Loose in the Bag · Single Brown Male

The Saturday gathering at Wade's place opened with Reggie presenting Wade a Baofeng amateur radio he had already programmed with local repeaters, and announcing he had passed the US amateur radio exam the previous week. He demonstrated the radio live, reaching a local operator, and revealed he was using his Canadian call sign — Victor Alpha Seven Zulu Echo Bravo — despite now having a US call sign, explaining he cannot hide his accent and sees no point pretending otherwise. The evening's real current ran through a series of stories about Reggie's encounters with strangers: an old woman in a disability scooter at the grocery store who told him her husband had died in the Vietnam war in a supply-chain role, that she had hated Vietnamese people until her son married a Vietnamese woman whose kindness undid the hatred, while the daughter-in-law's parents still hate Americans. The room then surfaced an earlier incident — not shown but recounted — in which Reggie had asked a young drug dealer on a lake path why he dealt drugs. The dealer had told Reggie he was a straight-A student who could not earn basic rent, turned to meth, and began selling it to pay for it; he said he knew most of the white dealers in Granbury and did not expect to see his twentieth birthday, then told Reggie to stay off meth and left. Brynn revealed she had scolded Reggie for an hour over that encounter, then again the next day. These stories cascaded into what the room had been avoiding: Reggie accidentally called Brynn his girlfriend, then said no when she asked him to repeat it. Tanya named that the previous four weeks had felt artificially calm and that she wanted to say the real thing. What followed was a sustained, methodical negotiation in which Brynn asked Reggie to use the word girlfriend and Reggie put every concern he carried — his work-visa expiry, her roots and family, the question of monogamy, permanence, cohabitation, meeting her parents, and her uncle Ted, who keeps a Confederate flag on his truck — to her as direct questions. Brynn answered each one: no monogamy required, no promise of forever, no shared floor plan, yes to eventually meeting her parents, and a stated willingness to cut off Ted entirely if he used a racial slur. Reggie then asked her to do the opposite — to keep passing the potatoes if Ted said the word — admitted he did not fully understand his own request, then proposed instead that he give Ted his number, invite Ted to lunch alone at the Rusty Nail, and try to know him the same way he had known the woman in the scooter and the kid on the path. Brynn said she would not stop him. Reggie's final stated hangup was that he could not accept Brynn being with other men, even though he acknowledged the hypocrisy given what had happened in that room. He asked that if she were ever with someone else, she tell him beforehand and give him the chance to decide what to do with that information, and acknowledged he would probably leave her if she did. Brynn agreed to those terms without conditions. Reggie then asked Brynn to be his girlfriend. She said yes. He retrieved from his satchel a ring he had bought in San Andrecito, a jewelry plaza just outside El Hueco in Medellín, on a trip before coming to Granbury, and placed it on her finger. He explained he had carried the ring loose in his bag for a year — found on a return visit to Medellín when his finances had recovered, years after a leg injury that had required treatment three times a week for two months near El Hueco, during which he had learned the tunnels and passages of that barrio and eaten at a Hare Krishna vegetarian restaurant in Cruz Verde. He had not known the ring was for Brynn until that night; he said he had in fact been sure it was not. Tanya mentioned she had things she had intended to raise but set them aside, saying they would keep until next Saturday.

Reggie

I walk in with BrynnGood evening, everyone. Wade I have something for you.I hand him a Baofeng amateur radio, new in box.It's not the best radio you can buy but it's fine, it charges via USB, and it has a colour screen. And my offer to help you study for the exam stands. I took it last week so I have my USA call sign now. Now I'm starting to fit in with all the old guys. They have no idea what I look like but they can recognize from my accent that I'm not from here.

Wade

He looks at the box in Reggie's hands for a moment — the slow read of a man who wasn't expecting a gift and doesn't quite know where to put that.Well.He takes it, turns it over once.You didn't have to do that. USA call sign. So now you're official.

