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“Well I’ll be damned,” I muttered.

“Mike invited us out to a cookout this weekend before I left, matter of fact. They’re havin’ a cookout and wanted us to come. Sounds like it’s a whole thing, him and Cash and the sheriff and this Xavier fella.”

My stomach twisted, flipped, and reversed at the thought of it. A gay cookout full of people who knew exactly what I was and didn’t care one way or the other. Part of me wanted it so bad it scared me, and another part of me wanted to bolt straight out the diner door and keep running until Sagebrush was nothing but a smudge behind me.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” I admitted.

“Didn’t say we had to go,” Westley said softly. “Just sayin’ the invitation is there if you want it.” He scraped the last of the pie filling off his plate with the side of his fork. “Kinda funny though, ain’t it? All this time I figured Sheriff Webb for the loneliest man in the county. Never dated nobody, never talked about his life outside that badge. Now come to find out he’s got somebody, and half this town’s probably known longer than we have.”

“Guess it goes both ways then,” I said. “Some folks hidin’ who they love, and some folks just quietly livin’ their life and nobody the wiser.”

“Guess so.”

I looked down at my own plate, my appetite for pie mostly gone even though it looked good. My mind kept drifting back to that job waiting for me come morning. I’d walk into that station with Marcus Webb’s eyes on me, wondering if he’d see straight through my carefully constructed facade. I wasn’t sure I was ready to have… friends in this town.

“You gonna be alright tomorrow?” Westley asked, like he could read my mind.

“Gonna have to be,” I said, reaching for my fork after all. “Can’t very well save up money for our great escape if I don’t go.”

He smiled at that. It was small but real, like he was warming up to the idea of leaving Sagebrush behind with me. But then he reached across the table and stole a bite of my pie before I could stop him.

“You’re lucky I love you,” I said, pointing my fork at him.

His smile widened. “Yes I am.”

Chapter 19

Rhett

The first thing I noticed, before I even opened my eyes all the way, was that West hadn’t moved his arm off me all night.

Sunlight was already leaking gold through the thin curtains, striping across the sheets, across his forearm still slung heavy over my ribs. I lay there for a minute just breathing him in, that mix of soap and sweat and his own unique smell. I let myself feel how good it was, how simple, waking up tangled in somebody who wanted to be there.

Of course, the other part that I really liked was the fact that his cock was firmly sandwiched between my butt cheeks. All the feelings were nice, but the sensation of him hard and pulsing against me each morning was one I was never going to grow tired of. And the best part was that he hadn’t planned it. He was still fast asleep, snoring softly, his body finding mine like they were magnetically attracted or something. I loved it.

I shifted my hips just slightly, testing, and felt him twitch against me in his sleep, a low sound catching in his throat. I bit my lip to keep from laughing at how easy it was to wake something in him even when he wasn’t conscious enough to know it yet.

I thought about yesterday morning and the way he sucked me off like he was trying to prove something. There was a want in his eyes almost all the time now, like I’d awakened something inside him that refused to go back to sleep. We’d tried plenty already, but there was a part of me that had been holding back, some old fear I couldn’t quite let go of yet. Letting somebody all the way in, letting him take that last piece of me, felt like a step I could never undo.

But laying there with him wrapped around me, I realized that if there was anyone in my life that I trusted to treat me well in the heat of the moment, it was West.

“West,” I whispered, reaching back to rest my hand against his hip. “You awake?”

He made a low, sleepy sound against the back of my neck, his arm tightening around me instinctively. “Mmm. Startin’ to be.”

“Good.” I turned in his arms, slow and careful, until I was facing him, our noses nearly touching the way they had been yesterday morning. His eyes blinked open, hazy and soft, that lazy smile already tugging at his mouth before he was even all the way conscious.

“Mornin’, Buttercup,” he murmured, his voice rough with sleep.

“Mornin’.” I pressed my palm flat against his chest, feeling his heartbeat under my hand, steady and slow. “I want somethin’. If you’re willin’.”

That woke him up quick. His eyes cleared, sharpened, searching my face like he wanted to make sure he was hearing me right. “What’s that?”

I felt my face go hot, but I made myself say it anyway, made myself hold his gaze while I did. “I want you to fuck me, West.”

He went very still, his hand stilling where it had been rubbing slow circles against my back. “You sure? We don’t gotta rush nothin’, Rhett. I meant what I said, we got time.”

“I know we got time.” I leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth softly. “That’s why I want it now. ‘Cause I trust you. And I don’t wanna wait anymore to know what that feels like with somebody I actually love.”