Bonus Feature from Ten Rigs — This story is an AI-generated, non-canon extra.
By the time Wyatt locked the back door of Ten Rigs Veterinary Clinic, the sun had dropped low enough to turn the alley gold.
Heat still clung to the brick walls and rose from the pavement in soft waves, carrying the smells of dust, dry grass, and the barbecue joint two blocks over. Somewhere along Main Street, a screen door banged shut. A diesel engine coughed to life, rattled for a moment, then faded toward the highway.
Ten Rigs was settling into evening.
Wyatt stood with one hand wrapped around the clinic keys and the other holding the straps of a battered green pet carrier.
The carrier was empty.
It had been empty for nearly three weeks.
There was no reason for his pulse to be doing what it was doing.
He told himself that as he crossed the narrow alley and headed toward his truck. He told himself again while he slid the carrier into the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt around it so it would not shift.
He had returned borrowed equipment before. He had spoken to Aaron Givens hundreds of times over the years. Maybe not hundreds. Dozens, certainly. They had gone through the same school system, attended the same Christmas parades, bought brisket from the same church fundraisers, and stood in the same long grocery-store lines when a freeze warning sent half the town scrambling for bread and milk.
Aaron was not a stranger.
That was the problem.
If Aaron had been a stranger, Wyatt might have been able to dismiss what had happened at the clinic.
A firefighter had brought in an injured dog. A vet tech had helped treat it. They had stood too close under fluorescent lights while blood dried on the firefighter’s forearms. Their eyes had met. Something had passed between them.
End of story.
Except Wyatt had known Aaron since they were boys.
He knew the slight hitch in Aaron’s left shoulder came from an old football injury. He knew Aaron always bought his mother a hanging basket for Mother’s Day, even though she complained every year that she had nowhere to put another plant. He knew Aaron volunteered at the fire department, worked full-time repairing farm equipment at his uncle’s shop, and had once driven all the way to Abilene during an ice storm to pick up a replacement generator for the nursing home.
Wyatt knew Aaron’s life in the shallow public way people knew one another in Ten Rigs.
Until three weeks ago, he had never wondered what Aaron’s mouth would feel like.
Now he wondered often enough that it had become an inconvenience.
Wyatt pulled onto Main Street and drove past the feed store, the bank, and the old Rialto Theater with its faded red marquee. The courthouse clock said seven sixteen. Heat shimmered above the hood of his truck, although the air coming through the open window had finally lost the sharp edge of afternoon.
He could have returned the carrier tomorrow.
He could have left it at the station while Aaron was at work.
He could have asked one of the other volunteer firefighters to take it.
Instead, he had texted Aaron at five thirty.
Still at the station tonight?
Aaron had answered less than a minute later.
Till around eight. Everything okay?
Everything was fine.
That had been the sensible response.
Instead, Wyatt had typed:
I’ve still got your carrier. I can bring it by.
There had been a pause before the three dots appeared.
Sure. I’d like that.
Not, Sure.
Not, Thanks.
I’d like that.
Wyatt had read the message six times.
He turned off Main onto East Third, where houses gave way to the water tower, the electric cooperative yard, and the volunteer fire station. The station was a low tan building with three wide garage bays and a metal roof bleached nearly white by the Texas sun. The Ten Rigs Volunteer Fire Department emblem had been painted beside the entrance: a red Maltese cross with a pump jack rising through the center.
One bay door stood open.
Aaron was inside.
Wyatt saw him before Aaron saw the truck.
He stood beside the brush truck with his back turned, one arm raised as he wiped down the driver’s-side window. His gray T-shirt was dark between his shoulder blades. Faded jeans hugged his hips, and the cuffs had been rolled once above work boots powdered with pale dust.
Wyatt’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.
For several years, he had maintained a careful habit of not looking too closely at men he could not have.
It was a useful habit in a town this size.
He had known he was gay by sixteen. He had also known Ten Rigs contained fewer than three thousand people, most of whom had known his parents before he was born and half of whom considered personal privacy an obstacle to be overcome through persistence.
Wyatt had dated, but never here. He had driven to Lubbock, Abilene, San Angelo. He had spent six months with a man in Midland and nearly moved there before realizing the relationship was held together mostly by the fact that neither of them wanted to be lonely.
Since coming home for good, Wyatt had kept his life quiet.
Not hidden, exactly.
His parents knew. His sister knew. Dr. Latham knew, because Dr. Latham had asked him directly after Wyatt turned down a blind date with the woman who taught third grade.
