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

However, the idea of taking off with him was enough to stir my insides.


He turned left on Dunver, and as we rolled down his street, he moved his hand away from my leg. I looked around at my surroundings. Dunver Street was in the oldest part of Forked River Creek and had a lot of old-time charm. Most of the houses here dated back to the early 1800s and were built in a classic Loyalist style, which was heavily influenced by Georgian architecture. Before going into finance, I’d done a semester in architecture history. Funny how I’d studied art, architecture, and economy, and now baked for a living.


“Here we are, my temporary home.” Hank pulled into the paved driveway of a two-story house with a double veranda. It was smaller than the neighboring houses, but well maintained and quaint, with white panels and a dark slanted roof.


“I see they got you sent up real nice,” I said, leaning in to get a better view. “So youare quite the big shot around these parts.”


Chapter 24