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Edwin’s brow creased. “Did you hurt yourself?” he asked. “How’s your knee?”

“Oh, no, I’m fine. And—and my knee is fine.” Blushing, Andrew laughed and shook his head. “I’m back to my usual clumsy self, it seems.”

Edwin lifted his hand to cup Andrew’s cheek, and his eyes filled with what looked like both worry and care while he caressed it.

“Be more careful. Please.”

Andrew smiled at him. “I’ll try to be.”

Someone cleared their throat. Edwin immediately whirled around to face the hallway entrance. Not six feet from where he and Andrew had been being lovey with each other stood a woman who must have been Edwin’s mother. Andrew’s stomach curdled, and he cursed himself for being so uncoordinated. Just outside, Edwin had asked Andrew that they be discreet, but thanks to Andrew’s clumsiness, they’d been anything but.

Edwin let out a noticeably shaky breath.

“Mother, this is Andrew,” he said, moving aside. “Andrew, this is my mother, Mrs. Grace Beasley.”

Andrew shifted the bulk of his weight from one foot to the other and considered whether or not he ought to apologize for his and Edwin’s closeness.

Edwin’s mother shuffled forward, closer to Andrew and, after a pause, she wrapped her arms around him. Andrew froze. His eyes found Edwin’s, which were wide with surprise, the man’s shocked and confused expression likely mirroring Andrew’s own.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Andrew,” she said. “Edwin has seemed so much happier lately.”

“I-it’s lovely to meet you as well, Mrs. Beasley,” Andrew stammered as they parted. He forced a smile, though he still felt a bit like collapsing in on himself. “Thank you for, uhm, the hug. And the food. Even though we haven’t eaten yet. But I’m sure I’ll like it. I’m not picky. Not that I think someone who is picky wouldn’t like whatever it is that you cooked.” He cringed. “Sorry.”

Mrs. Beasley laughed heartily. “Oh, yes, I can see why Edwin is fond of you.”

She turned to her son, patted his cheek twice, and reminded him that the food was ready before walking off.

Once she was gone, Edwin and Andrew only stared at each other for a few seconds. Andrew was just too shocked and frazzled to move.

“Enough lovesick stares, you two,” Agnes said, pushing past them. “Soon I’ll be too nauseated to eat.”

Seemingly free from that moment of stupor, Edwin reached out and shoved her forward a step. Agnes only laughed haughtily and continued walking down the hall.

Edwin and Andrew followed the women into the kitchen.

The forty-five minutes that followed were so pleasant, so ordinary, that Andrew had trouble believing they were real. How incredible it was that Edwin’s family could behave so normally toward their son, even knowing he had the inclinations he did, and especially knowing that their son’s love interest was sitting with them, eating dinner. Several times throughout the meal, Andrew found himself pressing his fingernails into the skin on the back of his hand, hoping the pain might serve as confirmation that he wasn’t imagining things. It was practically unfathomable that Mrs. Beasley could love her son so much as to overlook something that society on the whole considered so unforgivable. Andrew’s mother, on the other hand, hadn’t even blinked at throwing her son out on his rear end when she had found out the exact same information about him.

Sharing a meal with Edwin’s loving and open-minded family had Andrew’s heart simultaneously swelling from elation and cracking from grief, as selfish as that probably was. While Andrew was happy for Edwin, he couldn’t help but be sad for himself, for why had his own mother’s love been so brittle while Edwin’s mother’s love remained so strong?

Andrew was lost in his melancholic thoughts for a large part of the meal, and his unease remained even once the meal was over. After everyone finished eating, Agnes insisted that Edwin and Andrew leave the cleanup to her and enjoy some time alone together. Mrs. Beasley wholeheartedly concurred, shooing them away with a whip of a dish towel. After only a bit of protest, Edwin began leading Andrew up to his bedroom.

But Andrew’s thoughts were faraway, stuck in the now-haunted memories of pleasant Thompson family meals of yesteryear as he ascended the stairs. When they reached the second-floor hallway, Edwin grabbed Andrew’s hand, and the affection helped soothe some of Andrew’s lingering emotional pain.

“I knew my mother would love you,” Edwin said. “I honestly thought it would be a while before she made peace with the idea of me being with a man, but I knew that, once she had, whenever it was, she’d love you. I mean, how could she not?” He stopped in front of a closed door and raised Andrew’s hand to his lips, planting a firm kiss on Andrew’s knuckles. “Would you like to stay for a while?”

“I’d like that very much,” Andrew said. Hopefully Edwin didn’t notice the tightness in his voice. “As long as your mother won’t mind.”

“She wouldn’t have sent us up here if she did,” Edwin said with a grin.

He opened the door. Andrew followed him inside, and a smile crept across his face as he took in the décor. It was a fairly empty bedroom, save for a chest of drawers for clothes, a small bookcase, a bed, and an oval table with a chair. On the table were spools of thread as well as a tomato-shaped pin cushion. These might have looked out of place in some men’s bedrooms but made sense for Edwin since he sometimes helped Agnes fulfill her seamstress orders. Imagining Edwin meticulously repairing a piece of clothing or even creating one from bulk shipments of fabric made Andrew’s chest warm and his smile broaden. Edwin was such a careful person. His punctilious nature probably made him suited to that sort of work. Andrew wondered if he liked it.

While Andrew was busy wandering and wondering, Edwin circled around in front of him. Both men raised their hands and pressed their palms to one another’s. Then, Edwin rose up onto the balls of his feet and planted a kiss on Andrew’s lips. Andrew let out a lovesick sigh, and Edwin lowered his heels back to the ground. Edwin’s eyes fell to their linked hands, and he frowned.

“Your cuff is torn,” he said.

“Is it?” Andrew took his hand away and inspected the end of his sleeve. “You’re right, it is.”

“Do you want me to fix it for you?” Edwin asked. “It won’t take long.”