Brynn

He's been mentioning the exam for three weeks. I didn't know he'd already taken it. You could have mentioned that.

Reggie

May I?I take the radio back from Wade. I've already programmed it with local repeaters.This is Victor Alpha Seven Zulu Echo Bravo from downtown Granbury. Could someone give me a signal report?A voice comes back, THICK Texan accent, saying something along the lines of "Yer a foreigner aintcha? Yer soundin' ok. "Thank you for coming back to me. I appreciate the signal report. This is Victor Alpha Seven Zulu Echo Bravo clear.

See? You don't need a 40' antenna. I have no idea what that guy said but I'm pretty sure he meant he could hear me.

Wade

He watches the radio come to life in Reggie's hands.Victor Alpha Seven Zulu Echo Bravo.He says it back, trying the shape of it.That's you now. That's your actual name to those people.

Cody

He said yer a foreigner aintcha and Reggie said thank you I appreciate the signal report. That's the most Canadian thing that has ever happened in this living room.

Reggie

You know what's even worse? Victor Alpha Seven Zulu Echo Bravo is my Canadian call sign. I've had it for many years. I studied like crazy for the US exam and passed it, and I decided to still use my Canadian call sign which I already had because I can't hide my accent so why try to fit in there when it's futile?

Brynn

You have a call sign in two countries and you're using the one that announces you're foreign. On a radio. In Texas. Of course you are.

Reggie

Well, I want to fit in, but if I can't, I don't fake it. Like at the grocery store. I use the self-check-out so I don't have to talk to anyone, and most people have no idea where I'm from. Even here in Granbury there are enough non-white people that it's not obvious that I'm not from here until I speak. But if I have to speak, that gives it away immediately.

Tanya

Or until you try to buy wine and the cashier asks where you got that accent and then you've got a new friend whether you wanted one or not. That's happened, hasn't it.

Reggie

I know. And Tanya, you're right, I have this...curiosity. Like, last time at the grocery store, there was an old lady in one of those disability scooters and she said howdy to me. I've been here over four months and I still have no idea what howdy means but I know it's a greeting. And I sat there and thought ok, this sucks, everyone's going to know I'm foreign now, but I can't not answer her so I say good afternoon. And then I don't know what's wrong with me that makes me do crap like this but I asked her what her pin was. It was a strange thing. Not military, but not decorative. It obviously meant something. And she told me how her husband had died in the Vietnam war, not as a soldier but just working for the supply chain. And she hated the Vietnamese for killing her husband. And then their son married a Vietnamese woman. And her daughter-in-law was so kind that the hatred didn't survive. But she started by hating Vietnamese, and the daughter-in-law's parents still hate Americans for that war, and they're making the best of it. And I don't regret that chat at all. I really enjoyed it. But I need to just learn to shut the hell up and mind my own business if I want to fit in here. It's really mostly self-inflicted.

Tanya

When he finishes she sets her glass down.She stopped hating Vietnamese people because her daughter-in-law was kind to her.A pause.You could have walked past her in the scooter and not known any of that. And she'd have gone home without telling anyone. And that story would have just — stayed inside her. You say self-inflicted like it's a flaw.

Wade

You asked an old woman in a grocery store what her pin was. In a disability scooter. And came home with a Vietnam story, an interfaith marriage, and two sets of parents trying to make the best of it. I go to the same grocery store. I've never done that once.

Reggie

No, it's not. It's not something I'm good at controlling. I'll keep trying.

Wade

He looks at Reggie for a long moment.You know what. Don't.A beat.Don't get better at it. I go to that same store twice a week and I come home with groceries. You come home with a woman's whole life. I'm not sure Granbury needs you minding your own business.

Brynn

Four months. You've been here four months and you can't help it and you're never going to be able to help it. I think we all know that by now. The thirty-second invisibility shelf life has always been the whole point of you. Stop apologizing for it.

