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

Hank was dressed, clearly waiting for me, his features tight with concern. “Chris, I, look, I—”


“Would you be so kind to get the whiskey downstairs and two glasses?”


I slipped my underwear on and fixed up the bed. Moments later, he was in the doorway, holding the bottle of Jack Daniels and two short glasses. “There was no ice,” he said, slowly stepping up to the bed.


I waited until he’d filled the glasses and then tugged on his shirt. “Sit down,” I said gently.


Hank sat on the side of the bed, facing me.


I knew he needed me to lead the way out of this chaotic episode. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Hank,” I said, after a while. “And neither do I.” I clicked his glass with mine. “Okay?”


Obviously, he had something to say, but couldn’t seem to find his voice.


I waited, giving him all of my attention.


Chapter 35