Seventeen year-old Nat Reams was on his way to a basketball scholarship when he walked into chemistry lab after school and found his teacher assaulting a female student. So he decked the teacher. Now he's facing expulsion.

Awaiting the school board hearing that will decide the fate of his senior year, Nat spends his summer cutting grass with Molly Martinez-the girl from chem lab. Nat has an idea why Molly-a shy, straight-a student-refuses to speak up about what happened at school, and so he's given up on trying to change her mind. But when he sees firsthand the hostile environment in which Molly's family lives, he invites them to move into his spacious, yet highly dysfunctional house.