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He sat back against the booth, running a hand down his face, and for a long moment neither of us said anything at all. The diner noise seemed to swell up around us, dishes clattering, the bell over the door jingling as somebody came in, Dolly’s laugh carrying from behind the counter. All of it felt very far away.

“Rhett… I don’t want to lose you,” he said at last, the words music to my ears. “But I’m not sure I’m ready to leave just yet. We don’t have any damn money, anyway. There ain’t a single place we could go right now with the state we’re in.”

He was right, and I hated that he was right. I sat there with that truth settling heavy in my stomach, the same way it had settled a hundred times before whenever I let myself get too far down that road in my head. Money. It always came back to money.

“I know,” I said again, quieter this time. “I know we don’t got nothin’ saved up. That’s why I said I ain’t askin’ you to leave tonight. I’m just tellin’ you what’s been sittin’ in my head, so you don’t find out some other way and think I’ve been lyin’ to you about it.”

“You have been lyin’ to me about it,” he said, though there wasn’t any heat behind it. “Or not lyin’ exactly. Just... not sayin’ anything. Same thing you accused me of earlier this week.”

“I know.” I dragged both hands down my face, feeling about ten years older than I had an hour ago. “I’m sorry, West. I didn’t know how to bring it up without it soundin’ like I didn’t want you. And that ain’t it at all. You’re the only person I’d ever come back here for.”

That seemed to land somewhere soft on him, because his shoulders dropped a little, some of that stiffness easing back out of him. He reached over and took my hand again, slower this time, like he was testing whether I’d let him.

“You really had that bag packed for a whole year?” he asked.

“About that, yeah.”

“Where were you plannin’ on goin’?”

“It didn’t matter. Anywhere that wasn’t here.” I turned his hand over in mine, tracing the calluses along his palm. I loved the way they felt against my skin more than I could express. “I just needed to be somewhere I could breathe a little easier, where nobody knew who I was. Somewhere I could be myself for the first time in my life.”

“And now?”

“Now I still want that,” I admitted. “I ain’t gonna lie to you about it. But I ain’t in any rush either. Not if it means losin’ you over it.”

Westley was quiet for a long moment, his thumb moving slowly across my knuckles, like he was trying to figure out what to say.

“You’re right that we need money,” I said, filling the silence before it could stretch out too long. “So I guess I oughta take that job with the sheriff. Startin’ tomorrow, like you said.”

He looked up at me, surprised. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.” I squeezed his hand. “I’m not happy about stayin’ put. But you’re right, we can’t go anywhere without somethin’ in our pockets first. And I ain’t gonna keep sulkin’ about it when there’s a perfectly good job sittin’ there waitin’ on me.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a full smile yet, but close. “So we’re savin’ up, then?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Don’t know how long it’ll take. And I don’t know where we’d even end up. But we’ll figure that part out when we get there.”

“We’ll go wherever you want, Buttercup,” he said, squeezing my hand.

Dolly picked that exact moment to come wandering back over, sliding two slices of pecan pie onto the table between us like she hadn’t been watching the whole thing play out from behind the counter the entire time. “Figured you boys need somethin’ sweet,” she said, giving us both a look that said she knew good and well something heavy had just passed between us, even if she didn’t know the particulars. “I always say hard conversations need ice cream. But all I got is pie at the moment.”

“Thanks, Aunt Dolly,” I said, and meant it more than she probably knew.

She patted my shoulder once and left us to it. Westley picked up his fork, cutting off a piece of pie and lifted it to his mouth.

“Forgot to tell you,” he said, taking a bite. “Sheriff’s gay too.”

I about spit my sweet tea clear across the table. “The sheriff? Sheriff Webb? Sagebrush’s own sheriff?”

“That’s him.” Westley didn’t even look up from his pie, calm as anything, like he hadn’t just dropped a bomb in the middle of the table. “Got himself a boyfriend, Mike says. Some fella named Xavier from New York City. Wedding planner.”

“You’re messin’ with me.”

“I ain’t.”

I sat back against the booth, trying to picture it. Marcus Webb, the second or third generation sheriff of Sagebrush, was gay. That didn’t seem possible. His family legacy wouldn’t allow that kind of thing, right? Not to mention, he was probably one of the most macho men in the entire town. Everything about him oozed heterosexuality and following the rules. But, if West was telling the truth, which I trusted he was, Sheriff Webb had the same secret I did.

Sagebrush, it seemed, wasn’t the small town I knew it to be.