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

Jason opened the front door, and stepped out into the lightly falling snow. Ben turned off the engine, got out of the Jeep, and jogged toward him. His lips were cold as he brushed them over Jason’s. “Get inside. It’s freezing out here.”


He had a point, and Jason hurried inside, holding the door open for him. Ben paused inside to stamp the snow off his boots, and then pull them off. “I should have come in through the side door.” It opened into the mudroom.


“Any word?” Ben stripped off his coat and hung it up on the coat tree. There wasn’t much snow on it, but it would be damp.


“Okay. Let me get out of these clothes. Then we can worry together.” Ben took the stairs two at a time to their bedroom.


“I’ll make lunch,” Jason called after him.


“You didn’t get anything at the university?”


“Everything was shut down. And I didn’t have any spare change for the vending machines,”


Chapter 55