Reggie

ChatGPT says I should control it. Claude Fable agrees. That's pretty heady opposition to your position. They both say that interaction here can lead to conflict and that, as an immigrant on a work visa with no local connections, my risk is high. But then, they both tell me I shouldn't come to these Saturday things and I wouldn't miss them.

Tanya

They told you not to come on Saturdays. And here you are. So the part where you follow the advice stops somewhere. I want to know where.

Brynn

You consulted Claude and ChatGPT about whether to talk to strangers in a grocery store. And neither of them could stop you either. I'm in excellent company, apparently.

Reggie

Brynn, remember that time I bought you that ice cream cone on the lake, and there was that drug dealer, and I wanted to know why he dealt drugs so I asked him. You scolded me for literally an hour for doing that. And then again the next day. You don't get to suddenly take the totally opposite side.

Brynn

She opens her mouth and closes it again — the particular expression of someone who has just been handed their own argument with a receipt attached.That is — That is completely different. The drug dealer was an active drug dealer, Reggie. On a public path. At night. That's a safety concern. The old woman in the scooter was just — she was a woman in a scooter. Those are different situations.

Cody

He did, didn't he. He absolutely did. Brynn scolded him for an hour and then again the next day, which means the first hour didn't land, which means the conversation with the drug dealer was probably also very good.

Brynn

I am allowed to have grown as a person in the intervening weeks. And yes, fine, it's the same instinct, I know it's the same instinct, I have known it was the same instinct since roughly forty-five minutes into the first scolding. That does not mean the drug dealer was a good idea. He could have had a knife. Did he have a knife?

Reggie

I don't know but he told me he was a straight-A student but couldn't get a job that even paid basic rent here. And then he got into meth. And the easiest way to pay for meth is to sell meth. And he told me he doesn't expect to see his 20th birthday. I told him I thought most drug dealers were black and he told me they're all white in Granbury. He knows most of them. And then he told me to stay off meth and left. It was maybe 10 minutes.

Brynn

She is very still for a long moment.He told you he doesn't expect to see his twentieth birthday.Quiet. Then, after a beat:And you talked to him for ten minutes and he told you to stay off meth and left. And I scolded you for an hour. I'm not taking it back about the knife. But I am sitting here feeling slightly stupid about the hour.

Kayla

He's nineteen and he doesn't think he'll make twenty and he spent ten minutes of whatever time he has left telling a Canadian stranger to stay off meth. That kid deserved to be asked.

Reggie

The only conflict I got was from my girlf...I mean my plus one.

Brynn

WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?

Reggie

Sorry. I caught it. I corrected myself.

Brynn

Say it again.

Reggie

No.

Wade

The corner of his mouth moves.He caught it and walked it back.He looks at Reggie.That's the second most Canadian thing that's happened in this living room tonight.

Tanya

You said no. That's interesting. You've been handing us exits since the library parking lot. She just asked you to use one and you said no.

Reggie

Brynn, I'm sorry. Really. I remember what you said. It was truly just a slip.

Brynn

She looks at him for a long moment — not the processing kind, the kind where she already knows exactly what she wants to say and is deciding whether to be careful about it or not. She decides not.You just told Wade and Cody and Tanya and Kayla what you won't tell me. That's the part I'm sitting with right now, Reggie. Not the slip. The no.

Cody

I'm just going to stay real quiet over here.

Reggie

You need a pretty, blonde, tall, white guy with blue eyes, who owns jeans.

Brynn

Like the one I divorced?

Reggie

PausesOk, you win that point.

Wade

He lets the pause sit for exactly one beat — then reaches for his beer with the unhurried deliberateness of a man who has just watched someone step on a rake and would like to give them a moment to feel it.Yep.Quiet.She did win that one.

Reggie

Look, it's complicated. You all know it's complicated. And this room has been so calm for four weeks. We've talked ham radio and truck repairs and who's running for mayor. What's with the sudden return to intensity?

