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lean on. I’ve never looked into my future and not seen you in it. This scares the shit out of me.”
    I gave up the chair and sat down on the bed next to her. “Me, too. But I can’t not go.”
    She leaned her head on my shoulder, and I rested mine on hers. “I’d never ask you to stay,” she whispered. “I know you can’t.”
    “But I can’t imagine leaving you, either.”
    “Then it seems, we are at an impasse.”

    * * *
    T he clock on my dash changed to 1:36 a.m. I’d been sitting in my truck for the last hour in front of the Golden Eagle Saloon, trying to figure out how to explain the crazy plan I’d concocted between the hours of leaving Avery’s house and sitting here now.
    The bar closed in twenty-four minutes, so I had exactly that long to pull my shit together before I went in.
    The door opened, and I stopped breathing until I saw that it was just two local girls. Kris waved and I unrolled my window.
    She climbed up on my running boards and leaned her pretty face into the cab, reeking of alcohol. “Hey, River,” she slurred.
    “Hey, Kris. What brings you out tonight?”
    “It’s my birfday.”
    “Happy birthday. So you’re legal now, huh?”
    She slow-winked a brown eye at me and then blew her hair out of her eyes. “Yep! What are you doing?”
    “Waiting on Avery.”
    Her head lolled back in exasperation. “You two. Ugh. Why she’d keep a fine piece of man flesh like you in the friend zone is beyond me. I’d climb you like a ladder.” She snorted. “Like a ladder. Get it? Because you’re a fireman?”
    “Absolutely,” I answered. The girl was three sheets to the wind, but I’d known her since she could barely drive.
    “River, I’m sorry,” her friend Lauren called out. “She’s trashed.”
    “I am not!” She licked her lips. “Want me to wait with you? I can keep you plenty busy.”
    Usually I’d think about it. Kris was a gorgeous girl, and it wasn’t like I was celibate. But first, she was drunk, and that I never took advantage of, and second, well…she wasn’t Avery. I wanted Avery. “Not tonight, but happy birthday. Lauren, can you get her home?”
    She nodded and guided her friend off my truck. “Stone-cold sober, no problem. Good to see you, River!”
    By the time the girls piled into Lauren’s car and left, it was 1:45 a.m. My heart pounded, my stomach dropping slightly just like it did before I walked into a fire, before I took a step that had the potential to change my life.
    I was already out of my truck, climbing the steps to the saloon, before I’d decided that I couldn’t wait until two. I couldn’t wait another second.
    I swung the door open and Avery looked up, startled, from where she was washing down a table. “River?”
    I didn’t answer her, just looked at Mike, who sat at the end of the bar as usual for a Tuesday night. “Mike, go home.”
    “It isn’t two,” he said.
    “Close enough.”
    The forty-something guy got off his stool, tossing cash on the bar. “Thanks for the company, Avery.”
    “No problem,” she answered with a smile.
    “River,” he said as he walked by me.
    “Thanks, Mike.”
    He nodded and left, the door closing behind him. I knew he wasn’t drunk—he came here every night to escape his wife, had one beer around eight thirty, and then sipped soda the rest of the night.
    Small towns, man. Everyone knew everyone’s business.
    “What are you doing here?” Avery asked, licking her lips nervously.
    “Are you alone?”
    “She will be,” Maud said as she popped up from behind the bar where she’d obviously been stocking. “You two have fun.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Avery. “I’ll go out the back and lock it up.”
    “Maud,” Avery pled.
    “Nope, not listening!” she sang with her fingers in her ears like she was five. I knew I liked her for a reason. She sang her way through the back door, and then I heard the exterior door close, too.
    Avery leaned back against the table, white-knuckling the edges.