“What are we doing here?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Come on.”

Ben stumbled out of the car, wondering what was in store. Did Jace have kids or something? A secret heterosexual life? Or maybe he was being brought to some underground sex club. Oh god! Was he being sold into sex slavery?

“Are you all right?” Jace said, putting an arm around him. “You don’t look so good.”

“I just drank too much,” Ben replied, realizing it was true. Sex slavery indeed. He was about eight years too old to be viable on any black market.

Jace led them up a couple flights of stairs, pulled out his keys, and unlocked a door.

“You’re staying here?” Ben asked, starting to feel excited.

“You could say that.” He opened the door and a familiar ball of grey fur appeared in the entryway.

“Samson!” Ben said in disbelief, reaching down to let the cat smell his hand. He looked up to see more that was familiar. Along with the cardboard boxes stacked in the hallway were souvenirs from Jace’s travels hanging on the wall and the old-fashioned coat rack with the jacket that Jace had worn on their first date.

“No!” Ben said, finally catching on. “No freaking way! You live here now?”

“Since last week,” Jace said in apologetic tones. “I wanted to have everything set up to surprise you, but then I was called away for work and--”

“You’re so stupid!” Ben said affectionately. “I can’t believe you moved here!”

“After this summer I realized it would be too hard to be apart from you,” Jace confessed, pulling Ben toward him. “I hope this doesn’t freak you out.”

“What about your work?”

“Well, you know. It doesn’t really matter where I live with my job.”

“It does if you want to fly international,” Ben said. Austin’s airport was technically international, but didn’t have nearly as many connections as Houston.

“I’ll figure something out,” Jace said with a shrug.

“I love you,” Ben said, meaning it now more than ever.

“I love you, too. Sorry about being so dense.”

“It’s all right. Show me the apartment.”

Jace gave him the grand tour, or rather Samson did. The cat led them from room to room, head and tail held high. The apartment was the standard two-bedroom affair common in such complexes, but already personal touches were evident: fortune cookie wrappers, toy mice, the smell of Jace’s aftershave in the bathroom along with the endless supply of hotel shampoos and soaps he always brought home.

“This is the best part,” Jace said, tugging open the sliding door that led out to the balcony. “Samson loves this. I couldn’t get him to come in the first night.”

Ben leaned over the railing, taking in the uninspiring courtyard below. Jace came from behind and wrapped his arms around him. “So how’s school?” he asked.

“I finally chose my major.”

“And?”

“English lit.”

Jace barked in laughter, and when Ben turned around he saw a smirk on his face.

“What?”

“It just so happens that I have a degree in English lit.”

“Really?” Ben was surprised that he had never asked before.

“Yup.” Jace nodded. “What do you plan on doing with it?”

Ben grasped for any of the ideas he’d had over the last few weeks, but all avoided his intoxicated mind.

“Exactly,” Jace winked.

“Oh no!” Ben said in mock horror. “Am I going to end up a stewardess, too?”

“Ha, ha,” Jace responded flatly. “I don’t think you have the temperament for it.”

“Seriously though, do you think I should change it? I guess I figured it was a nice general degree. I could write for a newspaper, teach, edit… things. Oh man, I don’t have a clue.”

“It’s okay,” Jace said reassuringly. “Most people have a degree that doesn’t match their eventual professions. A degree is mostly just a piece of paper proving that you’ve made it through boot camp. Your employer will glance at it and never give it a second thought, if they even ask to see it.”

“I still feel like I should know what I want to do,” Ben sighed.

“What do you like best?”

“Singing, but we’ve been over that before.” The problem was, Ben didn’t see how he could make a career out of singing. He had no illusions of becoming a pop star. He didn’t enjoy composing or performing in a choir. What did that leave, singing telegrams?

“It will all fall into place,” Jace said confidently. “You’ll see.”

* * * * *

With Jace now living in Austin, Ben was home so infrequently that Allison was threatening to get a new roommate. Eventually he invited her over to house-sit during one of Jace’s absences, which helped appease her. Soon afterwards, academic insanity swept up both of them again. Allison’s major was in psychology, since she now planned on being a counselor. Her workload made Ben’s look light in comparison. He began to spend more time at home again, helping to clean up and cooking for her since she rarely ate properly otherwise.

Ben and Jace celebrated their one year anniversary on Christmas Eve and recreated their first date as best they could a few days later. Ben took on a teacher’s assistant position in the second semester, feeling it would look good on his resume. After a couple of nervous lectures he fell into the routine and began to actually enjoy it, but it was a constant challenge, especially since the professor would often leave the class in Ben’s not-so-capable hands.

Spring break was once again met with a surprise trip from Jace, this time to Berlin. Unlike Italian, Jace didn’t speak a lick of German, which meant that they were often lost and found themselves in embarrassing situations that left them clutching their stomachs with laughter.

Jace promised that these trips would become a yearly tradition. Ben requested Paris next, but Jace shook his head, insisting that Paris would have to be a very special occasion. The gleam in his eye promised that he intended to one day propose to Ben there. From then on, whenever the subject of marriage came up, they referred to it as “visiting Paris.”

The following year Jace took Ben to London. Of the three trips so far, this was Ben’s favorite. Big Ben was haunting at night, Westminster Abby impressive, and Madam Tussaud’s unintentionally creepy, but the shopping really made the trip for him. They shopped everywhere, from the Portobello flea market to the stores along Oxford Street.

All of these vacations held another meaning for Ben, for each one reminded him just how much he cared for Jace. With all of life’s daily distractions stripped away, he rediscovered his love for his boyfriend with every subsequent trip. More and more, Ben felt very certain that he wanted to “visit Paris” with him.

The return from London brought a somber mood. With spring break out of the way, only a small stretch of time was left before both Ben and Allison graduated. Dreams of the far future gave way to the more pressing matter of the present. The biggest question was: Where next?

Cut free from the university, they could seek out work in any city or state they desired. Their many choices were overwhelming. Jace was an important part of this equation, but his work was so flexible that it had very little influence on Ben’s decision. He almost wished that Jace’s job would force them to stay in one particular city so that the choice was no longer his to make.

“I think I’ve decided,” Allison announced.

“What?” Ben snapped. She wasn’t supposed to decide! He wasn’t ready for that yet. Their frequent brainstorming sessions in coffee shops weren’t meant to deliver results. They were supposed to delay the making of actual decisions with circular conversations that never went anywhere.

“I’ve decided,” Allison repeated. She sipped her cappuccino and gazed out the café window as if she could already see her own future. “There’s nothing left for me in Houston. No family, obviously, and I’ve lost touch with all my high school friends except you. No, there’s no point in me going back.”