In the morning, Sam asked Toby if, like Nick, he'd like to go to breakfast somewhere out at the beach. Toby thought it a fine idea.

They found a place along PCH, which was what the locals-and Sam-called the Pacific Coast Highway. The place had a deck overlooking the ocean and served an excellent sirloin burger. "I hope," Toby said, trying one of the French fries, "that Nick's boys take him to a place as good as this one."

"That was kind of sad, wasn't it? He didn't say so in so many words, but I got the impression that his wife didn't have much to do with their son."

"Alaina. That's the wife. It must be hard, having divided loyalties like that."

"I think it would be very hard to live with."

When they got back in the car, Toby asked what Sam had in mind for the day.

"Well, you know, I've been thinking. I want to go back to the house and check something. Then..." he spread his hands, "well, we'll find something to do."

"Okay, then. I want to stop at a drug store before we get to the house. I want to get a disposable camera."

"Oh. I thought maybe all those French fries upset your stomach."

Toby gave him a look.

At the house, Sam asked what he wanted to photograph.

"You. On the diving board. Naked."

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"It's for Dan. You know, Tom and Dan next door? He's so enamored of that picture of you..."

"But he took another one. At their place, remember?"

Toby shook his head. "But this will be the real thing. The same place the first one was taken."

Sam sighed. "Okay, if you want to spread pictures of my dick around. Let's get it done."

"It's not like I'm going to put them out on the Internet, Sam. Although..."

They went out into the garden, and Sam took off his clothes. "You gotta get naked, too, you know. I need inspiration."

So Toby got undressed, too. Then, Sam climbed up on the diving board and stood, as if he was nearly ready to dive. Toby took pictures from several angles and distances because he couldn't quite remember just where the first picture had been taken.

When he was finished, Sam took the camera. "Okay, now you get up there, and I'll take a couple of you. I'm not the only one Dan has the hots for, you know.

After he'd taken a couple of shots he put the camera down on a table and sat in one of the chairs that still had its cushion. He waved Toby over.

"Stand right here," he said. "A little closer."

Then he grabbed Toby by the buns, pulled him into his face and took his dick into his mouth.

It was one of those blow jobs one doesn't think about often enough. It was hard, fast and explosive, and it didn't take five minutes. When it was over he stood and kissed Toby. "I just had to do that," he said. "You were so... so sexy standing up there on that diving board. I couldn't help myself."

"You were pretty sexy yourself, Sam, but I have better self-control." He spit into his hand and wet Sam's dick. "However..." He dropped onto a lounge chair-on his belly.

Sam knew what to do, and he did it well.

When they were dressed again Toby asked Sam what it was he wanted to do next.

"Well, I got to thinking last night. I wondered if anyone thought to clean out the safe in the library. So come on, let's go see."

In the library, Sam took one of the pictures down, a picture that Toby was pretty sure was a William Keith. Behind the picture was an old-fashioned wall safe, like in the movies. Sam opened it and laughed. "I guess not," he said, reaching in and then handing Toby a pack of hundred-dollar bills. Being the accountant he was, Toby counted them.

"Ten thousand," Toby said. "Why did you have ten thousand dollars in cash in there?"

"Didn't," Sam said. "Fifty thousand." He shrugged. "What can I tell you? Harry had a thing for cash. Stick that in your pocket and give it to your dad tonight. Tell him to take your mother someplace nice." He closed and locked the safe.

In the car, Sam said, "If we're going to sell that place, we have to come back and go through everything, every cupboard, every drawer, every cabinet. Look for cash."

"You mean Harry hid more cash around the house?"

"He didn't exactly hide it, Toby. More like he just put it there, sometimes in plain sight. He just had to have cash around. I think it was because of the Great Depression. He had to have money where he could put his hands on it."

They spent the rest of the day in West Hollywood. After a light lunch, they walked around, looking in the shops, admiring the men and generally enjoying the feeling of being in the center of a gay neighborhood. They went back to the hotel around five to shower, pleasure each other and get ready for dinner with Toby's folks.

On the way to Toby's parents, Sam asked, "Are you sure you want to do this, to introduce me to your parents?"

"Why not? I'm married to you, aren't I?"

"Yes, but you know, I'm probably the same age as they are. Isn't that going to be a problem? At least for them?"

