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

“Any mail for me, gorgeous?” Richard Preston usually got on her last nerve. She knew she wasn’t gorgeous—she was just barely pretty—and everyone knew Preston was gay. But this time his joviality came across as forced.


“You always ask, and what do I always tell you?”


“‘No.’” He looked glum. It didn’t surprise her. She’d been working for the department since before David Putnam attained tenure here at Wooster U., and she knew what he was like, despite having been in love with him at one time herself. Shouldn’t every straight woman be in love with a gay man once in her life? It wouldn’t have mattered that he’d never looked at her; she would never have been stupid enough to think her love could make him straight. So she’d buried her feelings, and it didn’t take too long for her to fall out of love with him.


Preston didn’t even realize how well he’d done. He’d managed to keep David intrigued for the entire spring and fall semesters and half the winter one as well, a university record.


Chapter 22