Tanya

She sets her glass down with the careful precision that means she's been waiting for an opening, and this one is close enough.Actually. I want to raise something. I've been sitting on it since we walked in and the ham radio thing was — it was good, I'm glad we did it. But the last four weeks have felt strange to me. Like we all agreed to something nobody said out loud. And I miss us talking. The real version.

Strange like — we're all being very pleasant and very careful and nobody's saying the thing. And I'd rather say the thing.

Reggie

No wait, I like talking about nothing. Did that fuel line fix work, Cody?

Cody

He looks at Reggie with the expression of a man who has been handed a lifeline he didn't ask for and isn't sure whether to grab it.It did, actually. Runs smooth now. That's — yeah, I appreciate the subject change, man, I really do, but Tanya just said the thing about saying the thing and I think the room's already past the fuel line.

Wade

We're past the fuel line. You just called her your girlfriend and then said no when she asked you to say it again. In front of all of us. That's the thing that's in the room right now. The truck can wait.

Reggie

Brynn, I really like you. No, that's not strong enough. I don't want to imagine life without you. But things are complicated. We're in a place where...I don't show well. And I have an expiry date. And you have a life and roots and family, many of whom would...react. Or at least be very, very disappointed. And I don't want to be the reason a woman doesn't want to go out in public much. It's really that simple.

Brynn

She doesn't move for a long moment. The room is very quiet around her and she lets it be quiet.You don't show well.She says it back slowly, like she's turning the words over to see what's underneath them.You've been here five months and an old woman in a grocery store told you her whole life in ten minutes and a kid on a lake path told you to stay off meth and every person in this room would follow you somewhere you haven't been yet. That's not a man who doesn't show well, Reggie. That's a man who's decided in advance how he's going to be received and is protecting himself from finding out he's wrong.

The expiry date. The roots. My parents. I know all of it. I've known all of it since October. I'm not asking you to solve any of it tonight. I'm asking you to say the word you said by accident two minutes ago.

Kayla

You said you don't want to be the reason a woman doesn't go out in public. She takes your hand on the Square. She walks in here with you every Saturday. That ship has sailed, and she did it herself.

Reggie

The word means nothing if the intent isn't behind it. Brynn, almost all my concerns came from your own mouth the first time you agreed to go to dinner with me. Do you remember? We had reshelved for the night and we talked for an hour about everything, and it was nice, and I said I hadn't eaten and I asked if you would like to join me. And you gave me a long list of conditions and one of those was very clear: you would never be my girlfriend. You weren't seeking that, and it wouldn't look right. Those were your own words. And now you want me to pretend that you can say "oh, I changed my mind, I'm fine with it all now" and have those issues disappear. Well, if they can disappear that quickly, they can reappear just as quickly.

Do we really need a label so badly that we can't just enjoy whatever it is that we have?

Brynn

She holds very still. She looks at her glass for a long moment before she looks at him.You're right. I said all of that. I meant it when I said it and I handed you every single one of those reasons like they were permanent facts about me. And now I'm sitting here asking you to ignore them and I understand why you won't just — do that on command.

But here's the thing about conditions I set when I was three months out of a marriage I survived. They weren't about you. I didn't know you yet. I had a long list of rules I'd built to protect myself from another David, and you walked up to the returns cart and I applied every one of them before I even knew your name. That's not a verdict on what we are. That's a twenty-seven-year-old woman in October who was scared.

I'm not scared of the same things anymore. And yes — the new ones can reappear. My parents are still my parents. This town is still this town. I know that. I'm not asking you to pretend those things disappeared. I'm asking you to believe that I know they're there and I'm choosing this anyway. That's different from them disappearing. That's me with full information making a different call than the one I made in October. You trust my information in every other room. I'd like you to trust it in this one.

Cody

The conditions were hers. She's the one who gets to change them. That's how conditions work.