There were probably others who suspected. In Ten Rigs, suspicion was practically a civic pastime.
But Aaron?
Wyatt had never allowed himself to wonder.
Then Aaron had come through the clinic door carrying a bleeding dog against his chest, and all of Wyatt’s careful habits had failed at once.
Aaron glanced toward the open bay.
His expression changed when he saw Wyatt’s truck.
It was small. So small Wyatt could have imagined it. A softening around the mouth. A straightening of his shoulders. The sudden, unmistakable attention of someone who had been waiting.
Wyatt parked beside Aaron’s red pickup.
For a moment, he stayed behind the wheel.
He could still leave.
He could wave the carrier out the window, make a joke about overdue rental fees, and be home before the nine o’clock news.
Instead he unfastened the seat belt and climbed out.
Aaron had set aside the towel by the time Wyatt crossed the lot.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
One word, and Wyatt felt it in his chest.
Aaron wiped his palms on his jeans. “You didn’t have to bring that over tonight.”
“I was tired of looking at it.”
The words sounded sharper than Wyatt intended.
Aaron’s gaze flicked toward the carrier, then back to Wyatt. “Bad memories?”
“No.” Wyatt lifted it slightly. “Mostly a reminder that I’m terrible at returning things.”
Aaron smiled.
It was not a large smile. Aaron rarely gave those away. It moved slowly across his face, warming his brown eyes and easing something in Wyatt that had been tight all day.
“You kept a library book from sixth grade,” Aaron said.
Wyatt stared at him. “How do you know that?”
“Mrs. Caskey read the overdue list during morning announcements.”
“She did not.”
“She absolutely did.”
“That was cruel and unusual punishment.”
“You had it for nine months.”
“It was a book about veterinary medicine.”
“It was about horse breeds.”
“That was relevant to my long-term career goals.”
Aaron laughed.
The sound rolled through the open station bay, low and surprised, as though he had not expected Wyatt to make him do it.
Wyatt’s body noticed.
That was the best way he could describe what had been happening since the night of the rescue. His body had begun noticing Aaron independently of his permission.
The breadth of him. The quiet of him. The way Aaron’s voice roughened when he was tired. The dark hair curling damply at his temples. The smell of soap and sweat and sun-warmed cotton when Wyatt stepped close enough to hand over the carrier.
Aaron reached for it.
Their fingers touched.
Neither moved.
The contact was barely anything. A brush of knuckles against the back of Wyatt’s hand.
His breath stopped anyway.
Aaron’s eyes lifted.
Three weeks ago, Aaron had stood beside the stainless-steel exam table while Wyatt cut away matted fur from the injured dog’s side. Aaron had kept one hand beneath the animal’s head and whispered nonsense into its ear.
Easy, boy. You’re all right. They’ve got you. You’re all right.
The dog had been a young cattle-dog mix, blue-gray beneath the blood and road grit. Aaron had found him caught in a strand of barbed wire along County Road 6 after someone called in smoke from a grass fire.
The fire had been small. The dog’s injuries had not.
Aaron had wrapped him in his fire jacket and driven him to the clinic himself.
Wyatt had seen injured animals arrive in every possible condition. He had seen grown men cry over barn cats and children go silent with fear while he examined beloved rabbits. He had learned how to stay calm when the people around him could not.
But Aaron had looked at him across that exam table with such naked trust that Wyatt’s hands had almost shaken.
Not trust in the clinic.
Trust in Wyatt.
The dog had survived. Dr. Latham repaired the worst of the lacerations, and Aaron paid the bill before anyone could arrange a fundraiser. Mrs. Beeman, who lived near the road where Aaron found him, took the dog home after his stray hold expired and named him Smokey.
The story should have ended there.
Instead, when Aaron finally released the carrier, his fingertips dragged lightly over Wyatt’s.
Wyatt felt the touch all the way up his arm.
“How’s Smokey?” Aaron asked.
“Mrs. Beeman sends me pictures every day.”
“Every day?”
“Usually before seven in the morning. He has his own pillow on her bed.”
Aaron’s expression softened. “Good.”
“She says he follows her everywhere.”
“Good,” Aaron repeated.
Wyatt looked at him.
There was something about the relief in Aaron’s face that went beyond an animal receiving a happy ending. Aaron had carried the dog into the clinic as though the outcome were his responsibility. As though finding something hurt meant he had to make it whole.
“You know,” Wyatt said, “you could ask her if you can visit him.”
