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It was on the third straight night of Rachel showing up to the bar that they finally ‘talk about it.’They were both an introspective drunk that was progressing to mopeyness. The night before they had drunk mostly in silence, with the occasional comment about work, or the baseball game on the bar’s TV.
“Do you think Joe was good looking?” Rachel asked to begin the talking.
“Well..” Raylan’s slow mind lurched at the vague recollection of him failing to be subtle as he checked out Joe’s ass at a cookout. “I suppose he didn’t hurt my eyes to be around.”
“My mom seemed to think he was quite the specimen. She would make comments about his looks whenever she could. I never got it though. I mean I know the feelings that are expected, even felt them for some… people. But never him.” Rachel took a long sip of beer. Raylan watched, feeling guilty for hoping that that was the end of it. “And I tried to get it. Tried to be a good wife. I kept thinking that if I just saw or felt a bit more of him, I’d finally get it.”
“Woah now.” Raylan raised a slightly unsteady finger in his warning way. “While I do think I have some duty to be supportive, I really don’t think I want to hear you tell me about this.”
“What I’m trying to say is that there was never any ‘this’ to talk about.”
“Not once in the whole…”
“Year and a half,” Rachel supplied.
“Wow, if I had a year and a half with that man there would have definitely been some.” Raylan wouldn’t have said it if he were sober, but as drunk as they both were it could be passed off as just a joke.
Rachel laughed. “Luckily for me you were busy with Wynona and Lindsey and whoever else you’ve been going after.”
Boyd. Raylan fought his drunkenness down enough to not say the word out loud. “So that why you’re separatin’?”
“Ain’t much point in a marriage if you don’t like each other and don’t want to do any of the things married people are supposed to do.”
“Hmm. I reckon that might be a better end to it then loving and hating each other so much you wanna die,” Raylan offered, the words bringing on the confused regret that came whenever he thought of Wynona.
“I’m thinkin’ that marriage just ain’t for me.”
Raylan gave an optimistic shrug. “I’m sure there’s someone out there for you.” He was beginning to catch on to what this was about, thinking back to the gay club he had gone to in Miami. The first time had been to apprehend a fugitive, but he had returned the weekend after terrified and thrilled. He had sat down at the bar and after ordering his drink asked the bartender about the array of flags hanging behind her. She had offered an explanation of each one, even pointing out the ones that corresponded to her labels. Raylan had wanted to ask more questions, but was distracted by a man sitting down next to him, complimenting his hat and buying him a drink.
He had awoken the next morning next to a ruffled mess of hair that looked so much like Boyd’s that he wondered if he was actually in the back of a pickup truck parked out in one of their secret spots. He had stumbled out of that bed and that house, fighting the urge to call Helen and ask what Boyd was up to. He hadn’t dared go back, stopped by how much it hurt to realise that things could just be that easy for him there, after the terror and heartbreak of love in Harlan.
“There ain’t no man for me.” Rachel’s answer brought Raylan’s floating thoughts back.
“That still leaves you half the population,” Raylan answered and then let the alcohol make him push his luck. “Gina from the other day seemed to like you.”
Rachel took a sip of her beer, eyes staring at the bar. She lowered the bottle, eyes lost in the possibility that was just laid out in front of her. Her eyes flickered to Raylan as the terror hit and took root. She downed the rest of her bottle in a long gulp and then flagged the bartender for another.
Raylan let the feeling wash over Rachel. The thought of how to help her with a struggle that felt like it was destroying him every other day sobering him more than he wanted to be, but less than he needed to be.
“You know Tim once said he thought you had a thing for me,” Raylan said, changing tacks.
Rachel started in on her new beer. “Well, it ain’t any sort of thing like he was thinking, but he’s not all wrong.”
Raylan smiled. “So I might have the opportunity for some flattery from you and then an opportunity to tell Tim that he is not as smart as he is pretty?” He was pushing it with the pretty comment, but it felt good to talk freely without worrying about being called gay or worse.
Rachel gave a good natured smile. She was relaxing again, settling with the new reality of having said what she’d said. “I don’t think your ego can safely take anymore flattery and I’m not sure telling Tim he’s pretty would go over all that well.”
“You might have a point there, but now that you’ve gotten my expectations up a polite fellow might say you have an obligation to finish the story.”
“Hmm.” Rachel let him sit in expectation as she gathered her thoughts and courage. “You just have a good vibe with the flannel and the hat and everything. It seems like every woman we meet wants you and you just politely and courteously seduce them right there. So I guess my thing is just jealousy.” She finally clicked the pieces into a picture that made perfect sense.
