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

My coaxing skills needed sharpening, but somehow between breakfast and the time I locked the restaurant door behind us, Dave and I were standing on the sidewalk under the awning. I mustered up enough nerve to ask him to stay in Oakville for one more day.


I sounded desperate. I think I asked him three times, begging between pauses, as I watched his expression change from questioning (eyebrow creased), to surprised (eyes wide), to possibility (a vague smile, lips parted).


Water seeped through a tiny fissure in the middle of the green plastic awning above us and plopped on the back of my head, through the threadbare fibers of my thin hair, the cold water streaming down my collar to the warmth of my neck.


I shook off the bone-cold response and stared into Dave’s dark blue eyes.


He shrugged, tucking his hands into his pockets, turning and gazing into the misty downtown streets.


“Do you have to work tomorrow?” I asked him.


Chapter 13