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We stared at each other as it all unfolded. There was pressure against my ankle, and it took me a second to realize he was trying desperately to nudge me under the table. To relay some sort of message to me. I didn’t need to hear it. Whatever that message was, it didn’t matter. Sarah had ripped the ring away from him like it was some sort of carnival prize. She was staring down at her hand like he’d just given her the world. And I suppose he had.My world.The one he was supposed to save.Just for me.Because we were always going to end up here, weren’t we? From the moment I saw him at Shooters that first night, we’d both felt it. Our connection. The unyielding tether that stretched all the way from West Clark to Atlanta, never breaking. Not once. Because this was Gray. The boy who begged his mother to get me a dog because he knew I was hurting. The creator of a seventeen-point presentation detailing the reasons why Kate didn’t deserve my heart. He didn’t need a list. He was the only reason I ever needed.
She wasn’t even acknowledging him. It was all about the damn ring. And then, plans. Calls she’d need to make, an announcement in the newspaper’s weekend edition. Wedding dresses, hymns, catering. Nothing about Gray. She had a one-in-a-million guy, and she didn’t even care.
I had to get away from that table. Away from the joy radiating out of Sarah Thistle. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to hold it together if I didn’t. I ran out of the bar and into the parking lot. My stomach was spinning, and it was taking everything in me to hold down my liquor.
It hurt. Every goddamn thing about it hurt. We’d been playing with fire for months, knowing all it would take was one match to set the world around us alight. But even with all of that hurt, it was worth it. Even if I couldn’t have him anymore, I treasured this. Whoever you want to call it—God, the stars, fate—I thanked them. I praised them, even. For bringing him back to me. For letting me have those moments with him. I went into this knowing we would get burned. But, God, we’d burned so beautifully.
REASON TWELVE
I’ll be there anytime you need me.
“Thatguykeepsstaringat us.” Kate was sitting beside me at the bar. She was nursing her rum and Coke, minus the rum, and pointing at a cowboy with smoldering eyes across the bar. We were at Manhole, a gay bar in Cobb that was about forty-five minutes outside of West Clark. Kate and Rhonda had taken me out in hopes of lifting my spirits, but the only thing lifting that night was my agitation. My butt had been groped twenty-three times. Seven times by various men wearing see-through crop tops, the rest by Rhonda Macknemera.
I stared at the man who looked old enough to be my father. He had a handlebar mustache, eyebrows so long they could be braided, and he looked like something out of a tragic western movie from the seventies. His entire essence radiatedvile.Low-budget Sam Elliot held a beer bottle in one hand, and as our eyes met, he began jacking it off.
“Swear to God, if he comes over here, I’m calling the police. Look what he’s doing to that bottle.”
Rhonda nudged me with her shoulder. “Yes, but look what he could be doing to your dick.”
“Every syllable of that sentence offends me.” I scoffed at him and mouthedewwso that he knew I thought he was trash.
Sam chuckled and shook his head, pointing at Rhonda and blowing her a kiss.
“I wonder how many syllables he’s working with.” She raised her arm and waved at him like a psychopath. Great Value brand Sam Elliot matched her wave and raised her a wink. “Sweet Jesus, I think I’ve just turned him.” She looked at me with wide eyes. “I’ve just converted a gay man.” She paused. “I don’t know how I feel about that. You know that I don’t support reparative therapy, Kent-doll. I’m not gonna have the world thinking I’m some conversion pusher.” She lifted her hand and flipped Sam Elliot off. “You’re here, you’re queer, get used to it!” she shouted above the techno music.
I shook my head. “He could be bisexual.”
“Or he could just be lost,” Kate added. “We’re right next door to a liquor store. Maybe he’s just a wino looking for the employee restroom in the back of the store.”
“The possibilities are endless,” I agreed. “You’ll never know if you don’t ask him.” When she stood, I reared back my hand and smacked her ass, the same way she’d been doing with me all night. “Go get your man, Momma.” Rhonda squeaked before scurrying off, her cheeks burning red. When she was gone, Kate leaned her head on my shoulder.
“Alright, spill it.” Kate tipped back her drink, finishing the last of her rum-less Coke and setting the glass on the bar. “You’ve been moping all night. I’ve counted at least six men eye-fucking you, and you haven’t so much as smiled at one.”
“I’m not interested. I told you that before we left.”
“Yeah, but you’re being oddly secretive about why. Come on, Kent. You want me to be your best friend? You’re going to need to at least meet me halfway.”
“I’m pretty sure I was drunk when I asked you to be BFFs.”
“Be that as it may, Rhonda and I are pretty much the closest thing to friends that you’ve got, and Rhonda is literally mounting Mustache Man as we speak.”
Rhonda had one leg lifted above the man’s hip and was trying to climb him like a ladder.
“He proposed to her,” I said. Kate’s hand slid into mine, and I leaned over, resting my head against her. “It’s karma. I know that. For leading you on. For making him watch you jack me off when we were kids.”
She bolted up and away from my shoulder, banging my chin with her head. “For watching who what?” Her eyes were practically bulging out of her head.
“God, Kate. Keep up. He was sitting in the shadows that night, watching you give me a hand job. It was romantic.”
“How is that romantic?”
I gazed up at her with dreamy eyes. “He loved me enough to stalk me. It’s precious.”
“Nothing about that is precious.”
I arched an eyebrow and pointed at a man in a fedora and a pair of oversized sunglasses that would give Paris Hilton circa 2005 a run for her money. “How’s Jeff?” I turned back and stared at Kate. “He looks like the Night Stalker and you should both feel humiliated.”
“Probably,” she agreed, “but right now, I just want to walk over there and ride him like a bucking bronco.” She waved at Jeff. Jeff gave her a very bro-like nod. I rolled my eyes, trying to hold down my liquor.
