Wrangled

I’ve been slowly and mindlessly tracing the letters on his tight t-shirt with a fingertip. I’ve lost interest in whatever is on the TV. “How can you tell?”

“She’s less flighty than usual. She seems … focused. But like … focused specifically on something. I can’t describe it.”

I bite my lip, not wanting to say too much. “Less flighty …?”

“You only talked to her a little bit on Sunday, and I already know you know exactly what I’m sayin’. She sounded like a whole different person just now, like she … actually has her thoughts all put together.”

“Well, it’s only just the early evening. Maybe she was about to eat dinner, and you caught her while she was—”

“It’s after nine o’clock.”

“Oh. I thought it was earlier.” I glance at a clock to confirm it. Time is just flying, it seems.

“Does her weird behavior have anything to do with what she talked to you about before she left? That thing you won’t tell me?”

My finger stops tracing on the bottom of the “y” in “varsity”.

Chad is a very stubborn, persistent person.

It’s a hot quality in the bedroom.

It’s frustrating outside of it.

“She’ll have to tell you in her own time, Chad. It’s not for me to say. And it isn’t something bad,” I point out, my one concession, “so you don’t have to worry about it, or—”

“Ain’t somethin’ bad? Then what in hell is it? She got a huge sale? She made a contact in Briar City?”

He won’t let it go. “Chad …”

“She met someone?”

I hesitate. Now I’m inwardly being asked whether to continue denying any knowledge to him, or lie.

I take too long deciding. Chad snorts. “Really? That’s it? She met someone? Why didn’t she just tell me? Hell, I’d be so proud of her. I mean, I’d also want to vet him a bit, y’know, to make sure he passes the best-friend test. But why would she keep that from me? Shoot, that is good news.”

I idly start tracing the letters on his shirt again, gnawing on my lip. I don’t think Chad realizes the extent of this “someone” Jo met, or how serious it is—or how this “someone” is giving Jo a few significant thoughts, like moving on by moving out.

I still wonder why she was so quick to reveal all of that to me.

Was I her excuse to kick open the proverbial door?

Was she waiting for someone like me to crash into Chad’s life and set her free at last?

“Everyone deserves a special someone,” I agree finally, saying it to Chad’s belly—if a rippling surface of six-pack abs through a tight, wrinkly t-shirt can be esteemed by the word “belly”.

Chad doesn’t respond to that. After a moment of seeming self-reflection, he takes my hand, bringing a stop to my idle tracing, and gently starts to rub his thumb over the back of it. The act is so strangely compassionate and sensitive, it has my chest flooding with all those feelings again.

It’s already Wednesday night.

In just a blink ago, it was that explosive party Saturday night where everything changed. I can’t even say what anyone else in all of Spruce has been up to this week. Neither of us have been a part of it, having stayed out here on the ranch the whole time. I don’t know if the town is talking about us, questioning Chad’s sexuality, or doesn’t have a bit of either of us on their minds at all. Maybe everyone is taken up with some new confection Billy baked, or some fun football-coach thing Tanner is planning for the school year, or some other drama that doesn’t involve the gay men of Spruce.

It’s like this ranch is its own star in the night sky, lost among countless others, floating in its own unknowable universe.

Just me.

And Chad.

And Old Man Mitch with his bunch of hired hands I spent one tiny Monday morning meeting, then haven’t seen since.

“Are you happy?” he asks me softly.

My head is on his chest. We talk to each other without looking at each other. “I’m happy right now. I’m just …” My eyes find the clock again. “I’m just sad these days are going by so fast.”

“Hey, we still got a couple more. Thursday and—”

“I leave Friday afternoon. It’s gonna be Friday afternoon soon. Too soon.”

He keeps stroking my hand lovingly.

Gently.

Sweetly.

I suddenly hate that loving, gentle sweetness. I hate it because I love it so much, and it’s about to be taken away from me.

“What are you afraid of?” he asks, his voice still soft. He kisses the top of my head. “You afraid this is just gonna, like, end when you go back home? Y’know, it don’t gotta end.”

I stare at our hands and his robotically stroking thumb. “Are you suggesting a long-distance thing?”

“Well, yeah, maybe. It ain’t such an unheard of thing. We can exchange numbers, which I’m shocked we still haven’t done, but we’ve kinda been together this whole time since Saturday, so …”