When Michael Knapp brings his lover Dan Biggs home to meet his parents, he doesn't expect things to go smoothly. His mother's been trying to marry him off for years, and sometimes he isn't even sure his father knows he exists. He has always felt like the shadow son, competing with his terminally stupid older brother and smart-mouthed little sister for his parents' attention. Coming out to them over dinner seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally get noticed.<br><br>But an unexpected phone call interrupts his announcement -- Aunt Evie, the family matriarch, is dead. With Dan in tow, Michael follows his family to Sugar Creek, where he spent his summers growing up, to prepare for the funeral.<br><br>Amid an overabundance of memories and relatives, Michael's world begins to slip. His dysfunctional family, Evie's death, and an old friend's confession all threaten to smother him. Worse, in his grief and confusion he seems determined to inadvertently push everyone away, including his lover. Can he and Dan move beyond his family and his past to a new life together, before Michael's insecurities tear them apart?

It's All Relative

He sees Dan, he hasto. “I’ll be right in,” he tells his sister, in words I read on his lips more than hear spoken aloud. A hand on her back points her towards the viewing room, but not before she sees me. Doubt crosses her face, a foreign look for Stephanie Robichaud, the legendary bully of Sugar Creek, and she almost says something to him—she never liked me, and her gaze rakes over Dan like hot coals, she knows who he must be. The boyfriend,the man who came between her brother and the one love of his life. No, Steph,I think humorlessly. That man was me. I’m the one who tore him up inside, I’m the one who misused him all those years. I didn’t need any help, I seem to be good at shit like that all by myself.


Chapter 182