Ben Haggerty is devastated when he returns home from work to discover his lover of eight years has gone off to complete his master's degree at another college -- and left no forwarding address. Not only has Ben chosen Rick over his beloved family, but he's supported his boyfriend both financially and emotionally the entire time. Unable to remain in their shared apartment, Ben moves and spends a miserable holiday season alone. With the New Year, however, he's determined to make a fresh start, so he manages to obtain Rick's address and sends him a card asking if Rick ever plans to return. Somehow, the card winds up in the wrong mailbox.<br><br>Jason Prescott is a genius, having obtained his first master's degree at twenty-one and now working on his second. When he receives a card in error, he returns both the card and a card of his own to be courteous, expressing his hopes Ben can get in touch with his boyfriend. This begins a correspondence that leads to friendship, and ... the start of something more? Jason introduces Ben to his family and reunites him with his own.<br><br>But will Jason, who's even smarter than Rick, be satisfied with someone as ordinary as blue-collar Ben feels himself to be? Or will Rick, realizing what he's let slip through his fingers, manage to persuade Ben to take him back?

Always, Ben

Ben had always thought Rick was proud of what he did, just as he was proud of Rick, but a few months ago, out of a clear blue sky, Rick had said, “Blue-collar workers are so low-class.”


The words whispered in Ben’s brain. No matter how hard he tried to dismiss them, they kept coming back, even though he knew Rick had just been overtired and stressed from the students he had to teach and the research he had to do. He hadn’t meant them. So Ben intended to make Rick see that maybe he worked a blue-collar job, maybe he came from a middle-class union family, but his talents were just as valuable as his boyfriend’s.


He unbuckled his tool belt and left it where it fell. Rick would be unhappy about that, but Ben would face his irritation later.


He flipped on the light switch in the bedroom. The bed was neatly made. Rick never made the bed. Not that Ben minded. A genius of his lover’s magnitude didn’t have time for mundane things like tidying their apartment.


Chapter 6