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

Rick was one of the smartest kids in Eli Whitney High. He’d transferred toward the end of their junior year when his guardians moved to DeKalb. No one could understand why such upper-middle-class people would want to live in their little blue-collar town, and since Rick’s guardians kept pretty much to themselves, no one ever found out why.


It had surprised Ben that Rick would even say hello to him, given how his eyes tended to become even more glazed whenever Rick was around. But Rick not only said hello, he wanted to be friends with Ben.


“Yeah, Rick?” Ben was doing his unfocused eyes thing.


Ben’s eyes became so focused so fast, he thought for a minute they were going to get whiplash or fall out of his head and roll around on the floor. Was his fondest dream about to come true? Was Rick going to ask Ben to blow him?


“I…uh…I’m having some trouble in shop. Would you mind helping me?”


Chapter 13