Isaac Browning is the picture of a melancholy widower, knitting to soothe his sorrows. One day, his neighbor's handsome grandson, Luca, asks him an innocent question: Why does knitting that sweater make your face scrunch up like that?

The answer pours out: Isaac is drowning in bitterness, stuck reliving the death throes of his failed marriage and the twist of fate that kept him from fixing his own life before his late husband's death spared him the trouble.

Luca has always been the king of "I got this." From getting kicked out of the house at eighteen to starting his own business or taking care of his awesome grandparents, Luca has taken what life throws at him. But Luca's suddenly single sister is going to have a baby, and Isaac and his yarny hobby are an unexpected godsend. In spite of Isaac's issues, he's really amazing company.

Together, the two men start an unlikely friendship. Luca thinks Isaac is a sweetly chaotic mess, and Isaac is utterly smitten with Luca's kindness, but they both need to straighten out their own lives before they can start something real. Except life is seldom that neat and tidy. Life is a messy yarn box of a thousand colors-bossy students, pregnant sisters, awesome friends, and the best (and worst) of family knit themselves into a tapestry that binds the two men together. Then the cosmic cat distribution system provides Isaac with a catnip-addicted orange kitty as the first step in building a life that's uniquely his own. With a little bit of growing and some help from Euclid, Luca and Isaac learn that something real is what you make of it, and with a little bit of elbow grease, the possibilities are as sturdy and as beautiful as their wildest dreams.