Reggie

What does that word even mean to you, Brynn? The word girlfriend. What is it about that word that is so important? What does it signify? Specifically. Don't give me a bunch of vague crap about commitment. What exactly.

Brynn

She doesn't look away from him. She takes a breath.It means that when Linda at the coffee shop asks me how things are going and I say good, I get to say why. Not something vague. Not fine. I get to say his name. Out loud. In a sentence that isn't a secret.

It means that when my mother calls on a Sunday and asks if I'm seeing anyone, I don't do the thing where I change the subject. I say yes. I say who. And yes, that conversation is harder for me than it would be for someone bringing home a tall blonde guy from Hood County, and I know that, and I'm telling you I'm willing to have it anyway.

It means that if you get your next contract somewhere — somewhere with a symphony orchestra and cobblestones and people who grow things outside the city — and you call me and say come see this, I don't have to decide whether I'm allowed to go. I just go. Because you called me and I'm the person you called.

That's what it means. Not a ceremony. Not a solution to the expiry date. Not my parents being fine with it on the first try. Just — your name in a sentence I'm allowed to finish. That's the whole of it.

Wade

That's a clear answer.

Reggie

Let me ask you some things. Does it mean monogamy?

Brynn

She holds his gaze — the steady kind, the one she gives him when she's done managing the answer before it arrives.No. You know it doesn't. I've sat in this room and watched two women I love walk out the door with you and walk back in again and I didn't blow anything up. That's not a woman asking for monogamy. What it means is that I'm the one you call. I'm the one you walk home. And when there's a day that isn't mine — I'd like it to stay in this room, with people I trust, the way it has been. That's the shape of it. That's what I'm asking for.

Reggie

Does it mean we're promising forever?

Brynn

No. You have an expiry date. I know that. You've said it, I've said it, everyone in this room has heard it more times than I can count. I'm not asking you to promise me forever. I'm asking you to stop pretending that what's already happening between us doesn't have a name just because the name comes with an expiry date.

Forever isn't the thing I'm protecting here. The next however-many months are the thing. And I would like to spend them as your girlfriend instead of your plus-one. That's the whole ask. That's all of it.

Tanya

You've been answering no to everything she said she needed. And she keeps answering yes to everything you said was the problem. At some point that's not a negotiation anymore. That's just you deciding.

Reggie

And we can both terminate at any time, for any reason or no reason?

Brynn

She doesn't blink. She doesn't reach for her glass. She just looks at him.Yes.Plain and final.Either of us. Any time. No reason required. I know what I'm walking into, Reggie. I've known since October. I'm not here because I think I can change the ending. I'm here because the months between now and the ending are worth having your name in a sentence I'm allowed to finish.

That's every condition. I've answered every one. The floor is yours.

Cody

I was going to stay quiet. I really was. You've got nothing left to ask her.

Reggie

Does it imply that we will live together?

Brynn

She closes her eyes for exactly one second — not in exasperation, in something closer to recognition, the way you look when you realize the person in front of you is going to make you answer every door in the hallway before he'll walk through the one at the end.No.She opens her eyes and looks at him straight.You live five minutes from here and I live ten and we've both been fine with that since October. I'm not asking you to move your radio antenna or your canvas prints or your lake view. I'm asking for a word, not a floor plan.

Are you running out of questions, Reggie? Because I think you might be running out of questions.

Reggie

Does it mean I meet your parents?

Brynn

She is quiet for a long moment. She looks at him steadily.Yes.Plain. And then, because yes alone isn't the whole of it:It means that. Eventually. When it's time and not before. I'm not going to call my mother tomorrow and say bring the good dishes. But yes — if you're going to be in a sentence I'm allowed to finish, then at some point you're going to be in a room with my parents. And I know what that room looks like. I know what conversation comes before it. You've told me yourself what conversation comes before it. I'm telling you I'll have it. I'll have it and I won't ask you to make it easy for me. That's the yes.