Aaron glanced away. “I don’t want to bother her.”
“You saved his life. I doubt she’d consider it a bother.”
“Dr. Latham saved him.”
“You found him.”
“You helped.”
The words came quietly.
Wyatt’s throat tightened.
He lowered his gaze, pretending sudden interest in a dark stain on the concrete floor. “That’s my job.”
“That wasn’t all it was.”
The station seemed to go silent around them.
Outside, cicadas screamed from the mesquite trees along the edge of the property. A truck shifted gears on the highway. Somewhere in the back of the station, an old window unit rattled and clicked.
Wyatt looked up.
Aaron stood very still.
He had always carried stillness differently than other men. It did not make him seem relaxed. It made him seem contained. Like something powerful held carefully inside.
“What was it?” Wyatt asked.
He should not have.
The question came out before caution could stop it.
Aaron’s chest rose with a slow breath. “You stayed.”
“I was on shift.”
“You were supposed to leave at six.”
Wyatt remembered the clock above the pharmacy cabinet turning past seven, then eight. He remembered Dr. Latham telling him twice to go home. He remembered Aaron sitting on the floor beside Smokey’s recovery kennel, his knees drawn up, his fire jacket ruined and folded beneath the dog’s head.
“You looked like you needed someone to stay,” Wyatt said.
Aaron’s gaze held his.
“I did.”
There it was again.
The thing that had moved between them in the clinic. Not imagined. Not one-sided.
Real enough to alter the air.
Wyatt became aware of every inch separating them.
Aaron was close enough that Wyatt could see a small white scar beside his chin and a fleck of dried dust near his collar. Close enough that another half-step would bring their chests together.
Wyatt wanted to take it.
The wanting frightened him with its simplicity.
He had spent years believing desire had to be managed. Scheduled. Driven toward under cover of distance. He knew how to want men who lived an hour away. Men who knew nothing about his family or his work or the embarrassing horse book he had kept past its due date in sixth grade.
Wanting Aaron was different.
Aaron knew where Wyatt had come from.
He knew Wyatt’s mother still made too much food at Thanksgiving. He knew Wyatt had cried behind the elementary school after his first dog died. He knew the exact shape of Wyatt’s life because his own life had been built alongside it, one street over, one grade ahead, always visible.
If this went badly, Wyatt would not leave it behind in another city.
He would see Aaron at the gas station.
At the post office.
At the Christmas parade, standing beside the fire engine while children waited to climb into the cab.
Ten Rigs had no room for graceful disappearance.
Maybe Aaron saw the fear in his face, because he stepped back.
The loss of proximity hit Wyatt harder than it should have.
“I’m sorry,” Aaron said.
“For what?”
“Making this uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t.”
Aaron looked toward the carrier sitting beside the brush truck. “Feels like I did.”
Wyatt hated the resignation in his voice.
He hated the possibility that Aaron might turn away now and neither of them would ever find the courage to return to this moment.
“You didn’t,” Wyatt said again.
Aaron’s jaw tightened.
Wyatt knew that expression. He had seen it in school when Aaron was called on to answer a question he had not prepared for, on the football field before a difficult play, at the clinic when Smokey’s heart rate had dropped.
Aaron was bracing himself.
“I almost didn’t bring him to you,” Aaron said.
Wyatt frowned. “Why?”
“I knew the clinic was the right place. That’s not what I mean.” Aaron rubbed one hand over the back of his neck. “I almost handed him off to Nolan. He was closer to the truck.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Aaron let his hand fall.
His eyes met Wyatt’s, and there was no uncertainty in them now. Fear, yes. Plenty of it. But not uncertainty.
“Because I knew you were working.”
The confession entered Wyatt slowly.
Not because Wyatt was the best vet tech in town.
Not because Dr. Latham was on call.
Because Aaron knew Wyatt was working.
“I wanted it to be you,” Aaron said.
Wyatt’s heart beat once, hard enough to hurt.
The open bay behind Aaron framed a slice of evening sky, deep blue above the pale buildings and flat stretch of land beyond town. The first lights had come on along Main Street. Everything looked familiar.
Nothing felt familiar.
Wyatt swallowed. “Aaron.”
“I didn’t know what that meant.” Aaron’s words came faster now, as if a gate had opened and he was afraid it might close again. “Not then. Maybe I should’ve. I knew I trusted you. I knew seeing you made it easier to breathe. And then you put your hand on my arm and told me the dog had a chance, and I—”
He stopped.
“What?”
Aaron looked away.
