“Shit, sorry,” he says. “You probably don’t wanna hear about this.”

“It’s okay,” I tell him quickly. Because even if I normally stay pretty closed off to people, he just had the guts to come out to me, and I don’t want to make him regret it. “No judgement here, I swear. Definitely didn’t see that one coming, that’s all.”

“I’m betting nobody will. If I decide to tell anyone else, that is.”

“Do you think you’re going to?”

He shrugs again. “We’ll see. It’s not like dating is the first thing on my mind right now. I need to make sure Mason is okay, and there’s always the farm keeping me busy. But I can’t say I haven’t thought about the possibility of seeing if my attraction to men could amount to more. Now that I’m free to do... whatever.”

“You don’t have to make a big announcement, you know. If you meet someone and you want to see where things go, then you could just go for it. Let everyone else figure it out on their own.”

He nods, but he has no idea how hypocritical it is for me to give him advice on coming out. Our situations are a bit different though. It’s not the whole town I’m afraid to come out to—I don’t give a crap what they think. It’s my own damn father I’m worried about.

For Connor, I imagine the issue is that this town has seen him for so long as Emma’s husband and Mason’s dad. He’s right that everyone assumes things about him, and who knows how people would react if he went out and shattered those assumptions? It wouldn’t be another celebration like with Andrew in high school. This would just confuse everyone.

People in Mayweather like things to be how they expect them to be.

“But it’s probably pointless to even be thinking about this,” he says glumly. “It’s not like there’s a huge pool of queer men in town for me to potentially date.” His eyes grow unfocused for a few seconds, like he’s thinking about something (maybe someone?) and not sharing. Then he shakes his head as if clearing it. “I finally have the chance to explore my options, but there aren’t many options here.”

I’m here, I have the sudden urge to blurt out. I’m here and I’m queer.

I don’t say that though. Of course not.

It’s not like I actually want Connor to consider me as an option. He’s hot, in that all-American, jacked-from-physical-labor kind of way, but he’s not my type. It might help him to know, though, that there are more queer men around here than he thinks.