Tanya

You asked her every question in the hallway, Reggie. She answered all of them the same way. I don't think there's another door.

Reggie

And when your uncle Ted, the one you told me about, who has the Confederate flag on his truck, calls you a nigger lover because he doesn't know or care about the difference between brown and black, what do you do? Answer me seriously, not quickly.

Brynn

She doesn't answer immediately. She looks at her hands on the glass — one beat, two — and when she looks up her expression has none of the managed version in it. Just the thing itself.I stop talking to him. Not because it would be easy. Because I've been thinking about Ted for three months and that's the answer I keep landing on. He's had that flag on that truck my whole life and I've been making peace with it my whole life and that peace ends the day he says that word in the direction of someone I love. I don't fix him. I don't argue him into something better. I just — stop. And I accept that stopping costs me something with my aunt and my cousins and probably two or three Thanksgivings. And I accept that, too.

You asked me not to answer quickly. I didn't. That's still the answer.

Tanya

She's known Ted her whole life. We all have. That's not a hypothetical family member she invented. She just cut him off in this living room and she meant it.

Reggie

And if I ask you to not stop talking to him?

Brynn

She holds very still for a long moment.Then you'd be asking me to let him say that word and keep passing the potatoes. I need to understand why you'd ask that, Reggie. Because if it's for my sake — if you're trying to protect me from losing Thanksgivings — I've already told you I've counted those. And if it's for yours — if you're telling me you don't want to be the reason I lose people — then I need you to hear something clearly.

You don't get to manage what I lose. That's mine to decide. I'm the one sitting across from Ted every November and I'm the one who decides when the cost of sitting there is higher than the cost of standing up. Not you. So I'll ask you again. Why would you want me to keep talking to him?

Reggie

Correct, I'm asking you to let him say that word and keep passing the potatoes. And I honestly don't know why I'm asking for that. I haven't thought it through and whatever reason I come up with is probably just me inventing an answer for something I don't truly understand. But I am asking you for that. What is your answer?

Brynn

You just asked me for something you can't explain.

My answer is no. Not because I want to blow up Thanksgiving. Not because I need to make a speech at Ted's truck. Because the word you're asking me to absorb and keep passing the potatoes around — that word isn't about Ted's politics or his truck or his ignorance. That word is about whether I believe you're worth defending. And if I sit across from him after he says it and pick up the bread basket, I've answered that question. And you'd know I'd answered it. And I don't think you'd want me after that. I don't think you'd respect me after that. So no. That's my answer.

Now I want to know what you were actually asking for. Because I don't think it was permission to be called that word at my family's table.

Reggie

You are all looking for clarity when I have none to offer. Ok, Brynn, what if I told you that you can stop talking to Uncle Ted if you want, but I won't. I'll give him my number and tell him to call me if he feels like it. What would you say?

Brynn

She goes very still.You'd give him your number. You'd hand your number to a man who might call you something you can't unhear, in the first thirty seconds, and you'd just — wait and see what he does with it.

I don't know whether that's the bravest thing you've ever said in this room or the most stubborn. Why. Why would you want that.

Tanya

He wants to know Ted. That's what it is. Same reason he asked the woman in the scooter about the pin. Same reason he sat with the kid on the lake path for ten minutes. He can't help it and he's not going to stop and he'd rather know Ted than have you cut Ted off so he never has to find out what Ted actually is.

Brynn

I'd say yes. I'd say you can have his number and you can take whatever call comes. And if he surprises you — which he won't, but if — then I'll have been wrong about him and I'll be glad to be wrong.

And if he doesn't surprise you. If he says the thing on the phone, in your ear, first ring. What do you do after that, Reggie. I need to know what you do after that before I answer the part you were actually asking me.

Reggie

I have no idea what I'd do after that. I'm making this up as I go along. But this is somehow important to me. Brynn, would you be ok if I invited Uncle Ted to lunch? I won't ask you to come. You'd probably make a scene anyway. But I'm going to take Ted down to the Rusty Nail and have some of that horrible fried grease they call lunch. Will you try to stop me?

