Christian Rivers has been single for a year and a half. Emotionally disconnected, he focuses on writing his next best seller. Unfortunately, his neighbor’s teenage son, Bret Hicks, causes trouble next door with his bad friends hanging out, smoking marijuana, drinking, and abusing Christian's dog, Darth Vader. Incensed, Christian phones Milestone County’s Sheriff Philip Erickson to lay an animal cruelty charge. When Sheriff Erickson arrives, the two men have coffee, and a spark of attraction that has been developing between them since they met, flickers to life. But Philip is on duty and has to leave. Later that night Christian wakes up from the sounds of breaking glass as someone forces entry into his house. He calls Philip but before the sheriff arrives, Bret appears in the door of Christian’s bedroom, drunk and wearing a Halloween mask. In the aftermath of the drama the suppressed attraction between the two men comes to a boil, leading to new hope and mutual satisfaction for Christian and the sheriff.

A Light in the Dark

Then I know exactly what he is trying to say.


Until now, I was unclear about the sheriff’s sexuality. Do I fight the urges or embrace them?


We sit in painful silence for what feels like hours.


I finally say, reaching across the small space for another Oreo even though I am not hungry, “These past two years of my life have been lonely too.”


We stare at each other. I watch the resilient law-and-order man in front of me turn soft, like a rose losing its petals. He wipes his eyes with the end of his thick index finger. Then, before I realize what he is doing, the sheriff reaches between us and brushes my tear-stained face with a gentle stroke of his hand. It is like the time in the IGA when the sheriff reached across me for an apple, his hand slightly bumping into mine, innocently. Or was it?


Chapter 7