Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

that he couldn't just go along with this? Last year Jacob went to the Segal house and ate a little and made his mother happy. And then he came home to Daniel. Why couldn't that be enough this year?
    Daniel wished he had the answer to that question. Because this year if Jacob walked out that door to spend the holiday with people who pretended Daniel didn't exist, he thought it might be the last straw. Maybe when Jacob came home, Daniel wouldn't be there.
    He yanked off his apron and tossed it on the counter. "I have to walk."
    "What?" Jacob reached for him as he went past and Daniel dodged aside.
    "Don't worry. I'll be back." He strode to the door and unlocked it, not even stopping for his coat.
    Jacob stood irresolutely in the kitchen doorway, as if he wanted to follow and didn't quite dare. "It's cold out there Daniel."
    "And icy. I know." He glared at Jacob. "So don't you dare follow me. You know you don't do well on ice with your leg."
    Jacob startled. Daniel felt a little glow of shameful satisfaction. They never talked about the leg. Daniel was good at never seeming to notice when Jacob was limping. But maybe it was time to drag everything out into the open.
    He ducked out the door, pulling it shut behind him, and clattered down the stairs. The hallway smelled heavily of cabbage and onions again. Mrs. Dankowsky must have been cooking up a storm. He and Jacob had been saving money for a house, hoping to move soon.
    Daniel strode through the lobby and pulled open the outer door. There were good reasons for Jacob to want to keep his job, for sure. The money was for both of them. And really Daniel didn't want to separate Jacob from his family. He wasn't sure why this Thanksgiving together felt so vitally necessary.
    It was cold indeed. It didn't take many steps for Daniel to regret the impetuousness that had kept him from taking the time to grab his coat. But still he didn't turn back. There was a small park down the street. It was just a scrubby little lot with a weed-choked lawn and a few bushes. But in that park there was a bench under the boughs of an old elm tree. Sometimes Daniel needed to sit there for a while.
    The slats of the bench were hard under his thighs, and the chill quickly seeped through his clothing. The streetlight barely lit the park and the tree branches moved in hushed waves against the dim sky. Daniel's mind went back to that night in the Pacific Ocean before he found Trip. In that long dark nightmare of fear and loneliness and pain, he had known everything would be all right if he could just find Jacob. So how could he be thinking about leaving him?
    And yet how could he stay? He'd been telling the truth when he said he'd put Jacob first. He'd neglected his family and not even gone to the job interview he'd been promised in San Francisco. And when his father's reaction over the phone, after a moment of being glad he'd made it home alive, was to say he hoped Daniel was over the queer nonsense, Daniel hadn't hesitated. Jacob had been worth giving up all the rest. It hurt like hell to think he wasn't worth the same to Jacob.
    So were things really bad enough to leave the man? Daniel clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering and wrapped his arms around himself. He'd told Jacob how much being put in second place hurt him. Did it have to be an ultimatum? Standing in front of two homemade pies, it had felt like the end of the world if Jacob turned him down. But it wasn't. The end of the world was when he'd thought there was no more Jacob in it. Nothing was worse than losing Trip.
    Daniel's throat tightened and a sob rocked his chest. God, he was a fool. Sitting here in the dark on an icy park bench, crying because his man wasn't willing to let his whole life go to hell. That just showed that Jacob was sensible, right? Thinking ahead to the plans they'd made. Plans which did depend on Jacob keeping that job and his salary, and maybe rising to be store manager soon.
    So maybe he and Jacob weren't quite on even footing. Probably a lot of relationships were like that. There was always someone who gave a bit more to keep things cheerful. He could do that. He didn't have to leave Jacob just to make some stupid point when he would probably never find any man willing to meet him exactly halfway. He shivered, the chatter of his teeth not quite hiding another sob.
    He should go back and tell Jacob...
    A coat warm with body heat wrapped around his shoulders. "You damned fool," Jacob murmured, sitting