Toby shook his head. "If it's a problem for them, well, it's their problem, not ours." He turned on the seat so he could look directly at Sam. "Just be your normal charming self and everything will be fine. Trust me on this."

When Toby rang the doorbell, his mother opened the door so quickly that it was fairly obvious she'd been waiting, probably looking out through the peephole. Toby hugged her and introduced Sam. A slight look of dismay crossed her face, but she quickly hid it and extended her hand.

Inside, Toby introduced his father, who didn't wipe the dismay off his face quite as quickly as his wife had. He extended his hand anyway.

They all sat in an awkward silence for a moment before Toby said, "Why don't you open your present, Mom?"

She took the box and held it carefully on her lap. "I don't think I've ever had a present from Tiffany's. It's almost too pretty to open."

But open it she did and was thrilled with the Revere bowl. "It's so... I don't know, classical, I guess, is the word. Thank you, both of you."

Toby looked at his watch and said, "We should probably go. There's a lot of traffic out there tonight."

They took Sam's car, but Toby drove, since he knew where he was going. His mother sat next to him, and Sam sat with his father in the back seat.

"Toby tells me you work for an insurance company, Mr. Litchfield. It must be interesting work."

"Sometimes," Toby's dad answered. "For one thing, it's title insurance, and searching titles can be interesting." He paused for a moment and then laughed. "But mostly it's boring. Same old thing over and over. What do you do?"

"Well, uh, at the moment I'm restoring a Mid-Century Modern house, with Toby's help."

Mr. Litchfield considered that for a moment. "You going to turn it? Must be good profits in work like that if you know what you're doing."

"No, sir. We're going to live in it."

It took a moment for the ramifications of that to sink in.

At the same time, in the front seat, Mrs. Litchfield was being a little more direct. "He's a little older than you, isn't he?"

"A little," Toby answered. Nineteen years, to be exact. He's forty-five."

Under her breath she said, almost to herself, "Almost my age." To Toby she said, "Are you sure about... this?"

Toby patted her on the knee. "Yes, Mom. More sure than I've ever been about anything."

At the restaurant they were seated right away. Sam had a moment of panic when Mrs. Litchfield ordered iced tea, but then Mr. Litchfield ordered bourbon on the rocks. When both he and Toby ordered Sapphire martinis, Mrs. Litchfield changed her mind and ordered a cosmopolitan.

They made small talk for a little while, discussing the menu and the wine list, then ordering. When the alcohol began its work, the talk, in an oblique sort of way, turned to Sam and Toby.

"So, Sam, you and my boy here are going to live together in that house you're doing?"

"Yes, sir. We are."

Mr. Litchfield took a sip of his bourbon. "Look, Sam, let's cut the sir crap. The name is Gill, and I'm not a hell of a lot older than you are, so just call me Gill, okay?"

Mrs. Litchfield went just a little pale and took a gulp of her cosmopolitan, but didn't say anything.

"Thank you, uh... Gill. I appreciate that."

Mr. Litchfield waved Sam's thanks aside and looked at his son. "You okay with this? You want to do it, live with him?" Toby nodded. "It's not going to be like with that other guy is it?"

"You mean Jack?"

"Yeah, him. This guy," he gestured at Sam, "isn't going to hurt you like Jack did, is he?" He turned back to Sam. "You see, Sam, Toby is my son. I don't always agree with him or even understand him, but no one's going to shit on him like that other guy did. Not if I can help it."

Mrs. Litchfield turned more pale but was saved from having to speak by the waiter who chose that moment to serve the salads. Sam caught the waiter's eye and gestured for another round of drinks. No one at the table objected.

They ate their salads in silence until the waiter brought the new drinks. Then Sam said, not to Mr. Litchfield but to the entire table, "My intentions toward your son, sir, are to love him, to honor him and to care for him. I intend to do that to the best of my abilities for as long as he will allow me to do so."

Mr. Litchfield snorted. "Sounds to me like you're marrying him, and you can't do that. At least not in California."

The busboy removed the salad plates, and the waiter immediate appeared with their main courses. He'd figured out that the cute young guy with the stubble on his cheeks was probably the son of the woman and the man with the bourbon, but he couldn't figure out where the other man fit in. Before he was finished serving the wine, Toby helped him out: "Yes, dad, he can marry me."