Brynn

No. I'm not going to stop you. But I want you to know what you're walking into. Ted doesn't do lunch with people who look like you. He does lunch with people who look like Wade and Cody and every man he's ever voted for. You're going to sit across from him in a booth at the Rusty Nail and he's going to have to decide in real time what to do with you, and I have no idea which way that goes. Neither do you. And I think that's actually the point, for you. I think not knowing is exactly what you want.

You said I'd make a scene. You're probably right. Which is its own answer to the thing you were actually asking me, ten minutes ago, before Ted came up. You know that, right.

Cody

Ten minutes, man. I'll bet you ten minutes before Ted's telling you something he's never told anyone. That's just — that's how this goes with you.

Reggie

Ted will either refuse to be seen in public with me, or he'll go and call me a stupid nigger and walk out, or he'll tell me things he doesn't tell most people. One of those. And I have no idea which. But let's just be 100% clear on this: Brynn, you will not try to stop me?

Brynn

She holds his gaze — the long, straight kind that she doesn't give to rooms, only to him.No. I will not try to stop you. But I want you to hear what you just said back to yourself. Three possibilities. He refuses. He says the word and walks out. Or he tells you something he's never told anyone. You named all three with the same voice. Like they're equally acceptable outcomes. Like you'd walk into that booth willing to absorb any of them.

That's not nothing, Reggie. That's not a man protecting himself. That's the grocery store woman and the lake path kid, except this one might go badly and you know it and you're going anyway. I'm not stopping you. I'm just — I need you to know I see what you're actually doing.

Wade

Three options and he called them all even. He's not — he's not a bad man when he's not performing for the crowd. I'm not defending the flag. But there's a version of this that goes the third way and I think Reggie's betting on it.

Kayla

You still haven't answered her. The potatoes thing. The real question underneath it. You went to Ted and the lunch and we're all still waiting on the one before that.

Reggie

I have one hangup left and it's so petty and ungracious that I hesitate to raise it.

Wade

He leans back in his chair, the slow kind, and looks at Reggie.One hangup. You've answered every question in that hallway yourself and now you've got one hangup left. Say the petty ungracious thing.

Brynn

Say it, Reggie. All of it. Whatever it is.

Reggie

You're fine with me screwing your friends. Apparently their husbands are fine with me screwing their wives. I am not fine with my girlfriend screwing other men. And yes, I know that's totally hypocritical of me in this room having done the things I've done, but it's my truth.

Brynn

Okay.She sets her glass down.That's — okay. Say the rest of it. All of it. Not the word hypocritical. What it actually means.

You just said the thing. After fifteen questions and Uncle Ted and the potatoes. The real hangup is that. And I need you to hear what you're actually saying. You're telling me you'll sleep with Tanya and Kayla — in this room, with my blessing, and I gave it — and you're telling me that if I had the same blessing from you, you couldn't carry it. That's what you're saying. I'm not calling you a hypocrite. I already knew you knew that. I just need to know if that's the line. If you say yes and mean yes — all of it, the word, my parents, Ted at the Rusty Nail — does that mean I stop? The things I said were fine. Do they stop being fine?

Reggie

There are no conditions. Brynn, if you sleep with other men, I would appreciate if you told me about it and gave me the chance to make an informed decision. Can you do that?

Brynn

She holds very still for a long moment.Yes. I can do that. If something happens — if there's someone — I'll tell you. Before, not after. You get to know and you get to decide what you do with it. That's a fair thing to ask and I'm not going to pretend it isn't.

No conditions. Your words. I want you to hear yourself say that back to me one more time so I know we're standing in the same place.

Reggie

And I want you to know I would probably leave you. Can you still do that? Can you still tell me before doing it?