“You know you just have to ask and I’ll take you hat shopping. I’m sure we can find one that fits you perfect.”
“Thanks.” Rachel smiled. It seemed unlikely that she’d take him up on the offer, but it still felt meaningful. She found herself stable and comfortable so she pushed on, saying more things that were previously just half seen hated thoughts. “That wouldn’t fix the problem though, I’d still be me, looking like I do and wanting things that I ain’t supposed to. I don’t just want your style, I want to be you.”
“If you were me, you’d have to deal with wanting men the way you’re not supposed to.” Raylen wasn’t sure if he was going to say it until he was halfway through the sentence, but it felt good off his tongue. She was the first coworker he had ever told and now the second person in Kentucky to know.
“So you’re … ?”
“The fancy Miami word is Bisexual.” Raylan said the word for the second time in his life.
Rachel nodded. “So you and Boyd?”
Raylan nodded. He wasn’t surprised by the guess; despite his best efforts, the energy between them was obvious whenever they were in a room together. “Yeah, he’s one of the two love’s of my life who probably wish I were dead.”
Rachel thought back over the looks she saw pass between them. “I don’t know how I didn’t realise that before. It all makes so much more sense now, especially that look you had right after he was dragged off of you in the office.”
Raylan sighed, but let out some drunk honesty. “It sure says something when the thing that gets you going more than anything in years is a man beating the crap out of you so he can go to jail and kill someone.”
They shared a kind laugh over the patheticness of it. It faded out into thoughtful silence. Raylan kept his mouth shut for a few minutes, but he was drunk and sitting next to the first person to know this secret.
“There were a few weeks before Boyd got into the shit he’s into now, where I had a six pack of beers in my car. I thought I could drive down to Ava’s and see him, and we’d drive out to one of the spots we found, and we’d sit and drink and reminisce for a bit. Then when we were halfway through our second beers I’d lean in and ask him if we could try to be what we always knew we could never be.
But it’s a long drive to Harlan and there was everything with Blackpike and the Bennet’s, so instead I drank all six of those bears one night thinking about him pointing a gun at me, and the look in his eyes that said that if he missed my heart he’d just shoot me again. And I keep wondering what if I’d made that drive? Would that have saved him?”
Rachel wasn’t exactly in the right state to offer good comfort. “That’s rough.” She drew on her Marshal’s office comradery to say more. “But he ain’t your responsibility to save. He could have just as easily made the drive up to you.”
Raylan shook his head. “It wouldn’t mean shit if it wasn’t in Harlan.”
“Love isn’t love in Lexington?”
“We loved each other twenty years ago, but Harlan still ripped us apart. What matters is if we’re willing to fight that Godforsaken place.”
“If fighting it is so hard, why don’t the two of you run from it?”
“I asked him that twenty years ago and he said that no matter how far a man runs there is still ground beneath him.” Raylan smiled at Rachel’s confused expression. “Back then Boyd had mastered saying nothing in a pretty way, but he hadn’t figured out making it sound smart yet. I would listen to the stupidest shit from him back then, drunk on him and warm beer, thinking he had read every book in the world, not just all the one’s in our school’s library.”
Rachel smiled, drinking in the possibility of someone like her finding love, even if it was secret and ended in heartbreak.
Raylan sighed with longing and nostalgia, before coming back to himself, his graying hairs, the empty bed in the room upstairs and the friend sitting next to him. “Anyway, I think I was asking about Gina just a little while ago?”
“And I think the Red’s just got a runner into scoring position with two outs.” Rachel nodded towards the TV.
Raylan let the topic slide, accepting the progress they’d made and smiling at the new closeness. “Who’s coming up to bat for us?”
Rachel smiled and relaxed as she answered. They settled back into safe comradery as the game went on. Rachel reached down unnoticed to touch the pocket that held the slip of paper that Gina had given her the other day. It had been handed over real easily just as they were leaving. Rachel had taken it thinking it might be some secret that Gina hadn’t dared to say out loud. Thinking back, it was a stupid assumption, but she had been fluttery and distant from the smiles on Gina’s lips and the daring in her posture.
She had opened it just before driving off to follow Raylan. If you ever feel like wrestling it said, followed by a number neatly scrawled. It had sent fear and hope and confusion surging through her that she was just beginning to settle from.
She was too drunk to make the call now, but she was feeling courageous like she would do it tomorrow. There was a fifty-fifty chance that that courage disappeared when she woke hungover, but now it felt like a golden second step into a newer, truer, happier life ahead of her. The first step though was to relax sitting next to Raylan, true and free in who she was.