Two years ago, Chris and his boyfriend left the city to settle in a small town at the US-Canada border. Eager to start a new life, Chris bought the Frontier Café, but a year later, his boyfriend dumped him, leaving Chris the only openly gay man in town. Nowadays he's resigned to a life of romantic solitude.<br><br>Hank spent the last years traveling through the country for his job as a water plant engineer. Deeply closeted, he's careful about the men he meets. Like the rivers he studies, he runs fast through the land.<br><br>In town only for a few weeks, Hank is intent on getting the job done and returning home out west to take care of his father. But Chris’s warm manner and decadent desserts are no match for Hank’s defense mechanisms. For the first time in his life, he finds himself wanting to go with the flow.

No River Wide Enough

“There it is,” he said, answering his own question and moving away to the bed. When he slipped his blue shirt on, my hungry eyes followed his strong fingers, as they hopped from one button to the next, closing his naked skin off to me. I hadn’t been with many lovers—I never was one for casual hook-ups—but I knew how the game worked. Understood its few rules. This was a one-night-stand.


Hank was sitting on the edge of my bed, putting his boots on. I didn’t move or speak, and after a while, he looked up at me through that rebellious golden strand of hair falling over his forehead.


“Hi,” I said, resorting to humor as a defense mechanism. “Remember me?”


A flicker of affection lit up Hank’s eyes. He shook his head and smiled. But soon again, his expression turned somber.


“What?” I was gentle, moving carefully, aware of the tension in his face.


Chapter 12