Dear Ruth by Kim Fielding

Author:Kim Fielding [Fielding, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-64080-288-9
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2017-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

THAT NIGHT, Bryce ignored the cold and dark and went running. Fast. Through downtown—where only Louella’s, the pizza place, and the theater remained open—across the railroad tracks, and past the grain elevator and the pet food plant. Up and down the streets in the expensive part of town and then in the neighborhood of postwar bungalows that had been built for employees of a candy factory. The factory was long gone; it had burned to the ground when Bryce was a baby. Years later, he’d heard stories about the historically spectacular fire from some of the department veterans. Nothing remained but a large flat lot, weedy in summer and now dotted with patches of ice and dirty snow. Bryce ran past that too.

He ran, in fact, all the way to Memorial Bridge outside of town. It was too dark to see the river flowing beneath him, but he could hear it churning along on its way to the Missouri. He turned and ran back toward home.

The weather was a little warmer than it had been in recent days, the sky too overcast to show stars. The forecasters said snow was on the way, and although some people were happy at the prospect of a white Christmas, Bryce was not. A lot of people traveled on Christmas, and slick roads increased the likelihood of holiday mishaps.

As he ran he tried to keep his thoughts in safe territory. But most of the houses sparkled with holiday lights—white, red and green, blue—and front yards sported Santas, reindeer, penguins, and various other seasonal characters grinning away. The decorations, of course, reminded him of Noah. Dammit.

The thing of it was, Bryce didn’t have a lot of friends. Even when he was a kid, he had only a couple of close pals, and that was it. In Wichita he’d slept around a bit but hadn’t really socialized all that much. Then he’d found a steady boyfriend, and they’d had mutual friends, and that was fine. Until they broke up. Back in Bailey Springs again, well, there were the guys at the station, but he was their boss.

Noah was probably just as lonely. He was new in town, after all, and didn’t even have coworkers to hang out with.

Noah and Bryce enjoyed each other’s company. They could be friends, right? Bryce had straight friends. Except… he wasn’t attracted to those men. He didn’t imagine them naked, didn’t picture them when he jacked off, didn’t dream about them. Bryce could either fess up to drooling after Noah or keep his big mouth shut, but that elephant was going to be in the room whether he acknowledged it or not.

Maybe the best thing was to give up on Bailey Springs entirely. Move back to Wichita. Move anywhere. Because there was nothing to tie him to this dumb little town in the middle of a flyover state.

Nothing but history, blood, and memories. Nothing but his mother’s grave, the job he loved, the little speck of real estate he’d painstakingly made his own, and the Bernards—who were the next best thing to family.

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