Wyatt moved before he could think better of it.
He stepped closer.
Not touching. Not yet.
“What?” he asked again.
Aaron gave a short, unsteady laugh. “I forgot what you said next.”
Warmth rushed through Wyatt’s chest.
“I gave you discharge instructions.”
“I know.”
“I explained the surgical risks.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“You nodded.”
“I was trying to look normal.”
Wyatt’s lips parted.
Aaron glanced at his mouth, then immediately back to his eyes.
The movement was quick.
It was also unmistakable.
For weeks, Wyatt had replayed every moment from that night and accused himself of inventing what he wanted to see. Aaron’s hand lingering when Wyatt took the bloody jacket. Aaron turning at the door as though he wanted to say something. The text the next morning asking whether Wyatt had slept.
None of it had been imagined.
Relief moved through him so sharply that he almost laughed.
Instead he said, “You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Look normal.”
Aaron’s eyebrows lifted.
“You looked terrified,” Wyatt said.
“I was terrified.”
“Of Smokey?”
“Mostly.”
The single word remained between them.
Mostly.
Wyatt felt his own fear change shape.
It did not disappear. It widened, making room for something else.
Hope, maybe.
Hope had always seemed like a delicate word. A passive one.
This did not feel delicate.
It felt like standing at the edge of a summer storm, watching the clouds gather black over open fields and knowing the sky was about to split.
“What were you afraid of?” Wyatt asked.
Aaron’s throat moved.
“That you’d figure me out.”
Wyatt’s pulse climbed.
“And if I had?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Do you know now?”
Aaron looked at him for a long time.
The cicadas rose and fell. The station lights hummed overhead. Wyatt could smell cut grass from somewhere nearby, the sweetness of it drifting through the heat.
“I know I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” Aaron said.
Wyatt closed his eyes.
Only for a second.
The truth was too much to receive while looking directly at him.
When Wyatt opened them again, Aaron had not moved.
“You could’ve said something,” Wyatt whispered.
“So could you.”
“I wasn’t sure.”
“Neither was I.”
“I thought maybe you were just worried about the dog.”
“I was worried about the dog.”
“And nothing else?”
Aaron’s mouth curved slightly. “I was also worried I’d been staring at you long enough for Dr. Latham to notice.”
“He noticed.”
Aaron went pale. “What?”
“He asked me whether the volunteer fire department had started screening its members for head injuries.”
“Oh, hell.”
Wyatt smiled despite himself. “I told him you were tired.”
“Did he believe you?”
“Not for a second.”
Aaron groaned and rubbed a hand over his face.
The sound loosened the last knot inside Wyatt.
This was Aaron.
Not a stranger. Not a risk without a history. Aaron, who returned shopping carts even when the metal corral was at the far end of the parking lot. Aaron, who rescued half-dead dogs from barbed wire. Aaron, who had apparently spent three weeks as uncertain and distracted as Wyatt.
Wyatt reached for him.
His fingers closed around Aaron’s wrist.
Aaron froze.
The pulse beneath Wyatt’s fingertips was fast.
As fast as his own.
“I’ve been thinking about you too,” Wyatt said.
Aaron lowered his hand.
Wyatt did not let go.
“What kind of thinking?”
There was a roughness in Aaron’s voice now, but no teasing. He needed the answer.
Wyatt understood. He needed it too.
“The kind that makes it difficult to concentrate while filling prescriptions.” He slid his fingers from Aaron’s wrist into his palm. “The kind that made me keep a pet carrier in the back room for three weeks because returning it meant I’d have to see you again.”
Aaron’s hand turned beneath his.
Their fingers laced.
“The kind,” Wyatt continued, his voice barely carrying, “that made me drive over here tonight even though I was afraid I’d been wrong.”
Aaron stepped closer.
Their joined hands pressed lightly against Wyatt’s hip.
“You weren’t wrong.”
“I know that now.”
“Wyatt.”
He had heard Aaron say his name before.
Never like that.
Wyatt tilted his face upward.
Aaron was taller by several inches. Close enough now that Wyatt could feel heat radiating from him. Close enough that he could see the question forming before Aaron asked it.
“Can I kiss you?”
The tenderness of it almost undid Wyatt.
Not because Aaron asked permission.
Because his voice made it clear how much the answer mattered.
Wyatt had imagined this moment in ways he would never admit aloud. Aaron pushing him against the clinic wall. Aaron catching him beside his truck after dark. Heat and urgency and years of denied possibility breaking loose all at once.