"Well, we can get close to it, anyway," Sam said by way of clarification. "The state denies us the right to marry, but it does allow us many of the same responsibilities and privileges."

Mrs. Litchfield took a deep breath. "It's called domestic partners, honey," she said to her husband. Looking back and forth between Toby and Sam, she asked, "Is that what you're planning? A... What do you call it? A domestic partnership?"

Toby sighed and put down his fork. "It's a done deal, mom. Thursday." He looked back and forth between his parents. "You have a son-in-law named Sam."

Mr. Litchfield looked at Toby with hard eyes. "You wanted this? To... whatever it is... with this man?"

Toby's eyes never wavered. "Yes. I love him. More importantly, I also like him."

Mr. Litchfield put down his fork and finished his wine. When Sam refilled the glass he looked up and smiled at him. "You'll really do that? Love him and honor him and take care of him? Forever?"

"I will."

"Then I'll be happy to call you son-in-law." He looked at his wife. "And you, honey? What do you think?"

She ran her hand over her eyes. "It's a lot to take in so suddenly. But yes." She looked at Toby. "You'll do the same? For him?"

"I will."

She turned to Sam. "Then welcome to the family, son-in-law." She seemed about to burst into tears but managed to control herself. "I think I'd like another drink."

After dessert, complete with celebratory champagne, Sam said, "If you're ready, they probably need the table." He stood, and the rest followed suit.

On the way out, Toby's father, walking next to him, said quietly, "Are we stiffing them for the bill?"

Toby laughed and assured him that they weren't. "It's Sam's way. He doesn't like having a bill presented at the table, at least not when it's a celebration."

Outside, while they were waiting for the car, the manager came up to them and thanked them, saying he hoped to see them more often. He sounded truly sincere.

In the car, Toby sat in back with his father, while his mother sat up front with Sam.

"Thank you, Dad. Thank you with all my heart."

"For what?"

"For loving me the way you do. For raising me the way you did. For understanding."

Mr. Litchfield turned in the seat and looked at his son. "Toby, I don't pretend to understand you; hell, I don't even know what you guys do to each other-and I don't want to know-but if he...," he nodded at the front seat, "if he means what he says and he makes you happy, well, that's thanks enough."

Toby took a small wrapped package out of his inside coat pocket and handed it to his father. "Sam wants you to take Mom someplace nice. No, don't open it now-when you get home."

When Sam and Toby got back to their hotel, Sam put his hand on Toby's shoulder and said, "It's been a rich night, and I, for one, am a bit wound up. Let's go into the bar and have a brandy."

Toby covered Sam's hand with his own. "How come you always know what I'm thinking?"

They sat at the bar and ordered cognac; when they were served, they toasted each other in the mirror and drank, each lost in the events of the evening. It had, indeed, been a rich evening.

"Hi, men. May I join you?" It was Nick, from the previous night.

Shaken out of their reveries, they both nodded. They abandoned the bar in favor of a small table and ordered more cognac.

"Well, Nick," Sam said after they were settled, "you been out with your boys?"

Nick smiled proudly. "Yeah. They took me to their house and made dinner. You know, that Jon is a hell of a cook. Made a peach pie that was truly wonderful. He even made the ice cream to go with it." He took a sip of his cognac and smiled appreciatively. "It's no wonder Buster is putting on a little pot."

Sam smiled. "There's a sure cure for that," he said. "Tell him he needs to double his time in the gym. And not in the showers or the steam room, either. On the machines. I speak from experience."

Nick nodded at Toby. "He a good cook, too?"

"The best. And when we started living together, I had to do what I just said. I doubled my time on the machines, and it worked." He looked down his belly. "Well, almost."

Toby laughed. "And here I thought it was my low-calorie meals."

"Found out what they want to be called. Like you two, they think of themselves as partners. They're registered, too. Just like they were married." This last was said with an approving smile.

Sam said, "You really ought to make sure Alaina knows that. Sometimes it makes a big difference to a woman." He shrugged. "I don't know why, but it does."

"Good idea," Nick said, "good idea. Let her know they're serious about being together." He took a sip of his cognac and fumbled in his pocket. "Almost forgot." He produced a card. "I told Buster and Jon about meeting you last night, about our talk. They said they'd like to meet you, so they asked me to give you this."

