It was an even longer, disturbingly quiet drive from Compass Ranch back to Bryant’s university.

Although Vaughn had sent a text offering to ride with him, he’d ignored it. He needed to do this on his own. Finish what he had started. Claim the title he’d dedicated the last half-decade of his life to earning. Make his family proud. Make Jake proud. Damn it, make himself proud.

Vaughn couldn’t afford to neglect his shop either.

Bryant hadn’t been away from school all that long, weeks compared to the years he’d spent on campus, but already he felt like a foreigner in his dusty truck and well-worn cowboy hat. Before he’d last headed home, he’d packed up all his belongings and sublet his apartment to another grad student, so he didn’t even have a place to freshen up before heading to the school’s science complex. He walked into the hydrology department a cowboy, ducked into the bathroom, and emerged as a doctoral candidate, complete with a tailored suit and tie. His other life tucked neatly in his rolling laptop case.

It was sort of like being Superman in reverse.

He stared down at his dress shoes, missing the comfort of his broken-in boots.

Suddenly he wasn’t sure he fit anywhere anymore, in limbo between his academic stomping grounds and the home he’d never be able to fully run away from. He tried to get his head on straight so that he could present his work in the best possible light.

Given the incomplete experiment and his lack of results, he was going to have to fight hard.

He thought of Vaughn and how he’d built Cowboy Ink from the ground up, how tough it must have been for an outsider to establish himself as a legitimate business owner in their tiny country town. Bryant wished he had a little more of that grit right then. He thought of his father, the investment he’d been willing to wager on this, and—of course—he thought of Jake.

Bryant loosened his tie a bit, jammed his hands in his pockets, and mustered some Compass spirit. While he acted like nothing could stop him, he didn’t exactly feel the same way when he approached the department chair’s office and Dr. Burgess’s assistant ushered Bryant into a conference room full of the most brilliant minds in his field.

“Welcome back, Bryant.” Dr. Burgess, his favorite professor, stood and shook his hand. “The labs haven’t been the same without you there twenty-four-seven.”

He supposed he had been a fixture in the study spaces for years now. And all that effort was now riding on the line. “I had to leave the nest sometime. I can’t wait to show you all what I’ve been doing and how my research has translated to the ranch environment.”

“We’ve had a look at the supplemental materials you submitted and would love to hear your full presentation.” Dr. Burgess leaned forward, giving Bryant his rapt attention for the next hour and a half. Like always, when Bryant got caught up in his work, everything else faded away.

It was how he’d lived in denial, and isolation, for so long.

When he’d wrapped up his research, he delivered his conclusions. He suppressed a wince when he said, “And so you can see that as soon as it rains, Compass Ranch will be in a greatly improved position. I anticipate that we will consume half as much water as before, recycle a large portion of that, and sustainably store enough reserves to keep the system primed for two years without any additional precipitation.”

It was only a couple phrases different from what he knew would have guaranteed victory, but if he could just have had concrete evidence instead of more conjecture, he’d have felt a lot better about his efforts. Fuck anyone who said climate change wasn’t real. If anything, this situation only reinforced the rising importance of the technology he’d developed.

He prayed his professors felt the same way.

Dr. Burgess beamed as he said, “I want you to understand how impressed we are with what you’ve done here, especially in such a short amount of time. It’s truly remarkable.”

“I had a lot of help. From my family, and…guys on the ranch. I couldn’t have done it alone.”

“Even still, your thesis project is extremely ambitious and profoundly impactful—or at least it will be when it’s complete, if it functions as expected.” To hear that from a scientist as respected as Dr. Burgess pumped Bryant up.

He stood straighter. “Thank you, sir.”

“In fact, we believe it will be some of the most valuable work to come from one of our alumni. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it earns you several awards and recognition in the field at large. Your record shows that the likelihood of success is almost certain.” Dr. Burgess smiled, as the other professors nodded their agreement, while flipping through the images of the new landscaping, the empty retention ponds, and the pipes for the intelligent irrigation systems.

Alumni! Bryant barely withheld his sigh of relief. He had imagined this moment for so long he could already hear the words about to come out of Dr. Burgess’s mouth. Congratulations, Dr. Compton.

Except instead, he said, “All of this combined explains why we’re extending your project timeline once more to allow it to come to fruition instead of flunking you for handing in an incomplete project.”

Dr. Burgess steepled his fingers, then stared down his nose at Bryant over the top of his glasses. His disappointed gaze hit Bryant in the gut along with his verdict.

“An extension? But graduation is less than a week away, and there’s still no rain in the forecast.” He tipped his head, feeling denser than ever in his life before.

“Commencement is Saturday for students with successfully completed and approved thesis projects.” Dr. Burgess turned stony-faced. “You won’t be taking part in the hooding ceremony with the rest of this semester’s successful candidates, I’m afraid. Finish your project properly over the next several months, or however long it takes, and I’m sure you’ll be valedictorian of the next class.”

“Next—?” Bryant blinked.

They weren’t passing him. He wasn’t graduating. Not now, and maybe not ever.

Dr. Compton? Fuck no. He was just Bryant. A loser who hadn’t lived up to his potential.

His entire world shattered again, like it had the day in the barn when he’d learned that he wasn’t as strong as he thought. Or like it had the day Jake had died, when he learned he didn’t have as much time as he thought. Or like it had the day he’d walked away from Vaughn, and learned he wasn’t as independent as he thought. Today, he wasn’t as smart as he’d thought.

And that was the only thing he’d felt sure about in his life.

He was lost.

Bryant stumbled from the room, ignoring the voices calling out for him to return. He staggered down the hallway of the place that had been his refuge and was now just another hell.

What would he tell his family?

What would he tell Vaughn?

Bryant swallowed back bile when his phone buzzed in his pocket. On autopilot, he took it out and peeked at the screen.

As if he was still as connected to Bryant as he had been when they’d shared a bed, Vaughn reached out again. How did it go?

Bryant figured Vaughn would get the picture if he simply didn’t answer. Besides, he didn’t have the words to express how epically he’d crashed and burned. Come so close, then fucked up right at the finish line.

Where he’d been starting to doubt his decision to walk away from Vaughn and what they’d been building together, now he knew he’d done the right thing.

The fact that he wanted to run back to the guy, even now, cemented his conviction.