“Okay, you’re going to have to give me a hot minute to catch up here, sweetie. You’d been dating him, a guy, for six months? When exactly did this happen?”
“Well, see, about twenty-six years ago my mom gave birth to this adorable little gay baby boy they named Devin Roberts,” he said with a grin.
I threw a wadded-up napkin at him. “Smart ass, you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t come out until I graduated college. I didn’t want to risk my football scholarship. But I mean, seriously, forever. I had a mad crush on you in eleventh grade, but then sadly you got acne, so my heart moved on to Miller.”
“Ah yeah, those teenage hearts can be fickle things,” I teased. “But seriously, I had no idea.”
“Well, none of us had any idea about you either until the whole Jimmy Don thing. Everyone was pretty sure about him, but we had no clue about you.”
“I didn’t want anyone to know back then. Now I live my life out and proud, and to be honest, pretty damn loud as well.”
“Well, good to know some things never change. You always were mouthy.”
“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes. “So, you waited until college was over and then you came out. Good for you. How did your mom take it?”
“Better than I would have expected. Honestly, the whole town has been better than I expected. We have our own little gay community here.”
“I’m trying to wrap my brain around that thought,” I said.
“I heard about your dad. How long are you here for?”
“At least a year. Those were the conditions of my dad’s will. I have to live on the ranch for a year until I can sell. I thought it was going to be a nightmare, but maybe it won’t be so bad,” I said, popping the last bite of the muffin in my mouth. “At least there’s decent coffee and muffins. Who else is still here?”
“Miller is, but I think that’s the only one of the guys you hung out with still here. I don’t get to talk to him much. He and Jefferson got into a fight right after we came here. It was stupid. Jefferson thought Miller was hitting on me, and Miller being Miller told him if he wanted this ass, he could’ve had it when we were kids. Which, as I told you earlier, was true. But anyway, Jefferson was a dick, Miller was an ass, and ever since, we just kind of keep our distance. It’s a shame, it isn’t like there are a ton of gay guys here to hang out with, you know?”
“Wait a minute, Miller is gay? How did I not know that?” It was like I was in an alternate universe here.
“I don’t know, I told you I didn’t know about you, but I knew about Miller. He was actually my first kiss. Well, with a guy anyway.”
“Really?”
“Yep, in the dark, on the football bus, on the way back from an away game. As for why you didn’t know, he was your friend, you’ll have to ask him. You know what we should do? We should go to the city one weekend. They have a decent gay club. It’d be fun.”
“That would be fun. We could ask Miller, or will your boyfriend be mad?”
“If he is, he’ll get over it. We need to celebrate you being back in town. Let’s do it!”
“Awesome. Any idea how I can get a hold of him?”
“Yeah, just stop in at the real estate office a few doors down, that’s where he works. If he isn’t there, they’ll have his cards with his number.”
“Great, I’m also going to ask one of the guys on the ranch, if you don’t mind. I’m pretty sure he would like to go.”
“Which one?
“Landon.”
“I bet he would, we’ve seen him there a few times.”
We exchanged phone numbers so we could finalize our plans, and I walked down to the real estate office. I walked in and a pretty young woman greeted me with a huge smile. I could see she was gearing up to give me her best sales pitch, so I asked for Miller right away.
“Okay,” she said, looking disappointed.
“I’m not here to buy anything. I’m an old friend,” I reassured her.
“Oh, okay.” She gave me another smile. “Miller,” she yelled. “Someone wants to see you.”
“Dammit, Sherrie, we have an intercom for a reason,” he said rounding the corner. He froze when he saw me standing there. “Randy? Oh my god, it is you!”
“It is, but it’s Ripley now. I ditched the old man’s name as fast as possible.”
“I don’t blame you. He was a piece of work. None of us could believe it when he tossed you out. Let’s go back to my office and we can talk. Sherrie, anybody comes in, they’re yours.” She gave a mock salute and laughed.
“You know, I wasn’t even sure if you guys knew that he made me leave, or if you all just thought I ran.”
“We might’ve thought that, but Bart made sure we knew. He ain’t one to tell tales, but he didn’t think what your dad did was right. He made sure we knew.”
“Bart’s good people. Sorry I didn’t stay in touch. I just didn’t know how everyone would react. I wasn’t prepared to have you guys hate me the way my father did.”
He gave me a sad smile. “Have you heard that I’m out?”
“I have. I just left the coffee shop and Cap told me.”
“It’s a shame that we didn’t know better back then. Things could’ve been so different.”
“I don’t know, us knowing about each other wouldn’t have helped my situation with my father.”
“You know, what happened with you and Jimmy Don is what prompted my coming out.”
“Really? How?”
“When Jimmy Don told us what happened, I got to thinking. I knew there was no way I would be able to live my life in the closet, and I decided that if my family wasn’t going to accept me, I had rather know then.”
“But things went okay?”
“Yeah, it was a little rough going in the beginning, but they came around.” His phone buzzed and he hit the button and said, “Yes, Sherrie.”
“Mr. Harrington is on the phone. He wants to talk to you about the offer on the Brigman ranch. I didn’t figure you wanted to put that off.”
“Thanks, Sherrie. Tell him I’ll be right with him.” Turning back to me, he said, “Sorry, man, I really want to catch up, but I have to talk to him.”
“No worries. It’s great to see you. We’re all going to go out to the club soon if you want to go.” I grabbed one of his cards off the desk. “I’ll text you and we’ll get together.”
He came around the desk and pulled me into a hug. “Seriously, man, don’t be a stranger. I’ve missed you, and we have a lot to talk about.”
10
Reed
In the two weeks since Ripley had arrived on the ranch, I had been keeping my distance by working myself half to death. I knew I couldn’t keep this up, but until I figured out how to deal with him, I was staying away. There was just something about him that drove me crazy. He was high-spirited, too sassy for his own good, and obviously didn’t like me very much. But he was also sweet and helpful with Margo, and sometimes he looked so fragile it broke my heart.