He handed over the card, which turned out to be a calling card complete with a little map on the back.

"That there is their e-mail address," Nick said, pointing. "Maybe you could send them a note or something? I know they'd like it."

Toby pocketed the card. "Sure, Nick, we'll do that. Maybe they'll be able to come down to Palm Springs."

Nick nodded. "Jon said they go down there sometimes. When it's cold here." He shook his head. "Though, I can't imagine it being cold here." He looked back at them. "So what'd you guys do tonight?"

Toby explained about having dinner with his parents. Sam chimed in with, "And, as you may have noticed, I'm a bit older than he is, and that got a little sticky."

"But you met the challenge," Toby said with a proud smile. Then, turning to Nick, "They took him into the family. They now have a son-in-law, which I'm sure they never expected to have."

Nick seemed deep in thought. "I guess I didn't either." He brightened. "But I do, and I owe it to you men that I now realize it." He indicated their glasses. "May I?"

"We'd be pleased."

They sat for another half hour, sipping their drinks and talking about the pitfalls of both being a son-in-law and a father-in-law. In the end they felt closer to one another.

Sam and Toby were unusually quiet on their way back to Palm Springs the next morning, at least until Redlands, when Sam put his hand on Toby's thigh and said, "Well, my love, it's certainly been a heady three days, hasn't it?"

Toby laughed. "Almost more than I could take in." He turned to look directly at Sam. "Do you suppose it'll last? Oh, not the part about us; that'll last forever, I think. I mean my folks. I wonder if, right now, they're having second thoughts about welcoming us into the family."

"They might have second thoughts," Sam said, "but you're their son. Somehow that'll make it all okay. Even the part about me. They'll balk at it a little, I suppose, but in the end, they'll be just fine with it."

They stopped at the house on the way into town but found that it was locked up, and Sam hadn't thought to bring his key along. They did note that the wall had been given the finish stucco coat, and the plaque with the house name, Devá Shaante, had been set in it. "Home of the gods," Sam mused. "Perhaps it will be so." They stood for a long moment, looking at the plaque, unconsciously holding hands.

"Well," Sam said after a time, "let's go see if Tom and Dan are around. Maybe we can talk them out of a drink."

Tom and Dan were indeed around and were all too happy to offer drinks. They were also observant enough to notice the new rings.

"Well, well," Tom said, taking Sam's hand in his and touching the ring. "I assume, since this matches the one Toby's wearing, that they mean something?"

Toby nodded. "We became partners. Signed the papers and everything. Best thing we ever did."

"Best thing we ever did-but scary, too," Sam added.

Toby laughed. "He exaggerates, Tom. The scary thing we did was to have dinner with my folks."

"Now that I got to hear about," said Dan, so Toby told the story, to everyone's amusement, including his own.

When he was finished, Sam said that they'd stopped by to see the house but, as it was locked up...

Tom interrupted. "Yeah, Bill thought it was time. But we have a key if you want to see what they've done."

A lot had been done. Most of the sheetrock was up, and the interior doors had been hung. Tom observed, "About time to pick out some colors and maybe buy some furniture, huh?"

"That's Toby's department," Sam said. "If it was up to me I'd paint everything white and have some store fill the place with stuff to sit on." He glanced at Toby. "And a bed. A big bed."

Toby laughed. "But he's not going to do that." He turned, "Are you, Sam?"

Sam thrust out his hands, palms up. "It would never cross my mind." He smiled at Tom and Dick, "Even if I thought I could get away with it."

They were invited to stay for dinner but declined, saying they were anxious to get home. Actually, though it was never spoken, they were both anxious to get to the Sunday cocktail party around the pool and show off their new rings.

The first people they ran into at the pool were Howard and Duane, who noticed the rings right away and immediately knew what they meant.

"Well, I do believe congratulations are in order," Duane said as soon as he saw them. "Look, Howard. We have newlyweds in our midst."

Clark and Jeff, who were standing nearby, came over to see, and before they knew it, Sam and Toby were surrounded with well-wishers and, they realized later, a couple of cases of jealousy. It was all very satisfying.

At home, Toby checked for e-mail at each of the sites they had put Zach on. There were a couple of messages, but none of them appeared to be from Martin. "It's been long enough that we should check this daily," Toby said. "After all, we don't want to let our man get away."