Page 21 of Steal and Starlight

“I do not,” Cash said, though the smirk on his face said otherwise. “I’m just statin’ facts. This town’s got more layers to it than folks like to let on.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I just nodded again, feeling like an idiot for not having anything better to offer. My whole life I’d figured Sagebrush for exactly what it looked like on the surface, church on Sunday, cattle auctions on Saturday, everybody minding everybody else’s business in that particular way small towns did. It never once occurred to me there might be things going on underneath all that I hadn’t the first clue about. Then again, my entire life had been Gilderoy ranch from the moment I could ride a horse. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten out into the world beyond the handful of dates Jennifer and I had gone on. And if I wasn’t working or with her, I was with Rhett. The only other person I really knew in town was Dolly.

It suddenly dawned on me just how sheltered my life had been.

“Anyway,” Mike said, clapping his hands together to break the tension, “Westley here is gonna be helping out around the church for a while. Roof, fence, the yard, that sort of thing.”

“Good,” Cash said, nodding toward me. “Mike ain’t much of a handyman himself. Man can quote scripture all day long but hand him a hammer, and he’s liable to put it through a window somehow.”

“That happened one time,” Mike protested, though he was still smiling.

“Twice,” Cash corrected.

“Okay, the second one was because I thought it was a snake. That’s not my fault.”

“How the hell does a hammer look like a rattler to you?”

I felt the corner of my mouth twitch despite everything still churning in my gut. There was something easy about the way they talked to each other. It was the same kind of comfortable back-and-forth I had with Rhett, except now that I was looking for it, I could see something more sitting underneath it too. The way Cash’s hand found Mike’s shoulder for just a second before dropping away. The way Mike leaned into him without seeming to think about it at all. It was like looking in a mirror.

My stomach twisted into knots and my heart started to race. But I had to ignore it. I wasn’t going to get into all that, not out here in the churchyard with the sun beating down and two near-strangers watching me.

“Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “guess I better get started if I want to make a dent in that fence before it gets too hot.”

“There’s tools in the shed,” Mike said, pointing back toward the leaning structure he’d shown me earlier. “Might have to dig around a bit, but everything you need should be in there somewhere. If you can’t find it, ask Cash. He knows where stuff is. And Westley?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. For coming by today. I mean that.” He gave me a small nod. “We really do need the help and it’s nice to get it from someone who doesn’t think less of us.”

I nodded, not sure what else to say, and turned to head toward the shed before either of them could see whatever was still working its way across my face. Behind me, I heard Cash say something low to Mike, and Mike laughed, soft and warm, and the sound of it followed me all the way across the yard.

They knew, didn’t they?

They probably suspected something was eating at me at the very least. The way I’d gone quiet and stiff the second I laid eyes on the two of them together was a dead giveaway. I hadn’t said anything about Rhett, hadn’t even let myself think his name too hard while I stood there in that yard, but it felt like the ground had shifted a little underneath me all the same.

The shed door stuck when I pulled on it, the hinges old and rusted, and I had to put my shoulder into it before it finally gave way with a groan. Inside it smelled like mildew and old motor oil and dust that hadn’t been disturbed in years. I found a pair of work gloves stiff with age, a post-hole digger with a cracked handle, and a coil of wire that looked like it might actually hold a fence together if I was careful with it.

I carried the tools out to the fence and got to work, glad for something to do with my hands that didn’t require thinking too hard. Digging out the rotted posts, setting new ones, stringing wire tight between them, it was mindless work, the kind I’d done a thousand times back at the ranch. My body knew what to do even while my head was somewhere else entirely.

I kept turning it over, the easy way Mike’s hand had rested on Cash’s hip, the casual back-and-forth of their bickering. All of it was so normal-looking. I thought about Rhett standing at the creek with tears on his face, about the way he never flinched when I touched him, and about waking up with my arm around him and my heart doing something it had never done before.

I thought about kissing him. That small, stupid, terrifying thing I’d done before I even knew what I was doing. And I thought about how I hadn’t told him. I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t even know what I’d say if I tried. And how would he react to know I’d stolen a kiss without asking? I didn’t even have confirmation he was gay yet.

But watching Mike and Cash together, so unashamed of their relationship, and so unbothered by what the whole town might think of two men living together in a church of all places, made me wonder if I could ever be that open. I mean, if they could stand out there in broad daylight, easy as you please, then maybe the thing sitting so heavy and confused inside me wasn’t as strange or as wrong as I’d always assumed it had to be. There would be people that didn’t like it, my daddy for one, but I didn’t care what he thought anymore.

Maybe this was the answer, the reason none of those girls I’d dated ever stuck, why I got bored of them. Maybe I was someone different than I’d been led to believe my whole life.

I drove another post into the ground harder than I needed to, sweat already soaking through my shirt in the noon heat, and tried not to think about it anymore. There’d be time for that later. Right now I had a fence to fix and a paycheck to earn and a best friend back at Dolly’s apartment who needed me.

But the thought stuck with me the rest of the afternoon anyway, humming underneath everything else like an ember that refused to go cold.

Chapter 11

Rhett

Isat in the diner long after Westley had left, trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself. When he’d told Dolly he was looking for work, I joined him, saying I needed exactly the same thing. She took one look at my bruises and told me to hush up, then proceeded to send West over to the church to help the new pastor in town.

On the other hand, I was told to rest. Aunt Dolly didn’t care if I stayed in the diner or went back to the apartment, but she wouldn’t hear me breathe a word about working. I sat there and watched her fuss over the coffee pot for a while, listening to the bell over the door jingle every few minutes as the lunch crowd started trickling in. Dolly kept glancing over at me between orders, that same worried crease between her brows she’d had all morning, like she expected me to keel over if she didn’t keep an eye on me every second.