“Oh, cool. You know how they met?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know how gay people meet. Maybe there’s a fairy out there who takes care of that.”
“Either way, you better keep an eye on him.”
“Why? He’s a grown-ass man, and he’s a good kid.”
“You just said he was a man.”
“You know what I mean. He put together a book club, for fuck’s sake—I don’t need to worry about him.”
We’ll see about that.
Nate knows he was too rough during his meetings with Will. He should have been smarter and not pushed the man so far and so fast. But he also knows that Owen’s appearance in town has had a hand in making Will abruptly stop their arrangement. Nate can’t accept it, not after tasting victory for such a short and sweet time.
Sheryl goes to start her shift, leaving Nate to finish his cold coffee in peace. He takes his final sip when thesheriff walks in. “Good morning,” he grumbles and goes to make himself coffee, grabbing a bagel from the box on the counter. “How’s it going with you-know-what?”
“You mean Owen?”
The sheriff gives him a look. Sheryl might not be here, but there are two other police officers at the front.
“He’s been there twice. It’s going well.”
“Just twice? Did they mention any names?”
“Nah, not yet.”
“I’m getting heat wherever I go, Nate. I need names, or I’ll have to arrest those two in Eminence and start to squeeze.”
“You’re likely to get the same from them as you got from the ones we arrested a few months ago. How long will it take for others to replace them? An hour?”
The sheriff grumbles into his coffee. “We just need one name to make the domino pieces start to fall. I’ll try again to get the feds involved if I have to. Maybe this time they’ll actually send people to help.”
That would be very bad. Nate had told the mayor that things were getting out of hand, but the mayor didn’t take him seriously. Even that arrogant man can’t possibly want to deal with the feds. Nate hasn’t updated him about the undercover work, but he’ll have no choice if the sheriff keeps pressuring him.
“I’ll try to speed things up, but going too hard might risk Owen.”
The sheriff gives him a hard look. “You’ll do nothingto risk that boy, Nate. He’s doing us a favor, and I won’t have his aunt haunting me for the rest of my life.”
“Well, she’s gonna kill you rather quickly, so I wouldn’t worry about the rest of your life.”
“Shut up and get to work.”
“Yes, sir.”
He goes out on his patrol, but it’s a slow day. He gives a few speeding tickets, which he hates since people should drive as fast as they want on these open roads. There’s one domestic abuse call that gets interesting, allowing him to shout and threaten a loser who slapped his wife. He knows that couple well by now, and the wife never files a complaint, so there’s not much he can do about that.
He stops for lunch in town, where he buys some pizza with a discount because he’s in uniform and some people still appreciate that. As he walks back to his car, he notices Owen’s book club poster on one of the walls. He walks over to the poster and pulls it from the wall when no one’s watching. For some reason, Owen thought it would be smart to make each poster by hand, giving each one a slightly different look. There are three repeating elements in all the posters: the details of the event, the library building, and Will Thomas. He’s either a small character among others or the main one, looking hot even as a cartoon.
Nate grips the poster tight enough to tear it. He hurries to throw it in the trash before anyone notices, tellinghimself there’s no point in keeping a poster for an event that already happened. He wonders if it was a success, and against his better judgement, he hopes that it was; Owen worked hard on that silly thing, and despite everything, Nate doesn’t hate him—he just needs him out of the way.
That evening, Nate goes out to Rodie’s. He sits at his usual dark corner, keeping himself in the background while slowly sipping from his beer. Unsurprisingly, Will arrives with Bradley. Their usual table is occupied, so they go sit deeper inside, where Nate can still see them. He stares intensely at the man who, until recently, was partially under his control. It almost feels like a fever dream or a hallucination. To think that Nate could ever get a man like that in his bed is downright absurd, but itdidhappen. If they didn’t have that blowout a few days ago, Nate would have signaled Will to come over to sit with him. He’d touch the man without anyone noticing, whispering nasty things he wouldn’t dare say to anyone else.
Someone walks past Nate’s peripheral vision, and of course it has to be Owen, heading straight to Will and Bradley’s table. He tastes bile when he sees the way Will lights up like the Fourth of July at the sight of Owen. While Bradley settles for a handshake—like a man should—Will stands up to hug Owen, though they keep it short. Nate smirks into his beer when he notices Will glancing around nervously, as if he’s worriedpeople might read too much into that hug. He’s done a solid job keeping a low profile in the last few years, but people have good memories, and dealing with another gay couple isn’t something that will go down well.
Nate orders a burger. As he chews on the tender meat, he watches closely at every exchange between Will and Owen. He can’t tell what they’re saying, but they sure talk a lot.
Since Nate knows he can’t interrupt them like he did last time, he orders the check. He’s about to leave to drink himself to sleep at home when he notices Will and Owen getting up together.
