It’s Independence Day, and the annual fireworks along Lake Champlain are set to begin.<br><br>Adam Rankin gets a telephone call from his former boyfriend, Dave Peterson, who’s back in town for the festivities. It’s been a year since they separated and parted ways. Dave has moved from their small upstate New York town to Albany, where he works as a paralegal. Adam stayed behind, working as a chef in a Greek restaurant and feeding the homeless on weekends at a local shelter.<br><br>The two men reconnect over the holiday and sparks fly. Can they rekindle the flames between them, or will their romance burn out? Will this be the start of a new beginning?

Red, White, and a New Beginning

Dave nodded. “One reason. The other, I was scared of commitment.”


I drank my lemonade. “I never knew because you never talked about it. You’d come home after work and you’d look miserable.”


“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I loved you.” He paused. “I still do.”


Night collapsed around us, blanketing us in semi-blackness.


Silence had been one of the rifts in our relationship


“What were you going to say?” I asked.


He tore at the sharp blades of grass at his fingertips: he loves me; he loves me not


“It was hard for me to discuss my feelings a year ago,” he said.


“It was difficult for me to see you struggle with those feelings,” I said, reaching for his hand in the shadows. “I wanted to be there for you. I wanted you to be able to open up and talk about your feelings.”


Chapter 3