A box delivered to a twenty-year-old student stirs up bitter memories just as he encounters a passionate woman who shares similar secrets. Aggravated, mystified, and tantalized by these strange creatures, Tim cannot get women right. He has other agendas, such as putting himself through community college on his salary as a bike messenger, and building his body to the point where he will never be afraid. And proving that he was right in rejecting his father's offer to pay for an Ivy League education. Tim is proud that his life is exceptional and pretty much under his own control-until he learns that what he needs most is the same thing he most fears. Hot Box is a hard but humorous take on the American dream as it exists in the twenty-first century, full of passion and potential but often undermined by lies, betrayal, confusion, and loss.