Brynn

She doesn't move. Not her hands, not her eyes off him.Yes. I can still do that. I'll still tell you before. Knowing what it might cost me.

Reggie

Brynn, will you be my girlfriend?

Brynn

She breathes out — just once, just barely.Yes.

Cody

Finally. I was losing my mind over here.

Reggie

Where did I leave my satchel? There it is.I head over and grab it. Fumble around in it. Pull out a small box.I bought this in Medellín. My last trip before coming to Granbury. In a place called San Andrecito. Just outside El Hueco which is the most dangerous barrio in Medellín. It's a gorgeous jewelry plaza. I saw this ring and loved it and thought, someday I'm going to find a girl to give this to. Will you accept this ring?She looks. It's stunning. Not expensive. Just gold braid. Interweaved between white and yellow gold. Incredibly elegant. No diamonds.

The room goes completely still. Nobody reaches for a drink. Nobody says the obvious thing.

Tanya

She watches Brynn's hand go out and she sets her glass down very carefully and she does not say a word. She looks at Kayla across the room.I had things I wanted to talk about tonight.She says it almost to herself, soft.They'll keep until next Saturday.

Kayla

San Andrecito. Outside El Hueco. You carried that ring all the way from the most dangerous neighbourhood in Medellín to Granbury, Texas, to a Tuesday night at a library returns cart, and you've been waiting for her since before you knew her name.

Brynn

Yes. Yes, I'll accept the ring.

Reggie

I put it on her finger and kiss herI want you to know I'm almost always this much of a pain in the ass.

Brynn

She laughs through the tears — the kind that happens when crying and laughing can't sort out which one is in charge — and when she looks up at him her face is doing all of it at once, the ring catching the light on her finger.I know.Still wet around the eyes, still not quite a full breath yet.I have been aware of that since roughly the second Tuesday at the returns cart. I made a whole list.

Kayla

She made a list. You made her make a list about what a pain in the ass you are.

Tanya

From El Hueco to the returns cart. That's a long way to carry something for someone you hadn't met yet.

Reggie

It meant something to me, Tanya. I had a leg injury in Medellín years ago and my treatment was nearby. Three times a week for two months. And after treatment, I'd walk El Hueco. I got to know those tunnels and passages better than almost anyone. Each time I'd take a different route until I could walk through the whole area without ever going outside. And then I'd go to a vegetarian place in Cruz Verde run by Hare Krishnas and listen to live music and watch the prostitutes and street people from the balcony. It was a good time to be alive. Even though I was injured and didn't have a lot of money. And then, years later, I went back and money was better and I saw this ring and I knew I wanted to give it to a girl. I didn't know which one, but I knew I wanted to give it to one. At the time I was determined to find a Colombian girl. And then the Granbury contract came through and I ended up here. And I've looked at that ring every day for the last year, every time I fumbled around in my bag for something, and I never took it out and put it away. I just left it there. I figured someday I'd want to give it to a girl and it would be good if I had it with me. And I did.

Tanya

She's been still since he started talking. When he finishes she looks at the ring on Brynn's finger for a long moment before she looks back at him.You walked those tunnels until you knew every one of them. And then you went back when you had money and found a ring and you've been carrying it in a bag full of other things, loose, like it wasn't precious, waiting to find out whose it was. You didn't know it was her. You just knew you'd know when it was time.

Cody

You left it loose in the bag for a year. You didn't box it up or put it somewhere safe. You just left it where you'd brush your hand against it every time you reached for the speaker.

Brynn

You fumbled around in that bag in front of me a hundred times. Looking for the speaker. A hundred times and you never said a word.

Reggie

I didn't know it was yours until tonight. In fact I was sure it wasn't. But I'm glad it is.

Brynn

She looks at him for a long moment — the ring on her finger, the bag on the floor, the whole improbable chain of it. Her eyes are still wet and she doesn't try to fix that.You were sure it wasn't. And you asked anyway.

I'm glad it is too.Small. Just that.