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“Then what is it?” His voice cracked, and he wiped at his eyes fast, like he was mad at himself for the tears. “Because somethin’s different, West. I can feel it. You won’t hardly look at me, and then you go and act like nothin’ has changed, and I don’t know what to make of any of it anymore.”

My heart was hammering so hard I thought he might be able to hear it from where he stood. I could’ve lied. Could’ve told him it was just my daddy still weighing on me, could’ve let him believe that was the whole of it and left the rest buried where it’d been buried my whole life up until now. It would’ve been easier. Safer, maybe, for both of us.

But looking at him standing there in the fading orange light coming through the window, bruised and scared and trying so hard to hold himself together, I couldn’t make myself do it.

“It ain’t your fault,” I said instead, taking a step toward him. “None of this. Not my daddy, not losin’ the ranch, none of it. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong, Rhett.”

“Then why won’t you tell me what’s goin’ on with you?”

“Why won’t you tell me what’s going on with you?” I retorted, feeling the fear well up inside me. “You’ve been dancin’ around the truth for weeks. You keep tellin’ me you’re not ready, and I get that. But now you’re demandin’ answers and not givin’ me any in return.”

Rhett’s jaw worked, his throat bobbing as he swallowed whatever he was about to say. For a long moment neither of us moved, the two of us standing there in that little apartment with the last of the daylight dying around us, the smell of Dolly’s chicken drifting up through the floorboards like it belonged to some other, simpler world.

“That ain’t fair,” he finally said, his voice thin and shaking. “You know it ain’t the same thing.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” He cut himself off, dragging a hand down his face, and when he looked at me again, there was something wild and cornered in his eyes, like he was a trapped animal. “Because if I tell you, I lose you. That’s why. I already know how it ends.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, Westley. I’ve known you my whole damn life. I know exactly how you’d look at me.”

“Then tell me and let me prove you wrong.” The words came out desperate and rough. I took another step closer, close enough now that I could see the way his chest was rising and falling too fast, too shallow. “Rhett, please. I can’t keep watchin’ you fall apart a little more every day and not knowin’ why. It’s killin’ me.”

His eyes were glassy now, full to the brim, and his hands had curled into fists at his sides like he was trying to hold himself together through sheer force of will. “You wanna know why they jumped me?” His voice cracked wide open on the words, all that careful control finally giving out. “It’s ‘cause of you, West. It’s always been ‘cause of you.”

The room went very quiet. Even the sounds from the diner below seemed to fade out, leaving just the two of us and the dying light and the truth hanging there in the air between us, too big now to shove back down.

“What do you mean,” I said, though some part of me already knew. Had known since that morning, maybe. Had known longer than that, if I was being honest with myself.

Rhett let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and shook his head like he couldn’t believe he’d finally said it out loud. “I’m in love with you,” he said, the words tumbling out fast now like he had to get them out before he lost his nerve completely. “Have been for years. Since we were kids, probably, though I didn’t know what it was back then. And Chuck and them, they saw it. They saw the way I look at you, and they made me pay for it, and I let ‘em, ‘cause what was I supposed to say? That they were right?”

I couldn’t speak. My whole body had gone rigid, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard it hurt, and Rhett must have taken my silence for something else entirely because his face crumpled and he took a step back toward the window like he wanted to put the whole room between us.

“Say somethin’,” he whispered. “Please. Even if it’s that you hate me now. Just don’t stand there lookin’ at me like that.”

“I don’t hate you.” My voice came out barely above a whisper, but it was steady, steadier than I felt. “Rhett, I could never hate you.”

“Then what⁠—”

I closed the distance between us before he could finish the question, before either of us could think better of it, and I kissed him.

It wasn’t like the one that morning, soft and stolen while he slept, unaware. This one he felt. This one he answered, a startled sound catching in his throat before his hands came up and fisted in the front of my shirt, pulling me closer instead of pushing me away. I felt him against me, warm and shaking and alive, and that fear that had been coiled tight in my chest for all day finally broke loose.

We stumbled back until his shoulders hit the wall beside the window, and he gasped against my mouth, whether from the impact or from me I couldn’t tell and didn’t much care. My hands found his hips, and his fingers tangled in my hair, and the kiss went from careful to something hungrier, something neither of us seemed able to slow down even if we’d wanted to.

“West,” he breathed against my mouth, my name coming out wrecked and disbelieving. “West, wait, what are you⁠—”

“Shut up, Rhett,” I murmured, and kissed him again before he could argue.

He made a sound low in his throat, something between disbelief and lust, and I swallowed it down like it belonged to me. His body was trembling under my hands, whether from fear or something else, I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t stop to ask. I pressed him harder into the wall, my hips finding his without meaning to, and the second our bodies lined up I felt exactly how hard he was against me.

“Oh, fuck,” I muttered against his jaw, my own cock throbbing in answer.

“Westley,” he gasped, his head tipping back against the wall, exposing the long line of his throat. “If this ain’t real, if I wake up and this was just⁠—”

“It’s real.” I kissed the words right off his tongue, cutting him off before the doubt could take root again. My hands slid down from his hips, gripping him through his jeans, and he bucked forward into my palm with a strangled moan that went straight through me like a live wire.