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

“You’re a braver man than me,” Stephen says, that shy smile back on his face again. I used to love the way he would smile at me, slowly, like he wasn’t sure I would smile back. “My sister knows—how could she not?”


“Because you’re twins?” I ask. I never understood how that could be—Stephen’s everything his sister isn’t, two sides of one coin, everything good in him and everything spiteful and mean in her. Beauty and the beast, I said once…onlyonce, because Stephanie was fastand she bruised my arm with her knuckles for that comment. I wonder if she still hits as hard, and to be honest, I really don’t care to find out.


But Stephen laughs. “Because she’s so damn nosy,” he replies. “Being twins has nothing to do with it. She stillwants to know where I’m going and who I’m on the phone with, jeez.” Lowering his voice, he adds softly, “She didn’t know about you, though. About what we…” He sighs, looks at Dan, looks away. “What we used to do.”


Chapter 185