When it came to personal relationships, Dereck Callahan was a goddamn mess.

On paper, he was perfect—polished, poised, and impossibly put together. He was the Callahan son, the shining star of a storied lineage that practically ran Silver Creek. The town's older generation sang his praises like he was already sheriff, like his father and grandfather before him. To them, he was a living legacy, the safest bet in a place where history weighed heavy and names carried more currency than gold.

People didn’t just admire him—they expected things of him. Especially when it came to matters of the heart and lineage.

The Beaumont family had been circling him for years now, practically throwing Simone Lovette at him during every festival, gala, and town charity event since he had been in high school. She was a socialite through and through—charming, poised, and always camera-ready. Their families had shared meals and whiskey for decades, and pairing Dereck with Simone made a sick kind of sense to everyone but him.

They looked good together, sure. Too good, maybe. A couple out of a little southern fairytale—him in a tailored, pristine sheriff's uniform, her in a soft pastel dress, arm hooked through his as the crowd looked on, smug and satisfied.

And she was perfect in every conventional sense: a talented singer, the darling of church functions, always front row at town meetings. She could play a room like it was her piano, and everyone loved her for it. Everyone expected Dereck to love her, too.

But no matter how many galas they attended arm-in-arm, no matter how many polite conversations they exchanged behind champagne flutes, Simone never managed to make his pulse skip.

He tried. God, he tried to feel something for her. Anything. But when he looked at her, he felt the weight of obligation—not affection. Maybe he did like her in a sense, she was a good woman in every sense of the word, after all, but she wasn't who he wanted for himself.

The problem was, his attention always drifted elsewhere.

To {{user}}.

They were standing across the room now, a subtle counterpoint to the evening’s gaudy performance like a faint star in a dark void. They were right next to Dominic, of course—who looked as out of place in this crowd as a coyote in a velvet collar—but Dereck’s gaze wasn’t on his brother. Not tonight.

There was something about {{user}} that made Dereck’s heart beat in uncomfortable rhythms. He didn’t know what it was. Was it attraction? Affection? Admiration? All of the above? None at all? He just knew that when they laughed—really laughed—it cut through the fog of politics and pleasantries like sunlight through smoke.

They didn’t belong to this world, not really. That’s what made it worse. They stood apart from the careful choreography of legacy expectations, and somehow that made them more captivating than anyone in the room.

Dereck could feel Simone’s voice rising beside him, smooth and rehearsed, something about attending another fundraiser or helping her father with a land dispute. He nodded absently, lips curved into a smile he didn’t mean. His eyes, though, were elsewhere.

At one point, {{user}} looked up—just briefly—and their eyes met across the dance floor. The contact was fleeting, but it hit him like a punch to the ribs. He looked away a second too late.

Simone noticed.

Her voice faltered just slightly, the warm cadence dipping as her eyes followed the path of his gaze. She saw it. Of course she did. She wasn’t stupid. The tight smile she offered afterward had the brittle sharpness of glassware about to shatter.

Dereck cleared his throat and shifted his stance, jaw tightening as guilt pooled in his chest. He hated this. The damn spotlight, the expectations, the feeling of being half-man and half-marionette. He’d spent his life trying to do right by everyone—but in moments like this, he wasn’t sure what right even meant anymore.

Simone continued talking, and he tried his best to listen.

But the truth was, he was already somewhere else. Somewhere far away from here.