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

Halloween was going to be fun. The front yard was already decorated with witches and caldrons and Mrs. Bates—Norman’s momma from Psycho—in a rocker they’d found at a garage sale, and a big bowl of candy waited near the front door for the neighborhood kids to come trick-or-treating after school.


And since Halloween fell kind of in the middle of the week, Ben was going to work dressed as a zombie hunter, complete with a crossbow draped across his back, while Jason would attend class made up to look like a zombie.


Jason grinned at him, slid his hands into Ben’s back pockets, and pulled him closer.


“You taste of licorice,” Ben whispered against his lips.


“It’s the stuff I used to make my lips black.” Jason pressed a hand deeper into Ben’s pocket.


“I like it. And what are you doing?”


“Card for you. Don’t open it until you get to work.” Usually Jason would drive to the university with Ben, but today he had a later class.


Chapter 45