Vic & Matt

For Thanksgiving, Matt wants to take Vic home to meet his parents. While Vic isn't exactly looking forward to it, Matt's more nervous than he is. He's never brought anyone home before. Though his parents know he's gay, he isn't too sure how they'll react when they finally meet the man of his dreams-the heavily muscled, pierced and tattooed Vic Braunson.

Vic thinks it's just Matt's parents he'll meet. But when they arrive home, they find Matt's cousin Anna there with her three young children, all of whom take an instant liking to Vic. Then there's Mr. and Mrs. diLorenzo, who aren't quite sure what to make of their son's lover. And Matt's Nonna, his maternal grandmother, who tends to lapse into her native tongue without realizing it.

Imagine everyone's surprise when Vic answers her in flawless Italian.

Excerpt

A week before Thanksgiving, Matt diLorenzo said the one thing his lover Vic Braunson had been dreading to hear.

"I want you to meet my parents."

For all the miscellaneous lovers and hook-ups Vic had had in the past, never once had he been invited home with any of them. He'd never met any family member of anyone he'd gone out with -- not even a sibling, and sure as hell not a parent. The thought of sitting across from two people whose son he slept with on a regular basis and having them judge his every move terrified him. He knew he wasn't a catch in anyone's book, and he dreaded anything Matt's parents might say about him, in case they somehow changed his mind about loving him.

The year Vic and Matt met, when they were still in the touch-and-go stage of a friendship that was rapidly burning into something deeper, they had spent Thanksgiving apart. Presumably, Matt had visited his own family while Vic sat in the living room, a microwave dinner of turkey and dressing in his lap, as he watched sitcom reruns and tried to think of a way for them to move past the bonds of friendship into the scary territory of a real relationship. Matt had still been standoffish then, hesitant -- afraid to trust Vic with a secret he thought might tear them apart.

A secret Vic lived with now on a daily basis. The powers his lover gave him during sex.

The next year, their second Thanksgiving, they spent the holiday together. Funny how much could change in twelve months. They went from chaste dates that had never ended in anything more than a bad case of blue balls and a lingering kiss goodnight to Matt moving into Vic's small apartment and saturating every aspect of Vic's life. If Vic stopped to think of it, the quick yet seamless transition scared the shit out of him. It seemed like an idyllic dream, and at times Vic felt himself on the cusp of waking. Or perhaps it was more like a stage play, a grand production that kept Vic enthralled with wonder, but the curtain flapped against the backdrop and threatened to drop down, ending the run. Just after his lover had moved in, there had been times when Vic almost imagined he could see the curtain flicker, exposing his own stale, lonely life -- the life without Matt -- hiding in the wings.

When that happened, Vic dropped everything to set his world right again, and that meant making Matty happy.

As they grew together, those scary moments grew farther apart. By this time last year, Vic had grown used to the place Matt occupied in his life and his own role in the relationship. The holiday had been spent feeding each other across Vic's small dining room table and, later that evening, making slow love in a wine-induced haze that turned everything a rosy shade in his memory. Though Matt had warned him it wouldn't be their usual tradition -- his parents were on a holiday cruise that year, thus didn't invite them over for dinner -- Vic had blissfully allowed himself to forget that little fact.

Sideways Position

Excerpt

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