The emotions behind Ethan’s silence were more overwhelming than his new friend could possibly know.  He fought an urge to jump into the air and throw his fists toward the heavens and yell at the top of his lungs.   Here, sitting across from him, uncommitted and vulnerable, was a man as perfect as any that had ever walked the face of the earth, the very man he had lain awake staring at the night before.  Jhan had opened his heart and announced that he was gay.  It was all but impossible to believe.  Hands trembling, Ethan took a deep breath to calm down and reorder his thoughts, for within Jhan’s eyes was the need for assurance.   Ethan didn’t speak, he couldn’t.  Instead, he got up and came down close to him on his knee.  He reached up and ran his hand over Jhan’s blonde hair, letting it rest on the back of his head.   Relief spread over Jhan’s face.   Ethan looked deeply into his bright blue eyes, debating whether or not to tell him now. THE PARTISANS Read Chapter One

Jhan nodded, then turned and walked toward the living room.  Ethan pushed his britches down and stepped out of them and glanced toward the door.  Jhan had stopped and turned in the doorframe.  He was staring, distracted, like a man whose thoughts were a million miles away, yet somehow relevant to the image fixed in his gaze. Accustomed to being stared at, being something of an anomaly in Paris, Ethan had never been stared at when he was about to take a bath.  The moment stretched.  It felt awkward.  He couldn’t read Jhan’s thoughts, though the gaze could have been so easily misinterpreted.  But he knew better.  He had long ago learned the pitfalls of making assumptions about what a man might be thinking.  Must be my skin.  Not many black men in Germany, no doubt. THE PARTISANS Read Chapter One

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