PROLOGUE
TANNER
1 MONTH BEFORE DIVORCE IS FINAL
Mandatory Journal Entry #1
I feel ridiculous sitting at the kitchen table writing in a journal like I’m back in middle school, but therapist’s orders, and I’m nothing if not great at taking orders. Apparently this is supposed to help me work through everything. I’m not sure I believe it yet. Fallon already has a job lined up in her hometown and Briggs will be enrolled in kindergarten there. I’m fucking terrified of what happens next. Everything is changing—I’ve changed.
Coming out to my wife.
Soon to be divorced.
Getting out of the Air Force.
Moving across the country to coparent with my soon-to-be ex-wife.
Telling my parents I’m gay.
Leaving everything I know and not even knowing who I am.
What if I can’t do this?
The pen falls from my hand and lands softly on the table as my heart hammers in my chest. Seeing my fears listed in black and white is a special kind of hell I wasn’t prepared for. Everything will be fine.
But I have no way of knowing that.
And now it’s too late.
There’s nothing to do but keep moving forward.
Fuck.
1
DEACON
PRESENT DAY
It’s a beautiful day for a trip to the dog shelter. Do I need a dog?
No.
Am I interested in adopting one at this exact moment?
Also no.
But it happens to be the place I know I’ll find Tanner Holiday, and thisparticularSunday seems like a good time to ask him out.
Again.
A lesser man might have given up already, but there’s something about Tanner that lights me up inside. My presence alone seems to fluster him, the tips of his ears heating adorably whenever I walk into Vetted Paws.
The towns of Clementine Creek and Blackstone Falls, in our little corner of Tennessee, don’t make for a large pool of available gay men interested in settling down. Before, I would have driven farther outside of town, sometimes all the way to Nashville if I had an itch to scratch, but I’m staring down thirty-seven and I’m tired of the game.
With my brother settling down with his girl and a baby on the way, I think it’s high time I do too.
Taking a breath, I grab the coffees I picked up and push out of my truck, my boots crunching on the gravel parking lot. The sun is warm on my face as I make my way to the front door. Vetted Paws, with its white exterior and heavy iron sign, is the temporary home to dogs from all kinds of situations. Sorren and Tanner have worked tirelessly to match each animal with their forever person or family, and I witnessed it firsthand when my brother took home a silver lab with bright blue eyes named Dez.
