"Hunter, how old are you?" Sue called from the kitchen.

Hunter paused with his spoon halfway between his bowl of stew and his mouth. He was sitting on the couch next to Stephan who was huddled into the corner with his own bowl, left foot in a new bucket of warm vinegar. "Twenty."

Sue stuck her head in the room. "Thought so. You drink?"

"Not really. Drinking age is twenty-one in California." He shrugged.

"It's nineteen here and all these men have on hand to drink is beer, whiskey, milk, and water—which can be made into tea or coffee."

"I'm fine with water, thank you."

From the chair on the other side of the room, Stephan's mother muttered, "Good answer."

Stephan shot her a look. Sue somehow managed to carry a glass of water, two mugs of tea, and a bowl of stew in from the kitchen with her. She seated herself next to Junior—who was to Hunter's other side—on the couch, passed one of the mugs of tea and the water down to the boys, and tucked into her own dinner. It was quiet. Sitting on the floor in front of the armchair to avoid having to pull a chair in from the kitchen, Jack leaned back against Ennis's leg, which earned him a gentle kick to his side.

The phone rang, making everyone jump. Jack levered himself up off the floor. "I got it." He disappeared into the kitchen, the ringing stopped, and everyone listened as he said, "Hello? Yeah, who is this? Alright, I'll get her." He reappeared in the doorway. "Junior, your friend Lori."

Junior went to the phone. "Lori?"

"Jesus Tapdancing Christ, DelMar, yesterday yer askin' me 'bout Stephan being M.I.A. then you go missing too. No sign of either of you at school, I had to work at the damn diner today so I couldn't go huntin' for ya 'til I got off. I go to your place, car's not there, your mama says you've gone to Crowheart with Clairmont. It's Tuesday and you were just there. What is going on, Junior?"

Junior took a deep breath. "Stephan had a nasty fight with his dad, showed up at my house late last night, couldn't go home and couldn't really stay there, so I took him to my Daddy's."

"Musta been some kind of fight." Lori sounded skeptical.

"It was a 'Stephan has busted ribs now' fight."

Junior could almost hear Lori's jaw drop. "He beat him up?"

"Yeah." Junior flicked her eyes toward the living room. "He did. He's okay though. Mostly."

"Good, but, God— What on Earth for? I mean, I'd think you'd need some kinda reason for that, nothing is a good reason for it, but—he'd never beat him before, right?"

"Not as far as I know. And Steph'd been keeping a secret and his dad found out. That's his reason."

Lori paused. "It wasn't a bad secret, was it?"

"No. no." Junior leaned her forehead on the wall and took a breath. "It's actually a kind of a really nice secret, it's just not something folks need to be knowin' about. You know if it were my secret I'd tell you, but it's not."

"Oh my God, did he get somebody pregnant?"

"No, Lori," she sighed, "he did not get anybody pregnant."

Junior felt a warm hand cover hers on the phone and jerked back a little. Hunter pulled the phone out of her grip and set it to his ear. "Lori? Hey, this is Hunter."

He was standing close enough that Junior could still hear Lori say, "Stephan's cute friend from California?"

A small smile tugged at the corner of Hunter's mouth. "That would be me. Listen, you were asking why Steph got beaten up, yeah? Well, Junior's right, it's not something people need to know about, but I'll tell you if you can promise me something."

"Yeah?"

"Do a better job than Junior of telling what happened without telling the whole damn truth when people start asking. Because you know people are going to ask."

"I think I can do that."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

Hunter gave Junior a look that said most of a Shakespeare play. "Stephan's gay, so am I, we're dating. That's what his dad beat him for."

There was a long silence from Lori's end. "That...is not what I was expecting. Okay, okay... Wow. So, you're—"

"Yup." Hunter absently smoothed the shoulder of Junior's shirt, probably just to have something to do with his free hand.

"Okay. And he's—"

"My boyfriend."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah, okay."

"Good. Now, can you not tell people that without making it sound like somebody's having a baby?"

"Yeah."

"Thank you. I'm giving the phone back to Junior now."

"Okay."

Junior took the phone when he held it out, then watched him pour himself a mug of tea from the kettle, pause, get out the bottle of whiskey, pour a little in his tea, put it away, then go back to the living room. She leaned on the wall again. "Hey."

"Did you know about that?"

"Yeah."

"Damn."

"Yeah."

"I didn't think I knew anybody like that."

"I'm starting to think everybody knows somebody, even if they don't know it. You okay?"

"In a couple different kinds of emotional shock, but yeah."

