Chapter 2

“What happened?” Ben prompted once more.

Rick’s face took on an expression Ben had never seen before, almost as if he were lost. Did he care more about this Liam than he was admitting? “All I knew was Liam wasn’t there anymore, and then it looked like I wasn’t going to be either. Aunt Clarice kept screeching about me destroying the family and how we’d have to leave town, because no one would hire Uncle Walter, and no one would want to marry me.”

“How old were you when this happened?”

“Seventeen.”

“Kind of young to be thinking about getting married, isn’t it?” As Ben hoped, that got a sputtered laugh out of his boyfriend.

“Yeah, but there was no reasoning with Aunt Clarice. Anyway, a couple of days later she announced we couldn’t stay there. I…I begged her to change her mind. I’d have to leave my friends. I’d be graduating in a year and would miss Homecoming and Prom. She said I should have thought of that before I debauched the son of one of the town’s most prominent families.”

“Debauched?”

“She wouldn’t dream of saying I’d fucked his lilywhite ass.” He raised the bottle to take another slug of Double H, but Ben gently removed it from his grasp. Rick looked a little befuddled, but then he hunched a shoulder. “So she made us pack up, sell the house I’d lived in all my life, and move to DeKalb.”

It sucked that Rick had to leave his high school and his friends, and Ben was sorry about that, but…he also wasn’t. “But we met, and…and I’ll marry you.” Same-sex marriage might not be legal, but one day…He held his breath and waited to see how Rick would react to his proposal.

A soft snore was all that greeted him.

It took an act of God and a lot of good luck for Ben to get his boyfriend home without being spotted by Rick’s aunt and uncle. And when he called Sunday after church, Rick’s aunt told him in a snippy tone that Rick wasn’t feeling well enough to go to the mall.

When they met up on Monday to collect their caps and gowns, Rick said, “Wow, I was drunk as a skunk Saturday night. I can’t remember a fucking thing. I’m laying off Double H for the rest of my life.”

Ben’s sigh of relief was too soon.

“Jack Daniels goes down much smoother.”

“If you say so, buddy.” And he decided he’d never bring up what Rick had told him.

* * * *

He did want to know when they could come out to their friends and family, though. “When can we tell them?”

“Just a few more months. I’ve already turned eighteen, so I get my trust fund after I graduate. Then we can spit in their eyes and do whatever the hell we want.” Which meant moving to New York so Rick could go to Cornell University.

“Okay,” Ben said again. He would pretty much agree to anything his boyfriend wanted—Rick was so smart, Ben let him make all the decisions. They’d kept their relationship a secret.

Even though their hometown of DeKalb was so small everyone knew everyone’s business, it hadn’t been too difficult. People were used to Rick and Ben hanging out, although Ben knew from the looks and the whispers they didn’t understand how such a smart guy like Rick could hang out with someone like Ben, who wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. After all, Rick had been taking college courses even before his family moved to DeKalb, and he was guaranteed to get his doctorate before he turned twenty-three. Including the time it took to get his master’s, that would be a good ten years before most people were awarded them.

And then Rick learned his aunt and uncle, who’d also been his trustees, had mismanaged the money left to him, and most of the funds were gone. Oh, there was enough for an associate’s degree at DeKalb Community College, but Cornell…? All hopes of his going there were out the window.

“Fuck them.” Rick was so angry Ben was afraid he’d burst a blood vessel. “Fuck them to goddamn hell.”

“You can get a Pell Grant,” Ben suggested. “And a scholarship.” He had a cousin who’d done that, and it had paid for most of her courses.

Rick scowled at him. “Do you think I didn’t check out all that?”

Ben flushed. Of course his brilliant boyfriend would have looked into all the options. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Grants are out of the question, because Uncle Walter makes too much money. As for scholarships, it’s too fucking late in the year to apply for any of them.”

Ben didn’t say there was next year—Rick didn’t have the patience to wait. “I’ll help with your tuition,” he said instead. Right after graduation, he’d be starting the apprenticeship program the local electrical union offered. “An apprentice doesn’t make as much as a journeyman, but I already know a lot from my dad and my uncles.” With a little luck and a lot of hard work, he’d become a journeyman in three years.