“We’ve been together for so long now (well,’ so long in gay years’ … eight, to be exact…) that all our friends refer to us like it’s one word: Felixandbill.

I was invited to attend a Summer barbecue given by some friends – I didn’t really want to go. It was a SUPER hot, humid day and air-conditioning seemed like a better idea, but I went. As I stood in the kitchen prepping ingredients for salsa, i looked up to see two men walk in and I immediately made eye-contact with the younger of the two. I thought “Hmmm… some New York snob and his boy-toy” and continued chopping cilantro.

As the night wore on, I soon found out that they merely arrived at the same time and the ‘boy-toy’ was not only the same age as myself but lived in an apartment  in my town on the same street! We talked for hours that night and kept ‘accidentally/not accidentally’ running into one another in town until one afternoon he showed up on my front porch with a bottle of wine and a grin from ear to ear. “Are we ever going to have a date?” he asked, ‘How’s now work for you?” was my reply.

Eight years, one cat and one large mortgage later, here we are. The New York snob? We never even got his name…”