Chapter Six #2
I wanted to throw his words back at him, make him feel the shame he was trying to put on both of us. But when I looked at his face—all the hope and fear wound together—I just felt tired.
“I get it,” I said. “You’re the Sheriff. This place eats its own. But if I’m your dirty secret, you need to own it.”
He nodded, quick and sharp. “I will. Just—not here. Not now.”
“My place isn’t safe,” I said, thinking of my grandfather and the way he could read a lie off your face before you’d even learned to tell it. “He’s always around.”
“My house,” he said, fast. “Tonight. After midnight.”
I let myself smile. “You gonna frisk me at the door?”
He tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough. “Maybe. You want me to?”
“I want you to show up,” I said, and meant it.
He stepped away, fumbled for the door lock, and then looked back at me like he might say something else. But he didn’t. He just nodded, once, then left.
The bell over the door was too loud in the empty room. I stood in the center of the shop, still tasting him, my skin buzzing with every place he’d touched.
I wanted to believe this could be something real. But the way he walked out, eyes never quite on me, told me exactly how much of myself I’d have to hide if I wanted to keep him.
For the first time, I wasn’t sure if it was a price I could pay.
I tried to work, honest. I lined up my machines, set the ink caps, prepped the station with the obsessive care of a surgeon prepping for triple bypass.
For a guy with a reputation for chaos, I liked my shop tidy; today, I liked it sterile.
The smell of alcohol wipes soaked through the walls, fighting a losing battle against the ghost of Floyd’s aftershave.
Clients came and went, their needs pedestrian: a watercolor feather, a set of wedding bands on ring fingers, a cancer ribbon for a dog.
None of them registered. Every time my hands stilled, my mind jerked back to the look on his face—want and fear, need and guilt, like he was trying to swallow his own name.
In the slow minutes between appointments, I caught myself cleaning the same counter twice.
I reorganized my pigment shelf three times, then undid it all and started over.
When my hands itched, I went for the notebook and tried to sketch something that wasn’t a six-foot-tall lawman with a death wish for self-destruction.
It didn’t work. Even when I started with a skull, it curved into his jawline; even when I drew a goddamn rose, it turned out like a badge.
Around two, my phone buzzed. Harlow, with the only text that could cut through my haze: Something’s off out here. Tracks by the north fence. Could be nothing, but I don’t like it. Pa wants you to check it out.
I sat with that message for a while. My family’s land had been the stage for every major drama of my life—childhood, rebellion, first heartbreak, and now this weird, relentless sense of siege.
The idea that someone was out there, watching, made me want to set the whole valley on fire and start fresh.
I thumbed a reply: I’ll swing by after closing. If it’s just a stray, I’ll send it home.
Harlow responded with a thumbs-up, but I could hear the worry behind the emoji. He was never the anxious type, which meant it was real.
The rest of the afternoon crawled. At 5:30, I had a walk-in with a “complicated” design that amounted to three initials and a date of birth.
By six, I was alone again, stacking the day’s cash in the safe and checking the window locks like a man expecting the wolves to come down Main Street.
I tried to tell myself I was just being careful. That I wasn’t overreacting.
By seven, I couldn’t take the waiting. I texted Floyd: Tonight’s still on?
The reply came quick: After midnight. Don’t park out front.
I stared at the message for a long time, letting the words settle. The secrecy was starting to chafe, but I wanted him enough to play along.
For now.
I closed up an hour early, set the alarm, then lingered on the shop floor, looking at the rows of ink and the clean white of the walls.
I felt the urge to vandalize my own space—leave a mark, a message, something that said I’d been here and I wasn’t hiding.
But in the end, I just turned off the lights, locked the door, and walked into the night.
The air outside was cool, with a hint of smoke from someone’s backyard burn barrel. The street was empty except for my bike and the sheriff’s cruiser parked three blocks down, pretending to watch for speeders. For a second I wondered if it was him, if he’d loop the block just to see me.
I almost hoped he would.
I got on my bike, started the engine, and let the idle rumble in my chest. I told myself I’d go check the fence, just like Harlow asked. But when the time came, I knew I’d end up at Floyd’s, secrets and all.
I was reckless, maybe. But sometimes the only way to get what you want is to break your own rules. And if it blew up in my face, at least I’d have the burn to remember him by.