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

“Donnie, hey, you’re still young. I wasn’t nearly as lucid about who I was at your age.”


“Take me for a drive,” he whispered. “Please. I don’t wanna go home. Let’s just go somewhere…I won’t tell anyone, Chris. I swear, I won’t. Just take me for a drive. We could go by the river and I’d let you do what—”


“I can’t do that, okay?” I made my voice harder. “I’m sorry. And you know why. Now here’s your street.” I stopped the car at the corner, parking by the curb. “Donnie, please don’t take it to heart, all right? It’s just not right.” I wanted to put my hand on his shoulder but refrained from even doing that. “Come on, go home,” I said softly. “Things will be better when—”


“Don’t you like me at all?” His dark eyes were beaming with hurt. “I know you do.”


Chapter 46