The reality was quieter.
Aaron stood before him with one hand trembling inside Wyatt’s and waited.
“Yes,” Wyatt said.
Aaron did not move.
Wyatt’s heart stuttered.
“Yes,” he repeated, softer this time. “Please.”
Aaron lifted his free hand.
His fingers touched Wyatt’s cheek with such care that Wyatt’s eyes burned.
Then Aaron kissed him.
The first touch of his mouth was light.
Almost unbearably light.
A soft press of lips, warm and tentative, carrying the question forward. Wyatt felt Aaron’s breath against his skin. Felt the restraint in the hand cupping his face. Felt Aaron waiting even now, giving him space to retreat.
Wyatt had no intention of retreating.
He tightened his fingers around Aaron’s hand and leaned in.
The kiss deepened.
Not dramatically. Not all at once.
Aaron’s mouth shifted over his, firmer now, and something inside Wyatt opened.
Weeks of wondering dissolved into sensation. The rough edge of Aaron’s thumb near his ear. The heat of his body. The taste of coffee and something faintly sweet. The quiet sound Aaron made when Wyatt lifted his other hand and gripped the front of his shirt.
Wyatt had been kissed before.
He had been kissed by men with more experience, more confidence, more practiced skill.
No one had ever kissed him like the act itself was an answer.
His chest ached.
Aaron broke away first, but only far enough to breathe.
Their foreheads touched.
For a moment, neither spoke.
Wyatt kept his eyes closed.
He could feel Aaron smiling.
“You okay?” Aaron whispered.
The question carried an echo of that night at the clinic.
Easy, boy. You’re all right.
Wyatt opened his eyes.
Aaron’s expression held wonder and fear and something so openly tender that Wyatt had to look at it in pieces.
His eyes first.
Then his mouth.
Then the hand still cradling Wyatt’s face.
“No,” Wyatt said.
Aaron’s smile disappeared. “No?”
“I’m not remotely okay.”
“Oh.”
“I’m standing in an open fire station where half the town could drive past at any second, and I want you to kiss me again.”
Aaron’s gaze dropped briefly toward the street.
“That does complicate things.”
“Your concern is touching.”
“I can close the bay door.”
Wyatt’s stomach flipped.
Aaron’s eyes widened slightly, as though he had heard the implication after speaking.
“I meant for privacy,” he said quickly. “Not that I expect— I’m not saying we have to—”
Wyatt kissed him.
This time there was no hesitation.
Aaron’s startled breath warmed Wyatt’s mouth. Then his arm came around Wyatt’s waist, pulling him close.
The world narrowed.
Wyatt felt the solid line of Aaron’s body against his, the strength he had tried not to notice for years. He slid one hand into the hair at the back of Aaron’s head and kissed him slowly, learning the shape of his mouth.
Aaron responded with the same care he brought to everything.
Even now, with want trembling through both of them, he did not rush. His hand spread across Wyatt’s back. His thumb moved once against Wyatt’s cheek. He kissed Wyatt as though there was time.
Maybe there was.
The thought struck Wyatt with unexpected force.
There could be time.
Not a stolen night in another city. Not a few hours before one of them made the long drive home. Aaron lived six minutes from Wyatt’s house. They bought groceries beneath the same fluorescent lights. They woke beneath the same wide Texas sky.
This could exist beyond the moment.
The possibility frightened him more than the kiss.
Wyatt eased back.
Aaron released him immediately, concern returning to his face.
“Too much?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Wyatt looked toward the street.
No cars passed. The courthouse clock was visible in the distance, lit pale against the darkening sky. Ten Rigs remained exactly what it had been an hour ago: small, watchful, familiar.
“I don’t know how to do this here,” Wyatt admitted.
Aaron was quiet.
Wyatt forced himself to continue.
“I know how to meet somebody somewhere else. I know how to date where nobody knows my mother or remembers what I wore to junior prom.” His laugh held no humor. “Here, everything feels like it belongs to everybody.”
Aaron’s hand brushed his.
“Not everything.”
Wyatt looked at him.
Aaron glanced toward their hands. “This doesn’t.”
The simplicity of the answer settled into Wyatt.
Aaron was right.
The town might notice. People might wonder. Someone would eventually ask a question that was none of their business. That was Ten Rigs.
But the moment itself belonged to them.
The fear.
The wanting.
The kiss.
No one else had a claim on it.
“I’ve never done this here either,” Aaron said.
“You’ve dated men?”
Aaron nodded. “A couple. Not in town.”
