestimated each other. Rocky's best friend Paris is pulled into the chaos, their enemies keep closing in, and every desperate plan seems to solve one problem by creating two more.Somewhere between a stolen car, a stolen phone, desert roads, and spectacularly bad decisions, suspicion becomes trust. And trust becomes desire. The last person either boy should want becomes the one neither can imagine living without. But danger has followed them home, and protecting each other may cost them everything.For readers of Adam Silvera's They Both Die at the End, Caleb Roehrig's White Rabbit, and for anyone who remembers rooting for Bonnie and Clyde, Rocky & James is a fast, funny, dangerous story about divided loyalties, impossible choices, and giving your heart to the last person you were ever supposed to trust.Go beyond the novel with this special hardcover edition, featuring the complete lyrics to Rocky's original song, "One Day, Oh Yeah," plus an exclusive look at the journey from screenplay to novel. Selected scenes from Sean Michael Beyer's original screenplay are paired with their novel counterparts, revealing how Rocky & James expanded, changed, and found new life on the page.Content advisory: Recommended for mature teen and adult readers. Contains strong language, homophobic slurs, underage drinking and smoking, on-page sexual situations, graphic violence and murder, and themes of grief and suicide.