"Well, I think we're heading back to Riverton tomorrow, so see you then?"

"See you."

"Bye." Junior hung up and went back to the couch. No one said a word.

After dinner, Mrs. Clairmont got ready to go home herself. After quickly failing in her attempt to talk Stephan into coming with her, she gave him an awkward, stiffly gentle hug, and left. As soon as her car was out of sight, Jack and Ennis went out to do their evening rounds before they lost the last of the light. Sue put a hand on Stephan's shoulder. "I found a carton of epsom salts in the basement. Why don't you let Hunter help you upstairs and you take a bath? I washed the pajamas you brought with you—they're still hanging out, but I'm about to bring the last of the laundry in anyway—so you can wear those to bed, alright?"

Stephan nodded. He was only managing to stand in the foyer with the others because Hunter was propping him up. "Yeah, thank you."

Hunter helped Stephan up the stairs while Junior and Sue went out to bring the laundry in. If it were up to Hunter, he'd have just carried Stephan upstairs, but Stephan didn't need his pride bruised on top of everything else. The carton of epsom salts was sitting on the corner of the bathroom counter, presumably put there by Sue. Hunter ran a bath, helped Stephan out of his clothes—gritting his teeth at the bruises the entire time—and helped him into the tub. Stephan sank into the water up to his chin and closed his eyes. Hunter ran a hand through Stephan's hair. "You going to drown if I leave you alone?"

Stephan cracked one eye open. "No."

Outside in the barn, Jack and Ennis were busy dishing out feed to the horses.

"Jack, you alright?"

"Huh?" Jack glanced at Ennis from across the barn while he shoved Chessman with his shoulder to get the horse to move out of the way. "I'm fine."

"This isn't all too much like...?"

Jack dumped feed into Chessman's bucket and stepped back out into the aisle, his fingers finding the scar on his temple without his bidding them to. "No worse for me than for you, bud." He locked the bottom half of the stall door. "What you said in there before dinner—"

"It's nothin'." Ennis locked another stall.

"It's not nothin', and you know it. The fact you said anythin' at all proves it." Jack walked to stand in front of Ennis. "So, thank you."

Ennis blinked at him. "What?"

"Thank you."

"What for?"

Jack shrugged. "Bein' here, doin' this with me, not ever actually breakin' my nose despite several close calls, everything."

Ennis scuffed his boot in the dirt. "What 'm I s'posed to say to that, huh?"

"You don't have to say anythin'." Jack smiled and the corners of his eyes crinkled. He turned on his heel and strode off to lock up the feed room. "In other news, that woman from the farmers' market's still interested in her daughter getting' ridin' lessons."

Ennis groaned behind him.

"Look, I'd be happy to teach, and Lord knows we could always use cash. All you'd have to do is not cuss at the damn kids."

Before the conversation could continue, someone knocked on the open door of the barn, making both men look around. Hunter was standing in the doorway, hands shoved in the pockets of his too green pants, no jacket, shoulders hunched against the settling evening chill. "I was wondering if I could use your phone? I should call my professors, and probably my roommates."

Jack let out a breath. "I'm not gonna wanna see this month's phone bill, but go ahead."

"If you'd rather, I could—"

"Go ahead, Hunter." Jack nodded at him.

"Thank you." Hunter nodded back then turned to trudge up the hill to the house. Once there, he went to make sure Stephan was keeping his word about not drowning, then pulled a chair over next to the phone in the kitchen. He called three of his four professors and provided them with vague, hand waving explanations along the lines of, "I'm not skipping your class, I swear, there was a family emergency." Then he called the fourth, his psych professor he'd had for three different classes. He leaned back in his chair when she picked up. "Hey, Professor Wise. It's Hunter Greene."

"I assume you're about to explain why you weren't in class today. It's not like you to skip."

"I'm not skipping..." He sighed. "I'm in Wyoming. My, uh, my boyfriend got beaten up by his father."

There was a short silence on the other end. "I'm very sorry to hear that. I didn't know you were seeing anyone but I am very sorry to hear that. Safe to assume you won't be in class Thursday, either?"

"I probably won't be back until next week."

"The next words out of your mouth are going to be asking for an extension on the paper, aren't they?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Come see me when you get back, we'll talk about it."

"Thank you, Professor."

"And get off the phone and go be the good worried mess of an S.O. I'm sure you are."

"Yes, ma'am."

He left a voicemail for his roommates, "Emergency trip to Wyoming, Stephan was in trouble, be back ASAP," and went back upstairs.