“Did anyone know?”
“My sister. My cousin Seth.”
Wyatt absorbed that. “Your parents?”
“My dad died before I figured it out. Or before I admitted it.” Aaron looked toward the open bay. “My mother knows now.”
“How did she take it?”
“She asked whether it explained why I kept finding excuses not to date Melissa Garner.”
Wyatt laughed. “Melissa has been married for nine years.”
“I was very committed to those excuses.”
The humor faded slowly from Aaron’s face.
“She told me she loved me,” he said. “Then she asked whether I was happy.”
“What did you say?”
“That I didn’t know.”
Wyatt’s chest tightened.
“And now?”
Aaron looked at him.
The answer was there before he spoke.
“I think I could be.”
Wyatt turned his face away.
Not because he disliked the words.
Because they were too close to the hope he had barely allowed himself to feel.
Aaron touched his hand again.
“I’m not trying to make this more than it is,” he said. “I know we’ve only— We haven’t even gone out.”
“We’ve known each other most of our lives.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
Aaron’s fingers slipped between Wyatt’s.
“But it’s not nothing,” Wyatt said.
“No.”
They stood together at the edge of the bay while the last of the light faded.
A breeze moved through at last, warm but welcome. It carried the dry rustle of mesquite leaves and the distant metallic clank of a pump jack working beyond town.
Wyatt thought of all the years he had spent believing Ten Rigs could only hold one version of him.
The son.
The brother.
The dependable vet tech.
The man who came home alone every night and pretended that was easier.
Maybe he had been wrong.
Maybe the town was large enough for this too.
Or maybe it was not, and they would make room anyway.
Aaron squeezed his hand.
“I’m off Saturday,” he said.
Wyatt looked at him. “Are you asking me out?”
“I’m trying to.”
“You’re not very good at it.”
“I haven’t gotten to the question yet.”
“Go ahead.”
Aaron took a breath.
“Would you have dinner with me?”
“Where?”
“Somewhere nobody will interrupt us every five minutes.”
“That rules out every restaurant in Ten Rigs.”
“I could cook.”
Wyatt studied him. “Can you?”
“I make a respectable steak.”
“That isn’t cooking. That’s applying heat to meat.”
“I can bake potatoes.”
“In an oven?”
Aaron’s mouth twitched. “Microwave.”
“Then no.”
“Wyatt.”
“Yes.”
Aaron blinked. “Yes?”
“Yes, I’ll have dinner with you.”
Relief transformed his face.
Wyatt wanted to kiss him again simply to feel that relief beneath his hands.
“Saturday,” Aaron said.
“Saturday.”
“At my place?”
Wyatt let the question rest for a moment.
Not to tease. To feel it.
Dinner at Aaron’s house. Aaron’s kitchen. Aaron’s private life opening to include him.
“Yes.”
Aaron smiled.
This time it was the larger one, the rare one.
Wyatt had seen it across crowded football stands and during Fourth of July picnics, but never directed entirely at him.
His knees felt strangely weak.
“I should finish cleaning the truck,” Aaron said, though he made no move to let go.
“I should go home.”
“Probably.”
Neither moved.
Wyatt looked at the carrier on the concrete.
“You know, technically, that belongs to the clinic.”
Aaron followed his gaze. “You said it was mine.”
“I lied.”
“So you came over under false pretenses?”
“I came over because you said you’d like to see me.”
Aaron’s eyes returned to his.
“I did.”
“You could say it again.”
“I’d like to see you.”
“Saturday.”
“Before Saturday too.”
The words slipped beneath Wyatt’s ribs.
He stepped forward and pressed one final kiss to Aaron’s mouth.
It should have been brief.
It was not.
When Wyatt finally pulled away, Aaron’s forehead rested against his again.
Outside, the lights of Ten Rigs glowed beneath the vast, darkening sky. The buildings were worn, the streets familiar, every corner crowded with memory.
Wyatt had spent most of his life believing nothing truly new could happen here.
Then Aaron’s thumb brushed his cheek.
And Wyatt understood that he had been wrong.
* * * * *
About this Bonus Feature
This story was created as an AI-assisted creative experiment inspired by Ten Rigs. It is not part of the novel’s official canon or any future publication. The text was generated using AI under the creative direction of the Knotted Hearts Publishing editorial staff, with prompts, editorial guidance, and final approval provided by KHP. It is shared as a behind-the-scenes bonus for readers who enjoy exploring new storytelling tools and creative possibilities.