Page 37 of Want You Back (Second Chance Ranch #1)
Chapter 37
Colt
Back to School Night was a county-wide tradition as students from Lovelorn and the other tiny towns of Disappointment County showed up with their parents and guardians. The school district had so few kids that the middle and high schools shared a campus. The PTA did a chili supper to raise funds for school projects, and the halls at the middle school were crowded with families. A month into the school year meant some students were eager to show off the artwork lining the walls while other middle schoolers were already clearly bored and over the whole thing, clumps of friends lounging on the floor near the lockers.
I’d come directly from a county budget meeting, so I was still in uniform, which meant dodging complaints about barking dogs, parked RVs, fence-line disputes, and after-school teens loitering near school bus stops.
“Send them to me,” Aunt Georgia said breezily as she and my mother trailed behind me. They’d come to see a painting Willow was particularly proud of. I also suspected they were trying to provide visible support for me if any idle gossip headed our way. With Grayson, Adler, Kat, and Faith all knowing about Maverick and me, telling my family had been necessary before the gossip inevitably swept through Lovelorn like tumbleweeds down Main Street.
Neither Mom nor Aunt Georgia had been particularly shocked, making my reveal the least suspenseful coming out ever. They both liked Maverick, and if they had doubts about his ability to stay in Lovelorn long-term, they were at least smart enough not to voice them around me.
“Think you could take a look at my washer tomorrow morning?” my mom asked as we walked the halls.
Crap. My one day off, and I’d made plans to ride with Maverick and the girls. But family?—
Wait. If I truly wanted Maverick to stay, I needed to be willing to fight for us, exactly how I’d promised.
“I’ve got plans, but I can hopefully get to it in the next few days. Or you can check the warranty and see if we can get a repair person out.”
“I’ll do that.” My mom nodded slowly, something new passing between us. Not exactly respect, but a shift, an acknowledgment of my changing priorities.
Finally, we discovered Willow coming out of the cafeteria with Hannah and Maverick. Willow had taken the bus home with Hannah so she could ride with them to the event.
“I made it.” I scooped Willow into a hug.
“You were almost late,” she scolded.
“Sheriff business.” I was trying to figure out a better work-home balance, but today was not one of my more successful attempts at time management.
“I figured.” Willow sniffed and grabbed my hand, pulling me down the hall to a science classroom outfitted with lab tables that dated back to before Maverick and I had attended this same school. “Come on, come meet our favorite teacher.”
Willow towed me to the front of the classroom to stand in front of a young guy with a dark ponytail and hipster glasses, wearing a tie featuring dancing DNA strands.
“This is Mr. Snider, our science teacher,” Willow made the introductions like a seasoned hostess. “This is my dad. And that’s his boyfriend, Hannah’s Uncle Maverick.”
Oh. Okay. If the town hadn’t already heard about Maverick and me being a couple, they surely would now. Indeed, more than a few heads swiveled in our direction. Mom and Aunt Georgia beamed like proud hens. We hadn’t told the girls not to talk about us, and I didn’t want Willow to think she’d done something wrong, so I forced a smile and a hearty handshake.
“I thought Willow and Hannah might be sisters, the way they do everything together.” Mr. Snider pumped my hand up and down with great enthusiasm. “It’s fantastic to meet you. I’m…uh…new in the area.” He dropped his voice slightly. “It’s nice knowing there are out couples around, especially someone in law enforcement like you.”
“Representation matters,” I said slowly. I hadn’t thought of myself in that way before, but I also hadn’t known the word demisexual until I heard it on TV. And for Willow and Hannah, same-sex couples were the norm on many of their favorite shows. Willow had also adapted remarkably well to Maverick being in our lives. I didn’t necessarily like the eyeballs on Maverick and me, but I couldn’t deny there was value in being open. “We try to keep a welcoming community.”
“Good to know.” The science teacher smiled wide enough to bend several laws of physics.
“Mr. Snider, tell Uncle Maverick about the egg drop we get to do,” Hannah demanded, and the topic mercifully shifted away from my relationship status.
“Was that awkward?” Maverick asked a few minutes later when he and I were standing together in the back of the gym, which had been turned into an art and project gallery for the night. “I had no idea the girls had been talking about us at school.”
“A little awkward, but I’m not hiding.” I kept my voice firm. Mr. Snider’s grateful reaction underscored that being out was the only way to go. And like Aunt Georgia had said, my being in love with Maverick Lovelorn was the least surprising county event in its long history.
“What about the next election?” Maverick whispered, concern evident in his eyes.
“I don’t know. I like to think the county will look at my track record.” I shrugged. I wouldn’t say I was much better at not worrying these days, but I was trying. Other people’s reactions were out of my control, and if I’d learned anything from Aunt Georgia’s story, it was to not let speculation over those reactions stop me from living my life. “If not, I’ll try to get hired on as a deputy again. Or I’ll speak to your foreman about whether he needs a stable hand.”
I laughed, but Maverick turned unduly serious. “You’ll always have a place at the ranch. Always.”
“Thank you.” A little more privacy and I might have chanced a kiss, but as it was, I reached for his hand. No one was looking our way, yet from the way Maverick gasped, one would have thought I’d done it onstage.
“Colt Jennings is holding my hand in the school gym,” he whispered with a giddy smile and vulnerability rising in his eyes.
Huh. I’d focused so much on how he could hurt me by leaving again that sometimes I forgot he had a fragile heart too. If moments like this meant so much to Maverick, then I wanted to give him a lifetime’s worth of memories. I used our linked hands to pull him closer and put my arm around him. Let people talk. I’d earned the heart of Maverick Lovelorn, and I wasn’t going to hide.
“Colt Jennings is gonna kiss you goodnight later,” I playfully threatened.
“Good.” His cheeks were bright pink, but he looked as happy as I’d ever seen him. “You staying for the Friday night sleepover? They’ve picked a triple header of movies.”
“Wouldn’t miss it.” We’d fallen into a little routine of letting the girls talk their way into weekend sleepovers, which meant Maverick and I got a sleepover as well. Adler was back in California, preparing to move to the ranch and be Maverick’s assistant on the dude ranch project, but he’d left his cookie recipe collection behind. We’d fumbled our way through baking together and finding a new normal while Faith was off at treatment. She’d gone from the hospital to a physical rehabilitation facility to a well-known place for addiction recovery.
“Look at that picture.” Maverick pointed to a nearby pencil sketch of two boys sitting in front of a campfire. They weren’t touching, and there was nothing overtly romantic about the picture, but at the same time, so much of our past flashed before my eyes. I glanced back at Maverick, who had a soft, misty expression. My past and my present rolled up in one person.
My future too. I took a deep breath. If I really counted, I’d been all-in with Maverick Lovelorn since that first arcade game. How could I not believe in him now?
“I want you to stay forever,” I said softly, voicing my most private wish aloud for the first time, centering myself in a way I hadn’t before. My worries were always for Maverick, my family, for everyone else but me. But for a moment, I let what I wanted most matter. And what I wanted was the happy ending we’d deserved all along. “I want to be here together in this gym in five years when the girls graduate.”
“Don’t make me cry.” Maverick squeezed my hand. “I don’t want to think about them growing up.”
“I know. But we’ll be right here for their last Back to School Night, okay?”
“It’s a date.”