I leaned back, wincing, but my smile never left. “Good.”
We just sat there, hands twined, listening to the aftershock of what we’d just detonated.
“You sure you want to be seen with me in public?” Ransom asked.
I turned, eyes alive with something fierce. “I want everyone to see us.”
Ransom just leaned forward, pressed his forehead to mine, careful of the bandages and the bruises.
“I love you, Sheriff,” he whispered.
I grinned, all teeth. “I know.”
We both laughed, and it didn’t even hurt. Let the world burn. We were flameproof now. I was exactly where I belonged.
After Vivian’s tornado exit, the air in my chest was all helium and static. For a while, neither of us said a word. Just the soft, blissful hush of victory, and the faint metallic squeak as Ransom settled into the battered visitor’s chair. He didn’t let go of my hand. I didn’t let go, either.
The room felt different with her gone. It was still a shitbox, still had the vinyl stink and the creeping sense of institutional death, but with her out of the frame, everything came into sharper focus. Ransom’s eyes were back on me—so dark they reflected their own light, searching mine for whatever was left after a lifetime of hiding.
He finally broke the silence, voice lower than the beeping monitor and twice as urgent. “Did you mean it?” he said. “What you said to her.”
I wanted to play it cool, make a joke about having selective amnesia, but all I could do was nod. The word “yes” stuck to the back of my throat, sticky and sweet. I raised his hand to my mouth and pressed my lips to his knuckles, just to prove it was real, just to feel the pulse there—solid and alive.
“Every word,” I said, soft. “I’m done hiding, Ransom. If the town wants a scandal, they can have it. I want you.”
He blinked, and for the first time since I’d met him, there was nothing cocky or invincible in the set of his jaw. He looked stripped down, open. If he was a lesser man, I think he would’ve cried. Instead, he squeezed my hand back and gave me a smile so unguarded it nearly broke me open all over again.
“I never thought you’d say it,” he whispered. “Not out loud. Not with witnesses.”
I shrugged, already feeling the freedom rush my veins. “You’re worth it.”
His cheeks pinked. He ducked his head, looked at the tiled floor, then back at me. “You know,” he said, “it’s gonna get messy. People are going to talk.”
“Let them.”
Ransom grinned, and in that moment he looked about sixteen, all nerves and hope and barely-contained energy. “You want to be the poster boys for small-town gay pride?”
I snorted, immediately regretting the pain the laugh sent down my ribs. “Don’t tempt me. Latham’s already placing bets at the station.”
He laughed with me, and it was better than morphine.
Our moment got interrupted by the doctor, who came in with a tablet and the same robotic bedside manner as a DMV clerk. He barely looked at Ransom, who ignored him back, insteadscanning my chart and reciting numbers I couldn’t care less about.
“Concussion,” the doctor said, tapping the screen like it was a slot machine. “Three cracked ribs. Contusions on the face, a laceration above the eyebrow. We’d like to keep you at least one more night for observation.”
“Fine,” I said, “as long as he stays.” I nodded at Ransom, daring the doctor to argue.
The man looked startled. “Hospital protocol says—”
“He stays,” I repeated, and let my voice carry the authority of the badge even if I was wearing a paper gown and had track marks from the IV.
Ransom looked smug, stretching out in the chair like he’d just won the lottery.
The doctor blinked twice, then, defeated, made a note and left. I was going to pay for that at some point, but right now, I couldn’t have cared less.
Evening came slow and then all at once, the pale outside light bleeding out and leaving the room illuminated only by the soft green of the monitor and the little gold glow that seeped around the hallway door.
Ransom shifted in the chair, kicked his boots up onto the rail of the bed, and folded his arms across his chest, still never letting go of my hand. I watched him through half-lidded eyes, the pain meds and exhaustion tugging me back and forth across the threshold of sleep.
