Chapter 13

Setting off, Jake said, “Always wanted to hold a guy’s hand out in public. Never could in the small town I lived in.” Almost under his breath, he added, “Not that I had a guy’s hand to hold.”

Brett didn’t want to examine too closely the fact he was elated at the news there was no one down on Earth who would pass over and take Jake away from…whoa! Brett stopped walking.

“What?” Jake asked.

Brett needed to make absolutely sure. “You don’t have a boyfriend or nothing? No one you left behind?”

“Only Pete ’n’ Joe.”

Brett’s heart started to sink. “Pete and Joe?”

“Guess you could call ‘em my fuck buddies.”

This didn’t sound good, but Brett started walking again, Jake almost immediately doing the same.

“They’re two o’ the hands on the ranch where I work…uh, worked. They’re a couple, real devoted to each other and everythin’, but now and again they’d let me share their bedroll when…when.” Jake squeezed Brett’s hand. “Things got too much for me, you know?”