I’d like to speak to the manager.

The first time I ever had chicken fried steak was in Memphis, Texas. Adam and I had driven from NYC to Memphis, Texas to see his family. It was a two-day drive (should have been three) that started in an intense snow storm.

If you’ve never had chicken fried steak, it is a thin cut of beef, pounded even thinner, coated in flour then pan fried, and finished with cream gravy. When done right, you should be able to cut the steak with your fork. It should also be melt in your mouth delicious.

I can still remember that day clear as anything. It was coldish, and we parked in the city square where Gloria’s restaurant was located. We got out of the car and walked toward the front door. Adam put his hand on my back and told me I was going to love it. We walk in and someone from across the restaurant says, “Hey, are you Kelly’s boy? I haven’t seen you in forever.” Adam waved and said that he was. We were told to sit where we wanted.

We grabbed a table near the middle of the restaurant, that was open. There were several other tables occupied by people enjoying a midday lunch of Texas home cooked comfort food. We looked at the menus, and Adam said he didn’t need a menu, he was getting country fried steak. I told him I was going to get the same, as I’d never had it. He assured me this would be one of the best versions I’d ever had.

A waitress came over and got our order. Two country fried steaks, and two Diet Cokes. She takes the menu and Adam gently reaches out for my hand. He squeezes it and I squeeze his back in return. We sit there talking as I look around.

It is a very simple café, no frills. Plain tables. Paper napkins. In the back of the restaurant, sat a very thin older woman, taking a drag off a cigarette. It had been a long time since I’d been in a restaurant that allowed smoking. For all I knew that might have been Gloria herself.

We sit there holding hands as he tells me what the rest of the afternoon will look like. We are going to see his cousins. He’s going to drive me around and show me the town he grew up in. And we are going to go a little further out of town and he’ll show me the house they built when he was a really little.

I wish I could say, I was relaxed and comfortable during this conversation. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I was holding a man’s hand in a VERY small, very conservative Texas town. Were we going to get beaten up?

Here’s the thing that straight people don’t deal with that the LGBT community does. Internalized homophobia. The paralyzing fear that someone might find out your deepest darkest secret.

As I tell this story, I was 43. I’d been mostly out my whole adult life. I first came out in Atlanta in 1987. But even then, there were people who didn’t know. I was secretive in my professional life. I was secretive with my parents. And I certainly wasn’t walking around holding anyone’s hand.

Yes, I said my parents. I didn’t hide the fact that I was gay from my parents. I also didn’t share the truth either. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment, with several boyfriends. My parents came to share meals at these homes. There were Advocate magazines on the coffee table. There was a rainbow postcard on my fridge. We just didn’t talk about it.

Adam was shocked when he learned this. About four weeks into us dating, he told me that we couldn’t move forward if I didn’t tell my mom about him. I wanted to ask him why.

I loved my mother as much as I could. But she was not interested in my life. She barely knew what classes I had taken in high school, let alone what I was doing in grad school. Our phone calls consisted of how’s the weather, how’s everyone doing, have you talked to so and so, and when are you coming home. She really didn’t need to know that I had a new boyfriend.

Adam was adamant.

A week before Valentine’s Day in 2009, while standing in Hell’s Kitchen on the Upper West Side, on Eighth Avenue, I told my mother I was gay. I told my her I had a date with a boy on Valentine’s Day. His name was Adam. That I liked him a lot. She was non plussed. She wasn’t surprised, but I wouldn’t say she was interested either. We talked for a few more minutes and then we hung up. That was done, I could keep my new boyfriend.

The other thing that Adam did, which I had never done before, was hold my hand everywhere we went. Walking down the street. In the grocery store. On the subway.

And eventually, in Memphis, Texas.

To say I was self-conscience, is an understatement. I learned to hold my breath and just go with it. I was convinced that we were going to get beaten up any minute. But it never happened and as the years passed, I stopped giving a fuck. About people knowing in my professional life, and about holding my boyfriend’s hand.

Now we hold hands everywhere. In the airport. In the mall. At dinner in a restaurant. In Kentucky and even in Texas. I keep my fingers crossed that we’ll never get beaten up.

I now love that he unconsciously reaches for my hand. That whenever we are together, whether at home or in public, that I’m only a few seconds away from him reaching for me. It’s comforting and loving. It’s one of the things I like most about him.

There we sat holding hands at Glorias, in Memphis Texas, when our waitress arrived with two chicken fried steaks. It was beyond delicious. I never picked up my knife, the fork cut right through it. The steak was tender. The breading was perfect. And the cream gravy might have been the best I’d ever had.

We ate, continuing to talk about what our time in Texas would look like. Holding hands the whole while.

Adam’s and my relationship is not perfect. Is anyone’s. But he’s made me a better man. And he’s done a lot to eradicate my internalized homophobia. At 61, I don’t much give a fuck anymore. If the sight of two middle aged, well one middle aged, one old man, holding hands upsets you, I really think you need to reevaluate your life.

Because at the end of the day…LOVE IS LOVE.

And sometimes it comes with a serving of the best chicken fried steak you’ve ever had, covered in white gravy.

Today’s prompt was gravy.