“I have a dress,” I said, “and the world’s most boring pair of heels. And I thought my ‘statement piece’ was supposed to be the art.”
He rolled his eyes. “Darling, the dress is the art. The rest is just context.”
He launched into a monologue about the necessity of fashion as emotional armor, and for once I felt like maybe I’d been missing out by never having a gay best friend. He suggested a “scarlet lip, but not too matte,” and told Gunner, “you should try a blazer, or at least iron your shirt, for God’s sake.” I thought Gunner might combust, but he only grunted, kept eating. He had no idea how much Gunner was worth. Money just wasn’t the be-all, end-all for him.
The check came. Lysander swept it up before anyone else could move. “It’s a tax write-off,” he insisted. “If I’m going to play gallery daddy, I’m going to do it right.”
Gunner tried to protest, but Lysander silenced him with a wave. “Besides, if I let you pay, you’ll ruin my reputation. People expect me to be a little insufferable.”
We stood to leave, Lysander carrying the folder, me with a takeout box, and Gunner—ever the gentleman—holding the door. Outside, the storm had moved in, thunder rumbling over the flat blacktop.
At the curb, Lysander turned to Gunner, extended a hand. “Thank you for coming, and for not killing me. I like you, Finn. You’re not nearly as scary as you look.”
Gunner shook his hand a little too firmly, but managed a “You’re alright, Lysander.”
Then Lysander turned to me, and without hesitation, leaned in and air-kissed both my cheeks. “You are a star, Brie. Never let anyone tell you different. I won’t be at the gallery tomorrow. Sadly, Mother insists I fly into Boston for a family event. But I’ll be back Sunday morning.”
He stepped into his waiting Uber—a Prius with a pride flag decal—and vanished into the rain.
Gunner stared after him for a second, then looked down at me, jaw working side to side. “Do people actually do that? The kiss thing?”
I shrugged. “I guess they do. Maybe it’s an East Coast thing.”
He muttered something under his breath, then took my hand. His grip was tight, grounding, as if he was anchoring me to this moment, this place, this small-town reality where nothing was ever just what it seemed.
“I likeyoubetter,” I said, voice small.
He grunted. “Good. Because I’m not learning that cheek-kiss bullshit.”
We walked to the truck, thunder rolling in the distance, the rain spitting sideways across the hood. Gunner opened the passenger door, waited for me to climb in, then circled to the driver’s side.
As we pulled out of the lot, I looked back at the restaurant, its neon sign flickering in the storm, and thought: this is my life now. Art, awkward dinners, storms that never quite break, and a man beside me who’d burn down the world to keep me safe.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
The drive home was a whole geography of silence.
Gunner kept one hand locked at twelve o’clock on the steering wheel, knuckles white as pickled onions. The other hand hovered between the shifter and the radio dial, but he never touched either. The roads outside town were long, low, and black—striped with reflective paint that caught the high beams in eerie slashes. Every fence post was a blur of rain-lacquered silver, the fields beyond shivering with the first wind of a coming storm.
He didn’t say much, not at first. He let the engine do the talking; the faint rattle of loose gravel, the heavy thunk of a tire meeting a pothole. The air in the cab was thick with the ghost of Lysander’s cologne, or maybe just the aftertaste of all those unsaid words. I wanted to break the silence, but the only thing I could think to say was, “You okay?” and I was pretty sure he’d lie.
So instead I watched the lightning stutter along the far horizon, counting the seconds between each white-hot strike and the slow roll of thunder behind it. I curled my fingers in my lap and tried not to fidget. Gunner never took his eyes off the road.
When he finally spoke, it was almost a relief. “You got a lot on your plate, Maverick. I just want to make sure you’re not burnin’ out.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I’m not. I mean, I am, but not in a way that’s going to break me. I’m… okay. Or I will be.”
He nodded, jaw working. “You ever wish you could just turn it all off? The work, the planning, the people?”
I didn’t even have to think. “Not really. It’s the nothing that scares me.” I stared out the window at the endless fields. “If I’m not moving, I start to feel like I’m disappearing. Like I was never really here at all.”
He digested that, the way he did with every hard truth I handed him. “Guess we’re opposites, then,” he said, voice soft. “I could sit in the same patch of dirt for a hundred years and never get bored.”
I smiled, reaching for his hand. I found it, squeezed. He squeezed back, and for a second, it was enough.
The rest of the drive passed in that hush. The storm crept closer; the old truck rocked in the wind. At some point, he started humming along to the radio—a low, familiar country ballad—and the sound smoothed out the sharp edges in my chest.
When we got home, the world felt wrapped in cotton. Rain tapped the porch roof, steady and slow, and the lights inside glowed yellow against the night. Gunner killed the engine, the cut through the silence. “You coming in, or you want to sit a while?”
