Clay Bennett is 58, spent 32 years as a U.S. Forest Service ranger in the Uinta Mountains before a blown knee forced early retirement three years back. He still does volunteer trail maintenance three days a week, wears the same scuffed steel-toe boots he’s had since 2012, and hasn’t let anyone sit within two feet of his kitchen table since his wife Diane died of ovarian cancer seven years ago. His biggest flaw, if you ask the few people who know him well, is that he’s convinced every new town event is a waste of tax money and performative nonsense, which is why he only showed up to the Hitching Post’s summer Pride block party because his old work partner owed him a $6 craft beer he’d been pestering him for since April.
His buddy bailed 12 minutes after Clay showed up, called with a fake story about his kid’s soccer practice, and Clay was too stubborn to leave before he finished the hazy IPA he’d already been handed. He leaned against the chipped red brick of the bar’s exterior, beer sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around it, and watched a group of teens dance to a 1998 Garth Brooks track blaring from the outdoor speakers. The air smelled like charred bratwurst, citronella candles, and the pine that clung to his work pants from clearing downed branches that morning.
The first time Jesse bumped into him, Clay’s first instinct was to snarl. Jesse was 49, lanky but broad-shouldered, had a scar slicing through his left eyebrow and calloused hands stained with wood stain, and he was carrying a seltzer in a clear plastic cup that sloshed over the edge when he tripped over a cooler at Clay’s feet, dribbling down the front of Clay’s left boot. He apologized immediately, leaning down without asking to swipe at the wet spot with the hem of his faded flannel, and Clay froze when the top of Jesse’s head brushed his sternum, so close he could smell the cedar shampoo in his short curly hair.
Jesse stood back up, held eye contact for a beat longer than was strictly polite, and grinned when he saw the scowl still fixed on Clay’s face. “You’re the guy who fixes the trail behind the public library, right?” he said, and Clay blinked, because he didn’t think anyone noticed that. Jesse was the new head librarian, he explained, had moved to town six months prior from Casper, did woodworking in his garage on the weekends, had been trying to find someone who knew the backcountry fishing spots that weren’t posted all over TikTok.
Clay spent the next hour fighting the urge to leave. He’d grown up in a tiny logging town in northern Idaho, where his dad had beaten him for crying when his dog got hit by a car when he was 10, where men didn’t look at other men the way he was starting to look at Jesse, where terms like “Pride” were punchlines at the local bar. He felt a hot twist of shame in his gut every time Jesse’s forearm brushed his as they leaned against the brick, every time Jesse laughed at one of his dry deadpan jokes about entitled hikers who tried to pet moose. He told himself he was just bored, that he was only staying because Jesse was the first person in years who didn’t ask him how he was “holding up” after Diane died, who didn’t look at him like he was a broken thing that needed fixing.
Jesse told him about growing up on a cattle ranch outside Casper, how his dad had disowned him when he came out at 22, how he’d spent 15 years working at a library in Denver before he got tired of the noise and the crowds and moved here. Clay told him about Diane, how she’d been the one who convinced him to apply for the forest service job, how she used to bring him peanut butter sandwiches out on the trail when he worked late. When a group of rowdy college students spilled past them, Jesse grabbed Clay’s wrist to yank him out of the way, and Clay didn’t pull away. The skin of Jesse’s hand was warm and rough, and for half a second Clay thought he might pass out.
The sun dipped below the mountains an hour later, painting the sky pink and orange, and the crowd thinned out a little. Jesse leaned in so he didn’t have to yell over the music, his breath warm against Clay’s ear, and said he had a bottle of 12-year bourbon at his place, plus a stack of 1970s Uinta trail maps he’d picked up at a garage sale the month before, if Clay wanted to come look. Clay’s throat went tight. He thought about the guys he’d gone to high school with, who called gay men slurs at every class reunion, about the church he’d gone to as a kid where the pastor preached that this kind of thing was a sin. He thought about how lonely he’d been for seven years, how no one had made him feel this light since Diane was alive.
He nodded. They walked down the quiet side street away from the bar, the distant sound of music fading behind them, the chill of the evening air nipping at Clay’s exposed arms. When Jesse’s hand brushed his, knuckles knocking against his knuckles, Clay shifted his palm and laced their fingers together.
